FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

Booking a rental is easy! Simply navigate to our Properties page, select your desired dates, guests, etc. and follow the prompts to complete your reservation online. You can also reach out to our friendly team for assistance.

Our rentals vary in amenities, but all include essentials like linens, Wi-Fi, and entertainment options. All of our units offer full linens and towels to accommodate the size party you have indicated in your reservation. If the count of your party increases and your reservation needs updating, please let us know ASAP. All of our properties are equipped with Smart TVs that you can log into with your Netflix, Prime Video, or other streaming service accounts. If cable TV is available, it will be specifically noted in the property amenities. Please note, this includes the Spectrum app on Roku TV that you may be able to use with your own login or not. Also note that the internet is normally reliable and high-speed (100+ mbps); however, some locations are more remote and may experience outages beyond our control. Other specific amenities are also listed on each of our Properties pages.

The cell service is also not always strong, depending upon your carrier, so please be sure to print out directions you can obtain below prior to departing your home. If your phone allows wi-fi calling, you should be able to activate that while onsite to make and receive calls.

Our units are not full-service hotels. We provide you with limited complimentary supplies, like paper products and basic toiletries, so you can arrive without needing to immediately get your own at the local market. If your stay is short enough, these may be enough, but you may need to re-provision, so plan that into your packing or itinerary while you stay.

Our cancellation policy generally is non-refundable to minimize re-booking costs, but can vary depending on the property and season. Please review the specific terms and conditions prior to booking; however, we know that life can be unpredictable. To help protect you against this, we offer you the ability to purchase travel insurance for your booking. Travel insurance may be purchased at any time up until 30 days prior to arrival or as part of the booking payment process. We encourage you to purchase this if you have any concerns about uncertainty. We receive no commission from this insurance and only provide this so if you cancel, you are covered and can receive a refund from this insurance.

Maine Coastal Vacations offers keyless entry to your rental by providing a 10-digit keycode 2-days prior to your arrival. Along with the key-code are instructions allowing you to set your own 4-6 digit PIN to use throughout your stay:
Following is the operating instructions about how to use the Access Code.
Note: Press the SCHLAGE oval button to turn on the keypad backlight if necessary.
USING THE 10-DIGIT ACCESS CODE TO UNLOCK
Enter the above 10-digit Access Code. Each digit must be entered within 10 seconds.
After hearing the ascending tone and while the SCHLAGE oval button flashing green light, please turn the lock knob within 5 seconds to unlock the door.
CREATE YOUR OWN 3 - 6 DIGIT PERSONALIZED CODE:
1. Choose a 3-6 digit Personalized Code to use during your stay.
2. Enter the above 10-digit Access Code.
3. After hearing the ascending tone and while the SCHLAGE oval button flashing green light, immediately (within 10 seconds) press the SCHLAGE oval button and key-in the 3-6 digit Personalized Code of your choice, then press the SCHLAGE oval button to finalize your own personal code.
Note:
a. Each digit must be entered within 10 seconds.
b. If your Personalized Code has been used by other user, you will hear the descending tone and see the SCHLAGEoval button flashing red. In this case, please try a new Personalized Code.

USING YOUR OWN PERSONALIZED CODE TO UNLOCK:
1. Enter your own Personalized Code. Each digit must be entered within 10 seconds.
2. Press the SCHLAGE oval button.
3. After hearing the ascending tone and while the SCHLAGE oval button flashing green light, please turn the lock lever within 5 seconds to unlock the door.

Following is the light & sound indication about operation status.
1. CORRECT OPERATION:
The lock will beep ascending tone and flash green light.
2. WRONG OPERATION:
The lock will beep descending tone and flash red light.
3. LOW BATTERY ALARM:
The lock will beep high and low tones alternatively and continuously flash red light after the lock is successfully opened. In this case, please report to us ASAP.
4. ENTER INACTIVE STATE:
The lock will enter inactive state for 30 seconds after entering 3 times wrong code in a row. After the inactive time has passed, the next wrong code will make the lock to enter inactive state for another 30 seconds.

Not exactly. We utilize the same technology as hotles and process a hold on the credit card on file you provided us. This hold will extend to five (5) days beyond the end of your stay to allow our cleaners to file a final report on your stay. Because a hold must be renewed every seven days, you may see the hold extended even after you've checked out. Our credit card processor automatically processes the extension on our behalf, so we have no control over it, but if you need the hold released early, please contact us after your stay and we do our best to get the cleaning report reviewed early to accommodate you.

Some of our properties are pet-friendly, while others are not. You can filter your search on our Properties page to find pet-friendly options.

As a commitment to our environment, we support carry-in/carry-out; however, for your convenience, we have a local trash service that will pick up weekly. If you wish to use that option, all trash must be in a trash bag, as they will not pick up trash loose in the bin or in shopping bags. Note, all items such as returnables & recycling must also be placed in trash bags to use this option.

Yes, we offer long-term rentals for guests looking to stay for extended periods; however, it is rare that these options are available during the peak summer season. Please navigate to our Availability page more information on each propery.

