Airbnb is blocking our calendar on Halloween weekend which is causing me to look to other platforms. Putting my eggs in one basket isn’t such a good idea anymore.
I have a FROG which has it’s own entrance which I list as an entire home. It doesn’t have a kitchen. Instead, it has a mini fridge, microwave, toaster, electric tea kettle, coffee pot. It is about the size of a hotel room and has two beds in it so it has the feel of a hotel room as well. We are located in South Carolina off Lake Murray. This is an area where in the summer there is a lot of lake visitors, otherwise, there are a lot of people visiting family and moving into the area.
If you have a STR platform that you can recommend for me I would really appreciate it! I opened up a listing in VRBO a week or two ago but have not had a single guest or inquiry.
There are tons of other threads about other platforms. You should use the search feature of this forum to find them. I posted about this problem yesterday and it’s fine for me but I can see why other host’s would be upset. It’s always great to diversify but the truth is that in the US, Airbnb is a market leader, especially for anything that’s not a complete stand alone home.
Good luck.
The easiest way to find out is to do a Google search for comparable for STRs in your area and see who is advertising them. @Rebecca1
You can also market your listing directly.
Personally I think its a good idea that Airbnb is stopping those their stats show are people most likely to party - young people, living locally booking short stays during main holidays from booking with a host.
Jeez, must be some size of frog. Is it dead?
JF
I’m based in Europe, Booking is working really well here for vacation rentals (last season represented 60% of my bookings).
Their Genius programme works really well.
Here’s an info page:
The vast majority of our BDC guests are members, they get 10% discount on advertised rates, so you need to take that into account when pricing.
I take it you don’t use BDC then 
JF
Their reasoning is to stop the spread of COVID 19. No other platforms that I know of are doing this so all they are doing is losing business. Ppl in SC are not afraid of the virus and will go to VRBO or Booking.com.
For me, it makes no sense because even though my place is a stand alone, it is attached to my house. I live on site and never have had an issue with parties, or large groups that are not related. Not a real risk of spreading Covid.
I tried out VRBO. Not working for my place. I will try BDC. Thank you. Anything I should know about them that is different from Airbnb?
My reply was actually for @Helsi, but as you’re asking there is one crucial difference between Airbnb and BDC, and that is that BDC is IB only. You don’t get the fluffy excuses to cancel either, when you’re booked, you’re booked.
JF
@Rebecca1 - you don’t get a “new host” bump on Vrbo so I’m not surprised you haven’t had an inquiry or a booking from them. You are probably way down in the list, since you don’t have any reviews or bookings on Vrbo.
It takes time to build a presence and a reputation on each one of these platforms.
Try Craigslist and a cheap price if you need a booking quickly.
That’s almost guaranteed to get you troublesome guests. The kind that want to stay forever and you don’t.
@Rebecca1also in BDC you can choose to get the payments directly from the guests on arrival (I don’t recommend it) and you have plenty of options of cancellation policies.
Agree with @JohnF, the most important thing in BDC is that when you are booked, is done. You should think about to have a channel manager before starting with them.
Also good advice. I know there’s folks on here who use both, and rely on the free iCal synch between calendars, but a channel manager just makes things easier, and less risky!
Another “myth” relating to BDC is that if you do have to cancel, then you can end up footing the bill for a 5* hotel as an alternative. That isn’t the case. As long as the alternative accommodation is of a similar (or better) standard, then it’s fine. Obviously you need to know your local market, and be careful not to cancel if your area is a sell out, for whatever reason!
JF
I won’t argue with that, but the goal of @Rebecca1 is to get Halloween weekend booked. It takes time to build a presence on the “real” booking sites, so it’s unlikely that the goal would be achieved with BDC or Vrbo.
I am practically giving Sunday night away just to get a review and haven’t had a taker yet.
Craigslist … Yikes! I’ve used Marketplace and FB messenger but Craigslist scares me
No I don’t @ just Airbnb and direct booking @JohnF.
This isn’t my main income stream (although an important one) so i just aim to fill my calendar for half of each month.
Hi Rebecca,
I was happy with hosting with AirBnb for the past 6 years, yet have had several issues with them this year ( not related to the pandemic). I listed a new property with booking dot com. So far, good with booking dot com (can’t post websites) I may switch my properties over depending upon how Airbnb admin resolves this latest issue.
I fixed your typo. …