What listing sites are you talking about? I just have one unit, listed on Airbnb. I thought that’s all I needed until recently. I haven’t had a booking for 3 weeks
That’s something emojis are useful for- to let people know you are joking. Satire and sarcasm aren’t always obvious to all.
We list on VRBO and have a direct website, as well as being included in the tourism site for our area. Most of our bookings are from Vrbo but AirBnB is gaining as time goes by.
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Yes, I guess I really should. In these crazy times it’s hard to know sometimes. Good tip!
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BTW, the market is very slow based on my experience. I have only 1 booking for Jan and Feb. VRBO doesn’t give me anything at all, even I offered 20% off as new host discount.
There are many listing sites, including specialist sites and unless you can fill your rental using your own website and your social media, you’ll need to spread yourself more thinly.
It’s probably Airbnb’s advertising that has made you think that listing there is all you needed but it’s not true at all, as your lack of bookings shows only too well.
It’s a shame that you’ve been taken in by their advertising but what’s important now is getting yourself on other sites and making sure that you do plenty of promotion yourself.
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For me, December and January are the slowest months.
February is next.
Then there’s the rest of the year.
LOL. It picks up a little in February and by June we’re in full swing. But January and February are slow here.
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Hope the market will pick up soon…
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What does everyone use for direct booking, and how do you handle payment?
Own website
Direct offer if they were a good guest and returning.
I use Square or an invoice payment terms
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I created my own website using Wordpress, a template, and Elementor. I’ve signed up for OwnerReservations (a channel manager) and use their calendar and booking widgets. I use Stripe for credit card payments (used PayPal prior to Stripe)
So are you the merchant of record on Stripe?
Excuse my ignorance here. I got the sense that most anyone can get Stripe but on Stripe you’re not the merchant of record. [?] I read also that VRBO requires you to be the merchant of record. All this does not make sense to me because if it’s your STR selling services it would seem you’re always the merchant of record.
If a guest has a dispute, do they come first to you to resolve the dispute, or Stripe? [Is that a matter of you just providing that in your agreement?]
Why did you select Stripe as a credit card processor vs others?
so far i’ve just done direct bank deposit. 99.9% of our guests are aussies, so it’s super easy. I haven’t had anyone want to pay with a visa card but if that happened i’d use paypal.
Can someone pay through PayPal who doesn’t have a PayPal account but only has a credit card?
You’re on OwnerRez, right?
you can pay via paypal (via visa) without needing an account.
and no, i don’t use ownerrez.
All right, Thank you. I’ll be eager to hear your and others’ views on using a traditional credit card processor like Stripes vs. PayPal.
Yes.
I don’t know. We haven’t had any disputes so far. I don’t have that in my agreement.
Rates were competitive and Stripe allows you to place a true hold on a credit card for a security deposit. There’s no cost, so if the guest doesn’t don’t do any damage, I just don’t charge their card and it doesn’t cost either of us anything.
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Yes, as @gillian said. But they can use most credit cards.
If you are asking me if I am on OwnerRez, the answer is yes. They have unfortunately raised their prices so it’s no longer as attractive as it was, but the damage protection is still a big incentive.
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Or hosts, obviously.
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