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I think I posted to this thread before but a recent booking spurred me to post again,
In summary while I started on AirBnB in the last year most of my booking are from BDC. I assume it’s the same world-wide but unlike AirBnB they charge me the commission so for the same daily rate I receive about 17% less. I have thought about cranking the room rates up on BDC to take that into account but I am concerned about reduced revenue given my current daily rate is at the upper end. I am offering a two bedroom 1.5 bathroom self-contained apartment that can sleep 4 (1 queen and 2 singles) so my room rate is not always comparable to a hotel. Anyway I have heard that AirBnB might move to a similar model because their guests are getting stung with wii the additional charges they incur over and above the basic room rate and cleaing.
Things that do annoy me about BDC are
you can’t describe your place - you just enter a bunch of faciliities and they create the copy (well I could not see how you could create your own copy)
you can’t respond to guests reviews if they just leave a score. For example I just had a guest check out and their score summary was
8.0 - Very Good. But in the summary
Basic categories
## Staff 7.5 ( I never met the guest and I even offered an early checkin so I don’t know why it’s not higher. And my comms was always within an hour response)
## Cleanliness 7.5 (no comment for areas of improvement so I can pass that on to the cleaners)
## Location 10
## Facilities 10
## Comfort 10
## Value for money 7.5
And since they provided no comments I can’t respond publicly though I could email him.
So if you treat them more like a hotel than hosting somebody in your own home (which is where BnB came from) then that will set your expectations appropriately
Which Portals one uses is geographically distinct.
Myself I would always at least use 3 plus direct/own site.
Ñone is perfect but looking where they come from helps to understand their culture.
VBRO houses villas
BDC hotel rooms
AIR inflated rubber mats
This is reflected in the guests they attract, although with all the aquisitons it’s muddled a bit more
VBRO Guests who know what a house is and how to use and treat it
BDC Guests that tend to look for convenience and expect service
AIR well … Above and everyone else who can’t be bothered to look beyond page 1 on big G.
It is a bit of a pain but I have a master calendar and only open at each of these on demand and balance.
So far we had no problems with either but we have the option to shut down or simply block for a while.
Again it highly depends on Geo.
BDC pays us weekly on arrival plus 8 days.
Air & VBRO monthly
We let the portals handle the dosh @ their risk.
For direct we use bank terminal @ 0.6% or flex terminal @ 1.1on arrival.
But also Spain respectively Europe guests have to hand over ID as we have to register each guest, thus one has full details.
So having more than one portal is a bit more work but results in less sleepless nights.
M
In addition to my own terrible experiences with Booking, I would never again list there because ease of cancellation is a major part of their branding – and in my experience Booking guests cancel more often than not. Unfortunately, VRBO has now started promoting cancellation, as well.
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You may wish to enable Professional Hosting Tools.
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This gives you access to making Rule Sets - we found these very helpful for the type of power and features that are indeed more readily available by default on BDC.
Many owners raise their rates on AirBnB, especially before they eliminated the “generous” extenuating circumstances policy. And AirBnB guests don’t have the best reputation - groups of friends or younger people, whereas Vrbo tends to get multi-generational families. So raising your rates makes the risk more worthwhile.
It’s probably difficult to enforce. I think it was @JohnF that mentioned how you could easily make a listing on one platform different from the same listing on another platform by adding/removing a single amenity (e.g., the listing on Platform A is $30/night more expensive than the “same” listing on Platform B because the listing on platform A includes the use of a toaster).
Just terminated my contract with Bookingdotcom. Worst guests come from bookingdotcom. No customer support in case of malicious acts by guests. Was told the guest could literally burn down the property and can still write a negative review about it. There no sanctions against misbehaving guests when booking through bookingdotcom.
As “Partner” you can complain about guests but as a result guests can retaliate by altering their review or ask for a refund claiming the accommodation was in a bad state.
Bookingdotcom guests don’t have to provide any evidence for their claims and bookingdotcom may decide to grant a refund without consulting the Partner.