Our units are all served by BabyQuip. Click on the link below to reserve items for your stay:

Maine Coastal Vacations offers comprehensive rental management services, including marketing, guest communication, dynamic pricing, cleaning, maintenance, and more. We handle the details so you can maximize your property's earning potential with minimal hassle.

Maine Coastal Vacations keeps it simple by charging 20% of the rent only. We don't mark-up any fees/expenses, such as channel commissions, cleaning fees, lodging taxes, etc. They are passed along to homeowners at cost.

Maine Coastal Vacations will manage all activities related to turning over your vacation rental. This means that we will schedule and mange the cleaners and report any issues with supplies or damage. Since we don't mark-up any fees/expenses, we are in alignment with your goals to minimize costs and efforts in all areas and will work with you to either DIY periodic maintenance and re-supplying or connect you with our service providers to add these additional services.

Maine Coastal Vacations will work with our cleaning team to estimate the effort to turnover your property. This estimate assumes that the cleaning supplies are provided by the cleaner, the laundry is done onsite with detergent/softenter/bleach provided by the homeowner, and a slightly above average level of use. Once this fee is set, the cleaner who turns over your property will recieve the full cleaning fee. We ensure that this fee provides our cleaning team with a living wage, as part of our commitment to the local communities in which our properties are located. Please note, that if there is a significantly above average level of use during a turnover, there may be an additional cleaning fee that may or may not be passed along to the guest.

Maine Coastal Vacations pre-schedules the turnover with one of our approved cleaners as soon as your property is booked. We will develop and maintain a detailed cleaning checklist for your property. This checklist includes reference photos to ensure each turnover is consistent. We perform a remote inspection on turnovers to ensure that the turnover matches the reference and are working on adding AI to this step to make it more efficient.

Maine Coastal Vacations does an annual email re-marketing campaign in the off-season. In addition to that, we conduct several drip marketing campaigns to re-book guests as part of a follow-up campaign to each reservation. We also have a social media presence on multiple platforms, as well as a long-form blog on our website, which gets cross-posted to our social media. Finally, we occasionally run both Google Ads and Facebook Ads to drive engagement and bookings.

At Maine Coastal Vacations, your day-today contact will be Michelle. She manages all guest communications and responds to all issued raised by out cleaning team. She will also work with you regarding other service providers, ensuring that you are geeting what you need from them. Pat will work with you on your monthly financial settlement, providing you with a settlement statement and detailed reporting. He can also answer any questions you might have about market trends.

Maine Coastal Vacations partners with a fintech for it's trust accounting. By using their innovative technology, we are able to segregate funds by homeowner and leverage zero-balance accounts to automate the collection of funds to the right balance.

Maine Coastal Vacations We utilize several technology providers to make managing your rental more efficient, which allows us to offer our no-nonsense pricing. To deliver these results, we utilize the following:

  • Property Management System that is also a Channel Manager
  • Dynamic Pricing application
  • Booking Funnel Optimization tool that work with both OTAs and our website
  • Electronic locks with rotating codes and no ongoing fees
  • Housekeeping Platform to manage all of our cleaning and maintenance tasks
  • Separate CRM tools for re-marketing
  • Financial Management platform to enable trust accounting and settlement

Maine Coastal Vacations' investments in technology allow us to focus our efforts into value-added activities that drive guest experience vs. basic activities that are required to manage a vacation rental. We stay connected with advances in these areas and pass along the benefits of these new tools to our guests, ultimately benefitting our homeowners as well.

In order to deter bad actors, Maine Coastal Vacations does additional screening, requiring guests t provide a copy of their ID matching the reservation. We also reserve a damage deposit hold on every reservation and have the option of adding enhanced verifications and/or insurance at a homeowner's request. The basic screening and holds are provided at no cost. Enhanced screening and insurance is passed on to homeowners at cost.

Maine Coastal Vacations uses a dynamic pricing application and reviews the pricing vs. average booking window each week for adjustments throughout the peak season to minimize vacancy without underpricing ahead of the window. In the off season, we adjust pricing to reflect overall demand, so we balance vacancy and price. We also have partnerships that provide corporate bookings in the off-season. In addition to these revenue management techniques, we also utilize a booking funnel optimization tool to drive conversion on impressions across channels. This helps us tune our listings to drive them to the top of the list on channels and ensures that once a potential guest views your property, they are most likely to convert to a booking. Finally, we mark-up all channels to equalize revenue and drive direct bookings as a savings to the guest without cost to you.

Maine Coastal Vacations is committed to creating affordable housing in the communities in which we operate. 1% of our gross revenue is dedicated to this effort. In addition, we offer the ability for homeowners with whom we work to also donate a portion of their proceeds to these causes. We are constantly looking for partners that share our values in this area and make a real impact on the lives of people who live in the communities in which our guests vacation. We also ensure that all of our cleaners are able to earn a living wage from the work they do to turnover our properties. Finally, we refer all of our guests to local events and locally owned restaurants which contribute to the social fabric of our communities.