Are you listed on Homeaway and familiar with all their snaky tactics?
1 Like
I need to start paying more attention! Iâve been on VRBO and HA for years now and really havenât felt particularly ripped off.
As @cabinhost knows, I rented a house in Costa Rica for a week this summer. I found the home on HA/VRBO and booked through them. I was given the option to wire the funds and that would have saved me $300 in booking fees. I chose to book via the platform because I was nervous sending $6000 to a foreign country. Now that I know the people in the property management office I would book directly with them if I were to go back. I also like the idea of being able to review my stay and help others with their decision.
Iâm just putting my 2 cents in to say that as a guest, I wouldnât have booked this place directly. I feel that Iâm the one that paid the fee, not the host, and the the owner is getting their moneyâs worth on the site. For a smaller amount of money I would book directly as I did in the 90s and 2000s but that was typically under $100, not thousands.
Yes, pay attention unless they arenât messing with your listing. I paid the $499 annual subscription to have them intentionally change the number of reviews to zero - just to discourage people from booking my place.
I will put my place in online booking. I will of course set very high price as I canât use the synch with my channel manager and I am usually spending a lot of time for requests that are not giving anything.
I use their payment system, so maybe that is why I havenât had a problem. I actually book more nights per year on VRBO/HA than Airbnb. I have more Airbnb bookings, but more nights (meaning more $$$) via HA. My HA folks are older and on real vacations, not just hipsters getting away for a weekend.
1 Like
There are many HA users who use their payment system and have experienced issues their listing. The issues are most definitely not isolated to those donât use their payment system. Itâs just that the issues can be different.
Then there are those who havenât had any issues whatsoever. Kind of like Air - one person gets paid out by the host guarantee with no issues, the next person is forced to go to the media.
Do you belong to a HA focused forum? I tried one of them once - HomeAwayâs own, I guess - and I found it off-putting for some reason. I think there was a lot of Air-bashing but I donât remember.
I only read Homeawayâs forum to keep abreast of all the sheninigans that I otherwise may never discover on my own. I agree it was very off putting.
Yes, back in the day many users on there bashed the hell out of Air. But thatâs because things were going perfectly well in HA land. Now that HA is no longer performing for many, they are moving to Air and TripAdvisor, Booking.com etc. out of desperation.
The only Air-bashing on the HA community is done by people who feel they cannot adapt their business to Airbnb. Most of the bashing these days is HA-bashing. I scan the HA community, but very rarely participate. Itâs the fastest way to find out what changes are happening.
I think most of the top IT people working at all the STR sites went to many of the same schools, know each other or know of each otherâs work. They seem to copy each otherâs best and sometimes, worst ideas.
I try to stay up to date on how these sites work and how I can make them work for me.
I just donât find HA/VRBO that fast moving. It seems virtually the same as it has been for years and years. Sure, transaction fees and pay-as-you-go model, but otherwise I donât see much change.
Cabin herself was also bashed on that forum for making predictions that later came true. They called her a stick in the mud and a negative person. Now they are all crying the blues!
Not sure if you know but there is no longer any option to offer someone to book directly or to pay the fee. They have moved to closed communication like Air and you do not see contact info until after the booking is made. The only people that still can see contact info are those whoâs renewal hasnât come up yet.
I just finished corresponding with someone who was consdering booking and she said another time she will stay but canât right now. I told her that in a few weeks my renewal will now have a service fee added and explained to her that her credit card protects her and how HA requires the traveler to first file a chargeback on their credit card, and will only pay out if their credit card does not offer reimbursement. She was really appreciative.
I did not know that. I did start corresponding with them over a year ago so it was obviously the old system.
YeahâŚI remember it was long ago when you had initial contact. But wanted you to know just in case you book domestically, many of the long time owners have their own website and would be ecstatic to take your credit card payment directly. But of course just like Air and Flipkey you canât ask within the system.
Yes, Iâm listed in Homeaway and I donât like it either but my comment was a reply to the critics I always hear about their fees which are essentially the same as you will find in Airbnb and other VR sites.
VR sites charge between 15 to 20% and thatâs pretty much all what you can find nowaways. The model of pay-per-listing is dying and all VR sites are now PPB or a moving towards to become one. Like it or not, this is how things are now and Homeaway in this particular aspect isnât different than the others.
Since being bought by expedia they squeezing every penny out of everyone.
We can never win a charge back. Even when we do they do a charge back again and we get a message that if we wish to fight it and lose it can wind up costing us a extra $500
They now using Payoneer to do some of there payments, and the hidden fine print says first payment from them they get to hold for 30 extra days.
Even if we were past customers which we were but they switched processors so we counted as new.
if you cancel a instant booking homeaway still takes there fee. Client does a charge back and even though you given back the money. They will take the entire amount away from you again and hold it in dispute for 75 days. Homeaway asia was consolidated into homeaway so we brand new again on those listings and have to wait 30 days plus 7 for our payout. Without words how angry, when I called homeaway she was rude and told me to call Payoneer.