Half of the success of Airbnb is explained in the lack of a bigger compepitor. HA/VRBO seems to be the second choice to most of us but in my opinion it is a lot of steps below Airbnb. I give a try to every competitor out there (and I suggest you do it too) to prevent Airbnb from monopolizing the market and then start abusing from their hosts, if they haven´t start already.
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Good luck with VRBO. I laready since November had 3 scams with them, and charge back. I never had any of this with Airbnb
I had the same story couple of times. The fact is that sometimes international guests can not be reached. Usually in most cases they are not realizing what they are booking too. They think its a hotel with 24 hours reception. I rent a room in my house. The situation is even worse. They book before their flight takes off, not reading my instructions how to get in. Then i dont know when they are arriving, because non of them tells me the time of their arrival.
Now, i had reviews that if they read them, they will see that people describe their experience and its someone’s house. Hopefully i will get these clueless guests less and less.
Booking.com is not an easy platform todeal with. I will celebrate next months one year. There are still an uneasy feeling when someone from this sites books
I was on booking.com a year ago, cancelled them. They keep booking and cancelling guests since and keep sending invoices and collection requests. I ignore them. They are a bit thick-headed.
What you mean they keep booking you? If you delisted it would not be possible for anyone to book you
Yana I wanted to ask you a question, how do you take their credit card information? Do you place a hold on the card?
I have a paypal card reader that I can take the card and process when they get here. I just got a booking for 10 days in July and I will be blocking all those dates and he can be a no show.
I was wondering how to take CC info myself. I so far have no way to do so.
Sign up for Square. It’s super easy. It will take you 10 min. Square. com. And you are all set. Process cards right away as soon as you get reservation. There is no other way. Put your cancelation policy to non refundable. If a card is declined notify a guest about it immediately, mark card as invalid in their option list. And if guest does not communicate with you about credit card issue, next day at 6 pm call booking.com and cancell him.
Carmen, I tried all different ways. There is no other option for us to do it, since we are such a small property. I wish someone told me these before I went through all kind of frustration with this system
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Thanks for info. Will look into it.
You are welcome. You will have to do it manually. Keep in mind it’s 3.75% fee. I just add it to my rate
I read the fees and can adjust accordingly. Been wanting to check out other possible avenues to list and this makes it possible. Can’t see so far if it is possible to put a deposit hold though but will research it more thoroughly later. Again thanks.
Yana:
I have informed them I want no part of their service no less than 10x, and DID cancel it over a year ago. Still get booking notifications, then a cancellation (since I never responded nor even logged in over a year), then an invoice, then a message from some collection guy, then the ‘You are no longer part of our wonderful family’. Over and over again for the last year.
Thank you Yana, you are so helpful to us in this forumn.
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Does anyone know of a card reader that works in the United States Virgin Islands?
Hi
How to you do to " check there credit card for a buck to make sure it’s real". I got credit card with CVC details but can you charge the credit card prior to the client stay even it’s a very low amount to test the card?
I cancelled with them too. I could not stand their guests and their silly system of never be sure if the card goes through or not. Also, with the separate house i started getting many fraudulent bookings the same day. The card would not go through, and the “guests” would keep submitting different cards from all over US with different zip codes. It was an obvious fraud, i did not want to open house for such guests but they kept telling me that i cant do this and need to rent to them if they booked. My friend also had so many problems with their guests and cancelled them also.
I made quite a bit of money with them during winter. That was my first season so i don’t know how it will go next high season for me with only Airbnb.
You can charge any amount on credit card, but i would not advice to just charge 1$. You should be charging the whole amount right away and have non refundable policy. With few untis its quite impossible to have any other policy as people with booking.com cancel all the time, and you will be left with no reservation and blocked calendar if you do that.
Hi
We can’t offer non refundable policy (new client on booking.com impossible to put it). We have 5days non cancel policy so I guess I will try the credit card right away when clients book (and do a direct refund of the 1dollar).
Thanks for your answer
edit: to add the worst we had 5 clients fron booking.com that booked with us, and 4 didn’t show …so now we had put compulsory for clients to give all credit card details so we charge if no show (but important to test the credit card directly seems, do you have often fake credit cards details?)
@Yana_ My experience is a lot like yours; over time I have found AirBnB the best to deal with (and their types of guest), a close 2nd VRBO, then Flip Key and a distant 4th Bookings.com. I no longer deal with the latter two, at all.
yes, of course, all the time. Then they showed up at my door. Nightmare. No more of that. Booking.com is a very lousy platform, Airbnb is the best
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