This forum is dedicated to connecting hosts with other hosts. Sign up to get the latest updates and news just for AirBnb hosts! Note that we are not affiliated with Airbnb - we are just passionate hosts!
Half of bookings are pay scams (ie: my employer is sending you a check for my stay)
Half of the remainder of bookings cancel before their stays
The ones that actually show up complain (lights are too bright, my sheets aren’t soft enough, I don’t have a kettle)
I’m considering just delisting from Booking because of the headache it creates, but also don’t want to be tied to AirBnB so closely for my revenue.
What’s everyone’s thoughts on this and what’s your experience with these booking channels and would you suggest others?
Note: my properties are not in a vacation area, my guests are generally coming for a weekend getaway in a fun city within driving distance of home or coming for work or to see family. 1 and 2 bedroom condos.
Booking.com just seems like a pain. Of course we don’t know how many stays 3% is so you have to think about whether you want to lose that 3%. I don’t list with VRBO, if there are ways to increase your visibility and bookings on that platform I would focus there while keeping your Airbnb guests happy.
@Justarock I do live in a vacation destination, in Mexico, and I have never used BDC, but my friend did. She said she got the worst quality of guests through them (she has been running her hostel for about 20 years, mostly using hostelling sites). Thieves and pigs, and tons of no-shows. To top it off, BDC never paid her for the bookings and after fighting with them for a couple months, she told them where they could shove their business.
No personal experience with BDC but lots of reports from other owners on a FaceBook forum, including some owners I know.
They say the same about BDC.
There is one owner I know (owns a guesthouse) that has OK experiences with BDC.
It sounds like the 3% may not be worth it for the headaches associated with it. You might also get those dates booked through ABB or Vrbo if the BDC bookings don’t happen.
Guests do not get reviewed or rated on BDC. On Airbnb, they are rated and written reviewed, and on VRBO, as I understand it, they are rated but there is no written review.
So guests who have terrible reviews and ratings, or have been banned from the other platforms, can just book through BDC. I suspect that’s one of the reasons that BDC guests have a bad rep for being crap guests, not showing up, and cancelling. They may have burned their bridges on the other platforms.
90% full in my booking calendar
80% direct booked
2% VRBO
6% B.Con
4% Airbnb
I have the strictest policies possible on B.con and that has ended most of the cancellation/ c card issues. I do not offer any of the discounts that the OTA whine for, they damage my bottom line.
I am about to launch my own website to see if I can further discourage OTA bookings
THANK YOU for this absolutely awesome data! Since you also use VRBO, it seems to me you are diversified.
I would drop booking.com immediately and I would buy a kettle.
They are not expensive, guests LOVE them, and you raise your amenity count by 1. I have learned as an AirBnB guest to check how many amenities the place has. In general the more amenities, the nicer the stay, in my personal experience.
@SleepingCoyote I wish I got more bookings from VRBO, they are good reliable guests.
I really want to diversify from AirBnB though, because I have had a few arguments with AirBnB over the decisions they have made on guest problems, and I worry about them taking the guests word on something totally false in the future and removing my listing or something crazy like that, leaving me with way less occupancy.
I had a particularly annoying incident about 6 months ago where my cleaner got her days mixed up and didn’t clean, the guest showed up to a dirty place and messaged me, I immediately called my cleaner and she was driving over when the guest contacted AirBnB support and said they would not be staying there because it was dirty, even though they knew the cleaner was on the way, as did AirBnB support. Instead AirBnB support had the guest go to a hotel and refunded them along with charging me an additional $100. After that I don’t have any faith in AirBnB support to make a fair decision.
Sorry, but guests arriving during the check-in window to a place that hasn’t been cleaned and being given a full refund and the host being penalized is not an unfair decision, @Justarock.
Regardless of whether the cleaner was on her way over or not, it is your responsibility as a host to ensure that your cleaner is aware ahead of time of the rental/cleaning schedule and shows up when they are supposed to.
Sure, there are guests who would be understanding of a communication glitch and be willing to wait a couple hours in such a circumstance, but when something like that happens, the host should profusely apologize and offer to pay for the guests to go for lunch or dinner while waiting, on the host’s dime.
And if they aren’t understanding and willing to wait, getting refunded is perfectly reasonable. Guests may arrive tired and hungry and just want to get settled in right away. They may be travelling with kids and hanging around waiting to check in is not acceptable. And the space not being ready for guests doesn’t inspire confidence that the rest of the stay won’t be problematic in some way.
There are lots of unfair decisions Airbnb makes, but this isn’t one of them.
Me again. I did a booking a few days ago on Booking.com since I couldn’t find what I needed on Airbnb. Today I got this bizarre email worded as follows: (I took out the link to the actual reservation)
Dear Christine,
Apartamento frente a la bahĂa has initiated a free cancellation of your booking on 2023-03-03.
Please confirm if you’d like to cancel this booking:
You have 24 hours to consider. After then, the free cancellation offer for this booking will expire and you need to re-apply again on our site or with the property.
Please do not reply to this email. If you have questions, you can contact the property through messages, call them on +12092219618, or email them here.
The wording is so confusing that I worried that my reservation was not solid. It says do not reply, but email them “here”? If your booking.com guests are getting any weird messages like this, no wonder you are seeing lots of cancelations!
@muddy@Tranquility_Base I understand that you all want to tear into me about this, but I think my original topic has merit and I don’t want to distract from that with my little tangent story. I will post a new topic about my cleaning mishap so you can all tell me how terrible I am there and we can continue the booking source discussions here.
I don’t consider pointing out that this was, in fact, a fair decision by Airbnb qualifies as “tearing into you”, so sorry you felt that way. We all screw up sometimes, no one is perfect, and having a cleaner confuse a cleaning day isn’t an indictable offense, we were just pointing out that it seems like a fair decision for Airbnb to fully refund in that circumstance if the guest considers it a deal-breaker.
