Isn’t that how people get scammed? Sending personal checks etc. they rock up after paying and there is no house there. I would never send money like that. I wonder how easy it is to get a reversal of PayPal
I’ve been reading up on the Homeaway forum… where owners are bemoaning how easy it is for guests to do chargebacks! They are not protected from chargebacks. Even paypal can be charged back… that is what some of these hosts said. I feel like there is no easy way to take payments. Guests will need to trust me and if they can’t, they can book me on Air and pay the extra booking fees.
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Cheers Glad! Nice to meet you! One reason I like this forum. So many great hosts from all over… 
Hey konacoconutz - likewise. See many of your posts. Maybe we should do a Hawaii (that’s where you are right?) swap for beautiful Noosa Australia 
Does HomeEscape do an insurance cover like Wimdu and Air? At the end of the day, whilst we’d like more bookings and may have to resort to other methods, I still think Airbnb have the best model and platform and my personal experience with them when I have problems, has always been excellent. I’ve hosted about 35 lots of visitors now and they’ve all been fabulous with exception of one couple. Those are pretty good odds.
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Nope. HomeEscape is strictly you on your own. 
The way VRBO used to be! But lots of homeowners want that because VRBO is trying to change into an Airbnb themselves!
I am about to list my cottage on HomeAway as they seem to be the only place that will sync with Airs calendar. I want to list my entire cottage as an option as well as the individual rooms and its a bit tricky to do it all on Airbnb since you have to really stay on top of it to prevent double bookings. We will see how it goes!
Please be sure to read up on HA right now before you pay them for an annual subscription. The whole platform is going through some big changes.
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That’s a bold move, expect host exodus.
9flats tried the take-over-communication model, failed miserably and changed back after a few months. I listed there for two years, only a couple of inquiries, no booking.
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9 flats wanted to chargeback all guest cancellations too. I dropped them.
Yes, I am waiting to see what happens as it is already much more expensive than Air. Also my house won’t be ready for another couple of months so I will just play it by ear.
I may list my place on there. I have to say I like Airbnb’s handling of the payments and deposits though. I check on HomeAway and there are only 2 listings in my little town. Both are nice ‘camps’ near the water. I only have a spare room I rent out. Not sure they allow that type of listing.
I also had a listing in Wimdu but I just deleted it because for some reason I was only getting messages from people that wanted to talk with me through e-mail or phone before a booking.I had 4 inquiries and they all said the same thing.They also had as a user name their e-mail. I e-mailed wimdu about their security system etc but they haven’t solved it so I decided to delete the accounts. I am curious though about your first guest and I hope that everything will go great!!!
Just listed my place there, thanks for the heads up!
My first Wimdu guests were a-mazing! Very nice, polite, very clean, never heard a peep out of them once they went downstairs. They left early and came home late. Left a gift of chocolates when they left. We were so comfortable with them that we decided to take a little trip and left them here in our home. Perfect.
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Great news! Thanks for letting us know
I had to remove my Wimdu listing as I never heard a peep from them 2 weeks after listing. When I searched they don’t have properties where I live so, I think it depends on your area/country as to whether it’s worth listing with them. Back to just Airbnb!
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Give them another chance. They are in Germany so you will get a different kind of guest. I’ve always had good luck with them. Great solo travelers who love my place and always arrive bearing gifts.
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I had no listing confirmation, even after two weeks. They have no other listings in my area thigh we get loads of Germans here, I even speak German and have hosted several here.
VRBO/Homeaway are always popular options.The new VRBO fees are killing people. It seems like managers’ properties are always first on the list when I check them out. Homeaway doesn’t even let you sort out property owned by individuals only managed properties. I find that flipkey is cluttered and has a lot of advertisements.
Have any of you tried rented.com? I saw it mentioned in some other forums. Seems like a cool site to check out as an alternative.
I just found out that my other platform Booking.com is also partners with priceline, kayak and a few other platforms. I got a booking that the guest contacted me because I didn’t have any reviews yet and wanted to make sure I was legit. That is when he stated that he booked me on price line which took all the credit card information and sent it into my booking email. so I am by default on airbnb, booking.com and priceline.