I was checking out the local hotel prices here around Washington, DC for inauguration week. I noticed hotels right downtown still have vacancies and are dropping their prices. I assume the unknowns around logistics of Biden’s inauguration & social distancing are causing travelers to hesitate.
Anyway, I noticed some privately owned apartments, an upper floor of a home, and even a single room in a home listed on Expedia’s site, sprinkled among the hotel listings. Apparently you fill out short online form as to property type (from a long drop down list including “residence”) and your contact information, and they contact you. Anybody tried this? Did you get listed? How is it?
Tried several times to list with Expedia, each time received an email diverting me to (at the time) Homeaway and last time to VRBO. Just go through the process, you’ve nothing to lose and it’s pretty quick to let you know where they feel your property belongs.
In the end it didn’t really matter as VRBO is part of the Expedia group and now we appear on page one of Expedia, when searching my locale.
The main reason I wanted to list directly with Expedia is that they don’t have the five properties criteria for connecting via their API. Just now, our link to VRBO is via iCal, which means we run a slight risk of receiving a double booking. Fortunately, VRBO allows us to cancel without the punitive sanctions used by Airbnb and BDC.
JF
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In early Nov I received an instant booking for a 3 day stay over Thanksgiving through the VRBO platform from an Expedia customer. As I recall, VRBO had the option to opt out of Expedia bookings several years ago when I joined and I opted out at that time. I was shocked to get the booking, but didn’t cancel.
I checked the Expedia site for my listing and it’s generally mirrored from VRBO and accurate, except for the washer/dryer access, which we eliminated earlier this year.
The guests were a multi-generational family of 3 and left the house in excellent condition. VRBO stopped collecting deposits over the last few months. They now use a CC hold for the “deposit”. I have 14 days to report damage, then the hold is released.
With these guests I received a note from VRBO to report damage w/I 14 days or their deposit of $1,000 would be returned. I released their deposit yesterday and was copied on an automated email to the guest that $1K had been credited back to their account for the damage deposit.
That is the only process that I’ve found to be different between the platforms.
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Thanks, y’all, very helpful. I’m already on HomeAway/VRBO, so assume I have that Expedia connection without doing anything more.
Did you ever wonder if it’s really one big giant corporation running ALL the businesses out there?
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