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I have been called by a CS rep from Homeaway looking for my business. I had moved away from Stayz as I found their system too clunky to use and it was too frustrating. The rep answered my many questions and it was starting to look positive. I knew my owners would jump at it as they are always pushing me to be on other sites, but I have tried other sites and given up as Airbnb fits my business model best.
I then did a search for reviews from Australian hosts. Wow, it has scared me away. There are pages of reviews from the last two months from hosts giving them only one 1* .
Does anyone have any thoughts as it looks like it’s not worth the effort of me setting it all up?
Hi Poppy. I got a couple of good $+ bookings from Stayz/HA over Jan. Sort of glad they don’t leave reviews as I don’t think they would be usual 5* ones from Air. One lot booked for a week and left a couple of days early. I think I’ve said it before they book in October, for $200 a night over Xmas-Jan then expect to get the sort of place you’d pay $200/night for in October. I’m happy to take the money and not get reviews from them on AirBnB, No reviews so far on HA.
Thanks so much for answering. What do you mean by not leaving reviews? I was told that that they had the same double sided blind reviews that Airbnb have. I have concerns that they take the security deposit in advance and a lot of my guests will struggle coughing up $700 as they are generally" the money has come in, let’s spend it now" crew. They are also pushing instant book, but don’t take ID and have the positive review safeguard. They also take deposits but for subsequent payments it’s your job to make sure they actually come in. I’m not used to chasing money, that’s one of the great things about Airbnb, we don’t have to worry about the money.
Excellent! I have been making an email up to send to the rep about my concerns and it includes your comments on here a while ago. I plan to tell the rep that I know you.
Had my first booking, they have stayed and NO PAYMENT!
Ring them - trying to find the phone number was NO FUN.
Where is my money please?
this is your first booking with Homeaway? We HOLD THE FUNDS FOR 30 DAYS!
No where is this made clear anywhere!
HomeAway is not the credit card processor.
They use VacationRentPayment / Yapstone…and outside , inferior, inept, service
And … you must also be sure to have a signed contract and photo id.
Be alert for fraud…and stolen credit cards. They will deduct any of their mistakes from your account.
We get 75% or more of our rentals over HomeAway/VRBO. Whole house rental.
You are correct that they don’t do everything for you like AirBnB does. But they also don’t control you as much as AirBnB does - there is no extenuating circumstances cancellation policy, for instance.
We are on a subscription, and we get the money shortly after the guest pays it. Our terms are 50% for deposit, and 50% 45 days before arrival. We had to apply for “Advanced Pay”, though, or they would hold the money, I think until after check in. It’s meant to be a deterrent to fraud. Here’s the link that talks about Advanced Pay: https://help.vrbo.com/articles/How-do-I-get-paid-when-using-HomeAway-Payments
Yapstone is not the best processor, but I’ve heard stories on this forum about AirBnB, too, letting people stay without the payment going through.
You can upload your contract (think of it as the house rules all in one place) and the guest just clicks to accept it. Many owners, however, prefer to have the guest sign the contract instead of “click to accept” as there are doubts in many peoples’ minds that those contracts would hold up in court. We also know that guests won’t read them. So I send an electronic contract through DocuSign. There are several on-line contract sites and some are free.
As in any credit card transaction, having/checking the ID of the person that made the transaction is the best deterrent to fraud or chargebacks.
You’ll have to decide whether the value of listing on HomeAway is worth it to you. For us it is, but we have a large home in a fly-to vacation area, and most of our guests plan and book at least a month ahead of time.
Not sure if there is a difference in the way HA operates in Australia. But here in the U.S., they moved to holding the damage deposit, then it is automatically released in so many days as long as you don’t file a claim.
If you make your policy 100% non-refundable, then the guest should be paying 100% upfront and no money needs to be chased.
The reviews are now double blind. The difference is that you can only rate your guest on stars - no where to explain any written feedback.
I had a HA booking over New Year. All the payments went through from HA not the guest. The booking was 27/12/18 to 4/1/2019 and the payment went through on Dec 31. I was under the impression HA took the payment (including the deposit) off the guest prior to the booking so if they didn’t pay it would be cancelled but maybe I am wrong. I don’t get many HA bookings but I charge more so they are usually for longer and worth the extra trouble.
Yes you can leave reviews as per AirBnB but I get the impression people usually don’t. I think I’ve only had 1 review n about 20 HA bookings over three years.
