Wikibuy Extension for Chrome Browser

I was doing some searches on Airbnb for upcoming dates and just noticed that a Chrome extension (wikibuy from Capital One) I use primarily to find the best price for items on Amazon is showing price differences for Airbnb rentals that also are listed on competing sites. The first thing that stuck out was how much more in fees Airbnb charges travelers as opposed to VRBO. If anyone is familiar with how Wikibuy obtains its data, I’d be interested to know if it also picks up booking sites other than VRBO and Airbnb. I have a website created through Lodgify that I’d love to find a way to drive traffic to if it could be included along with the main sites.

where do we find that extension please and how to use it. I dont see that it is comparing prices, but it does appear to apply discounts and coupons. I would suggest Houfy with blogging to drive traffic to your site, or OwnerRez, and maybe buy google ads if you can target your audience and are willing to spend the money.

Social media. Quick, easy and free.

The funny thing is that Airbnb and VRBO’s total fees (guest fees + host fees + transaction fees) are nearly identical, the difference is how the data is presented. On Airbnb, you can switch to the host-only fee model to make it look like there are less fees to the guest than on VRBO, but you’ll have to raise your nightly rate to keep the same amount in your pocket.

If you go into Settings in the Google Chrome browser, find where you manage extensions then search for Wikibuy.

What specifically do you mean? My site on Lodgify supposedly uses some type of SEO optimization but I don’t think my site will ever gain priority over the big travel sites. If price comparison tools like Wikibuy could include Lodgify listings in their comparisons, it would save a lot of money in trying to purchase advertising.

As I said, you don’t have to spend money. Use social media.

No, it won’t, generally speaking. But you have a niche (your area, your type of accommodation, your USP etc.) and you want visitors who are looking for that exact niche. General SEO means little - you are trying to attract specific targetted readers and social media is the way to do that - free and quickly.

Wikibuy, which I use, is far more suited to online purchases such as those from Amazon. (Honey is a similar service). This is because in many cases, people shopping at sites like Amazon are looking for the best deal. Customers on OTA sites are more specific in their needs. Yes, they want value but they are not comparison shopping.

STRs can’t be easily compared after all. On Amazon, all Wikibuy or Honey is saying is ‘you can get this same product cheaper’.

With STR, there is rarely such a thing as ‘the same product’.

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Just to be clear, when I searched for my property in Airbnb, wikibuy returned what the cost would be on VRBO for the same property meaning that they apparently link the same home on different sites by address. That’s what I thought was pretty cool since if as an owner I could get an aggregator to produce my prices across the platforms I’m advertising on, I would be able to get people to use my Lodgify site since the cost will be cheaper by virtue of avoiding third party fees.

Ah, got it. I’m afraid I don’t know anything about Lodgify as I only use Airbnb and my own website. I prefer to use my own site so that I’m in control rather than a third party.

Does Wikibuy take OTA fees, extra guest fees, pet and cleaning fees into account when it compares prices?

However, I think there are better uses of your time - promoting your rentals yourself.

I agree with you @jaquo

I was surprised when I talked to a STR property management company and they excitedly told me about their new pricing tool that enabled market based dynamic pricing.

There is a questionnaire to complete to help compete “like with like” but I don’t trust it. We’ve all seen how ridiculous some of the Airbnb smart pricing suggestions have been.

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