This forum is dedicated to connecting hosts with other hosts. Sign up to get the latest updates and news just for AirBnb hosts! Note that we are not affiliated with Airbnb - we are just passionate hosts!
Our home has been doing well on Booking.com (as well as Air), so I thought I’d branch out to Expedia, now that we have channel manager software.
I’m a little confused about what the 10% for a fenced booking means. Is it in addition to the 15%?
Any help before I proceed would be great, thank you
Compensation. The Compensation Percentage shall be 15.0%. Fenced Bookings. The Fenced Booking Percentage shall be 10.0%. The Fenced Booking Percentage is a discount You provide beyond the amount You would otherwise receive for an Expedia Collect Booking or a Hotel Collect Booking.
I am listed on expedia and I am only paying 15% commission (same as booking.com). you can be with a special listing and paying 10% extra but you are not obliged to do it.
Calendars can be synced among each other or all to a central managed calendar. No need for a pricey channel manager with all the bells and whistles unless you are unable to handle it yourself.
They all synced wonderfully with Expedia. However, for some reason Expedia sync now throws all into chaos. Which central managed calendar would you recommend?
Well I looked into all sorts of channel managers (I have multiple properties) and only one was not too too expensive, but still pricey. I really didn’t need all the bells & whistles because I have multiple listings but not so many that I need to pay $100-250/mo. just on a channel manager.
I had been using my HomeAway/VRBO calendar as my master calendar but only syncing it out to all my other channels and not back into VRBO. Whenever I got a booking directly or from another channel I added it to VRBO and of course as stated VRBO bookings were synced one way to all my other calendars. However making an OTA your master calendar is not a good idea, and it did get tiresome adding non-VRBO bookings manually, as well as all my blocks before and after each booking – no same-day turnovers. I didn’t want to do two-way syncs among my seven channels either because that can cause issues. So I found something that is much cheaper but reasonable (the more listings you register the lower the price per month). It is called RentalBell allowing for third party master calendar that syncs two ways to and from all my channels (but my channels do not sync between each other) and other tools such as automated prep blocks (days blocked automatically before and after each booking) and many other features. It is the perfect compromise between an independent third party master calendar with some nice added features yet a low monthly cost I can justify. I pay just about $25/mo. for all listings too, unlimited channels – check out www.RentalBell.com
I’m making my way through it. Seems VERY user friendly. I am very thankful for this useful information. We’ve 8 accommodations (and more to come) here at our glamping hotel. Expedia service and tech support has been hell since 2020. This very well may be the solution without having to acquire a PhD in channel manager software.
Wow, I can’t believe it. We have been in the business 18 years with multiple platforms and OTA’s but new to Expedia Partner Central, not including VRBO (been with Booking.com for years though).
Not one Expedia agent ever mentioned there was a mandatory fee, so this was never agreed upon by us. We were told the contract was to specify our payment plan (Expedia Collect only), commission rate (%) and how we would be paid (VCC).
If they are imposing an extra mandatory 10% deduction on us in addition to the already hefty 20% commission and 3% we must pay to access our payout from the VCC (33% total, a full third of our earnings on our already low priced and discounted rental homes) then it should most definitely have been explained to us, as we were never told of this despite numerous phone calls and emails with the marketing department before signing the contract. We only discovered this upon our first reservation when we questioned the 10% discount and by no means would we as a small vacation rental company (not a hotel) have even known what a “Fenced MOD” was. We have booked for years with Booking.com which is a very similar company to Expedia and while they offer and encourage system promotions, there is never any mandatory promotions in a contract that are never discussed or disclosed verbally beforehand, nor do they use the term “Fenced MOD”. And again, some of our rate plans already offer discounts of up to 54% which will not work if they are taking an extra 10% off of that as well.
Our contract reads as follows and telephone agents also confirmed that we could opt out of this sneaky practice of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and only offer to remove if a partner catches it and objects:
Yet the official response I received yesterday (after waiting a week) was that it is required as a promotion and perhaps I should stick with VRBO if I don’t agree, despite being told I can opt out from both several reps and in the contract itself, as the screenshot shows.
