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HomeAway are total idiots to think they can just add new booking fees on top of what I was already paying them annually. When I had that call with customer service I just lost it. Then I just turned auto renew off on my account and will let it laps. Airbnb has become 95% of my bookings anyway. Why should I put up with such nonsense. Changing the deal mid-stream. Does not work for me.
Good riddance, HomeAway.
I donât make much money on airbnb, but I am happy with the amount of bookings I get, and the $399 subscription would be just throwing money away. But I make enough to send a significant portion of my earnings to my nieces to help them get through collegeâŚitâs not much, but they are frugal young ladies and they greatly appreciate my assistance, and I donât want them working two jobs while they are going to college! My ABB earnings bought my upstairs bathroom shower/tub unit and the professional installation. Next year, ABB will buy 10 new windows and installation of same for my house (hopefully). I canât work more overtime and stay sane, I already work plenty of overtime, and I can only squeeze so much out of my paycheck. Iâm at that age where anything spare from my paycheck is going into my retirement account.
HA is testing boundaries for sure. If anything - they could collect more money from the homes that get $5000 a week. But those homes pay the equivalent of a home that can only get $700 for a week. Thatâs the problem. And I canât see any way to resolve that except to go on strict commission for all properties.
The lowest priced properties have their travelers charged the highest percentage (just like Air does) - yet HA is charging the same annual subscription.
Even their Pay per booking costs higher than Air with zero protection.
I donât mind allowing their payment processing. Many clients prefer to pay on the spot and directly through the site. The option is still open for them to choose to pay us directly. So, in my point of view, itâs one of several options open to the client.
Maybe we should charge a specific amount if they book through HA and a discounted amount if they book through us directly?
What really bothers me are their exorbitant listing fees. If youâre going to take a cut with the commissions and service fees then listing should be free just like it is on Air bnB.
I think that theyâre trying a lot of new stuff and are holding their breaths to see how much backlash can be absorbed before they re-adjust.
You are correct. They are holding their breath to see how much backlash there is. That is why they kept saying an âApril announcementâ is coming. They were waiting just to see how much backlash there would be. Things died down in the forum. Some owners came to terms and will choose to swallow. And then other ignorant people are bragging right now on the HA forum saying how the new fees donât affect their bookings.
Obviously any logical person would realize if a 3rd party all of a sudden increased their rates by 9% - and travelers didnât flinch - they were undepriced. But many on HA are still having their repeats pay through HA with the new service fee. That to me is stupidâŚand a nice way of saying it. They have bought into the whole âitâs a fee to the travelerâ - which is not true. That service fee on any site limits you to increase your rates.
Yes, I use all of them. And if you look at many of my old posts you can see me saying âbut Airbnb only charges 3%â and HA charges this. I was wrong! I was naive! I was a newbie! I finally tested out my rates on booking.com and continually increased themâŚthen I realized the traveler fee is a commission to the ownerâŚitâs only disguised as protection to the traveler. The traveler is protected from their own credit card in the U.S. I finally found my âsweet spotâ last summer. I figured out what people were willing to pay without a booking fee. Sure I still get bookings from the listing sites. And I am not abandoning them. But I am going to guess that only 20% are willing to throw the extra money away.
That is the reason HAâs CEO told shareholders when asked if he was so certain of the traveler fee being a successâŚwhy did he not gain the potentail profits for himself before selling out to Expedia (If he was so confident). He wanted Expedias help in their expertise of going for the jugular and felt he was compensated enoughâŚand felt more comfortable with losing out on the potential risk. My opinion is inserted and thatâs how I interepreted that last investor call I listened to.
Maybe the average HA property charges more per night than the average AIR does; and thus the 9% fee, which decreases as a percentage as the rental goes higher, and then capped at $ 499 is not such a price change when the aggregate figures are higher? Remember as the rental cost increases their fee decreases, staring at 9% and declining. So, possibly HA should go the route of offering ONLY upscale and differentiate themselves from AIR, more associated with lower end pricing.
Itâs only 9% for now though. I believe they will increase to 11% just to fall right under Airâs 12%. Take a look at Flipkey. They started at 5-10% and even had a table that listed exactly how much the traveler would pay, depending on total cost. Now they say the fee is 5-15%. But my guests are always quoted at 13.5%. Some on HA are saying their quote is for 10%. I donât knowâŚmaybe they arenât calculating rightâŚbut I donât trust one word from HA.
