Vrbo/homeaway charges so much fees for the guests payments. How you guys handle with payments? I heard some owners just pay for the advertising take the payment themselves, how to process? Credit card or check? What about deposit? Thank you!
My guests book through VRBO/Homeaway (use their credit card to pay the service fee), then I send them a PayPal invoice for the deposit as well as a contract via DocuSign. They can use a PayPal account or a credit card (someone even used an echeck through PayPal), and pay my PayPal account directly. We have a business PayPal account, so we pay PayPal 3% of the transaction. I have a subscription (not PPB) with VRBO, and have had one for a few years. So I don’t know if you can buy a subscription anymore without using VacationRentPayment (YapStone), their payment processor.
I actually don’t even charge a damage deposit, so I can’t really help you there. But if I did, I would invoice them through PayPal about 30 days before their arrival, then refund through PayPal after they leave. PayPal refunds your transaction fees if you give the guest a refund (prorated for the amount of refund you give) within 180 days.
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Cash.me is a good, easy payment portal. Like PayPal it just requires a person’s email address to send money, and the service fee is 2.75% per transaction.
At this point I’d only accept a debit/credit card as payment; not cash on arrival (too risky due to flakes and cancellations) or check.
@PitonView has the right idea on deposits.
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