Interestingly, I had a fellow VRBO owner call me the other day because VRBO called him to try to get him to sign up for online booking. I told him the 6% average was a lie. I then went online and found places in both our price ranges (in our area) and the average booking would bring in the 9% service fee.
The rep. also did not tell him that he would have to pay 2.9% or the 4 something percent for international travelers.
They also called me a few weeks ago trying to enlist me into online booking. Trying to tell me it will help in search results. It’s so aggravating when some young kid is paid to tell you lies. I told him once everyone enrolls in online booking…then NOBODY has an advantage in search results. And the next carrot will be instant booking. I had to hang up.
Ftworth and Sarah - if you want to see the service fee that your guests will be paying, then try to book as a guest on different listings. You don’t have to book, but you will see that the average cost is not going to be 6%.
And Homeaway is trying to tout that they have lower service fees than Air. They will eventually keep raising those fees down the road. Flipkey used to have a chart that showed exactly what your guest would pay depending on the total. At the time their service fee ranged from 5-10%. Now they place a 13.5% service fee on every transaction and the chart has been removed.