So now you are complaining about something that you THINK they might do? Really, you have such a hate - on for HA, close your account with them, and relax; youâll feel better than you must feel now.
HahaâŚAlan. No, I donât relax. Intelligent people try to always look three steps ahead.
And I will decide if I close my account with HA, Airbnb, or any other company. The ironic thing is I warned people on HA forum exactly where they were headed and was told I was a conspiracy theorist, etc. And now those people are crying and whining on HA. Why? Because they drank all the HA koolaid. They told everyone how stupid they were for not following HAâs rules, etc. The only reason HA now can charge the service fee is because they conned enough people to sign up for alternative payments and BIN, etc. - when they didnât want to. But reluctantly they did it to get better search position. They got blindsided and now are selling their investments.
So you go ahead and relax and take it easy my friend.
@Alan1 whether Air or HA have a better âclassâ of guest depends on where you are. In my market north of NYC in the Catskill Mountains, Air renters are usually young professionals from Brooklyn in some creative field. They are usually very self-sufficient, design oriented and more complimentary, but more price focused. My HomeAway people are older, more picky, less appreciative and usually have lots of questions - how do you turn on the TV, do you have a VCR, please explain what Roku is. BUT, they are willing to pay and usually stay a little longer. I think HomeAway / VRBO has better penetration with older folks. If I were to only list on Air I would be ignoring a huge demographic. Which is âclassierâ? ⌠the jury is out on that, in my mind.
These are the very reasons I am backing out of VRBO and will start my own web site and begin marketing my property myself. All good things come to an end?
Has anyone noticed that HA no longer provides your phone number for your inquiries? They also XXX out your phone number or email address back to a guest. I am very frustrated as I have a $500k property and have no way of knowing anything about the person renting it until they book. Then if I cancel, I get dinged in my ranking. I have had so many people complain about the fees they are now charging guest as well as owners.
I am ready to throw the towel in.
The net result is as far as we are concerned is that - for whatever actions adopted by Expedia - our large property has gone from 30-50 enquiries / month to 2/3 per month !!! It has been a disaster for us. We feel that Homeaway have been disingenuous and misleading.
We are having HUGE problems with VRBO and them trying to force us to use their payment system. They are now sending our guests receipts that should show they paid the VRBO fees ONLY, but instead it shows the guest the full payment amount as paid. So our guests think they have booked, but they havenât. Its another way for them to force us to use their system. Itâs gotten really bad recently.
WowâŚcanât believe I made this post over a year and three months ago.
If anyone in this thread is not already awareâŚthey DID increase their service fee just as predicted. It is now a dynamic fee. It can go as high or AS low as they want. This is their latest policy:
âThe service fee is between 5-12% for most bookings but can be above or below, based on the reservation. The percentage rate may change from time to time. Generally, the higher the reservation amount, the lower the percentage of service fee.â
@halemakai - check the searches in your area. They have now switched some listings to show ZERO reviews if you donât accept their payment system.
I donât mean âclickâ on your listing either. Do a search for your area and narrow down to your property where you can see yours and others side by side. Then look at the number of reviews (without clicking yet) and see if yours still shows the actual number or shows zero. Mine shows â0â for the number of reviews until you click on my listing and then you can see the actual number at the top. Homeaway has confirmed this is intentional under the guise of an A/B test.
Wow thank you for the heads up, Iâm going to check our reviews today! Its so disappointing as we really liked VRBO far more than Airbnb, but now they are all the same horrible setup.
Check your occupany number too and make sure they didnât default it to zero guests also. Thatâs another one.
Thank you! WowâŚhow crazy!
And check your filters too to make sure it is showing the actual number of bedrooms. There are reports that HA has switched this on their own.
You do know that when you renew they are requiring their payment system unless you are located somewhere that canât accept it. ??
I donât see why people is panic about Homeaway fees. Arenât the same as Airbnb charge?
I guess the Pay-per-Listing (PPL) model is moving towards the Pay-per-Booking (PPB) across all VR sites and fees are usually around 15%. Some sites charge all their fees to the host, others all to the guest and some others distributed the fees among both. Whatever if the guest pays the entire fee, it means exactly the same for you. If he pays 100usd from where 15usd belong to the site fees, in your bank account you will see the remaining 75usd so it doesnât matter who pays for the site fees.