I am not familiar with VRBO policies, but one thing that occurs to me is that BDC is IB only, right? So they probably don’t have options for hosts to require positive reviews, verified ID, and so on in order to IB. That means guests who wouldn’t pass those criteria, nor be likely to communicate nicely with a host using a booking request (or don’t want to have to communicate), or got booted off Airbnb, can IB on BDC. Plus BDC guests know they won’t get reviewed and the hosts have no reviews to read about them. All together, sounds like a bad guest’s dream platform. (I’m not putting you in that category 
)
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yes, i think you’ve pinpointed a BIG reason why BDC has worse guests.
I use it for hotels cos you can see all the hotels in your destination, and compare them easily. and they usually have very good cancellation policy, so it works well for us on road trips, and overseas too, it’s just convenient, and despite the desktop app being terrible on the phone, for guests, it’s pretty good. I didn’t even know they did “non traditional” listings like airbnb stuff. Oh, and they have a points system so you can get discounts off future stays, that’s another bonus with them.
I don’t quite understand the advantage in booking a hotel through BDC, rather than directly with the hotel. I get that you can see all the hotels in an area, but what is the advantage otherwise? (Okay, you get points, I guess that’s a perk)
I never book my flights with those sites that show you all the flights because for one thing, I find it takes way too long to find suitable flights- something looks like a great deal, then when you actually get the details, you have 4 stops and overnights for a trip that you could find a direct 5 hr flight for. Of course the direct flight isn’t as cheap, I just find the airline’s own websites faster and easier to navigate, plus if you need to cancel or change a flight, it’s much easier to do if you booked direct than through these other sites.
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I never use those cheap flight sites, because they usually ding you with hidden costs, or change your flight.
for hotels though, it’s just easier. We went to Japan in '18 and it was so much easier to use BDC in my own language to book hotels. and likewise in outback towns, using BDC usually means you won’t get bumped because those hotels rely on BDC (too much i reckon) to do their reservations (a lot of them are run by old timers who still do everything with pen and paper, this might be less true in 2022 of course)
you can still search on BDC and book directly to try to get a better price, and knowing what i know now, as a host, i will be doing exactly that in the future.
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I use https://matrix.itasoftware.com/search for flight searches, even though not all airlines are included in their search (Southwest isn’t ). You can’t book through it, but they provide the details of the booking (what flights, codes, etc)
I’ve found some very good deals with that site.
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I use this:
I do have it. Thank you again!
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I’m the same way. If I book directly, if there is an issue it seems remedied much quicker than if I had to go through a platform. My connecting flight was canceled so I went to the counter, and because I booked directly through them they put me on another flight on a different airline.