Would you sign up with Booking.com Homestays?

1

Hotel website Booking.com, one of the biggest hotel booking sites in the world, has launched it’s own homestay section to keep up the competition with Airbnb, Flipkey and other vacation rental sites.

Would you consider adding your property to Booking.com Homestays?

Booking.com Homestays

2

I had a few listings on Booking.com and they were the absolute worst. Nightmare from start to finish. You never have any preliminary conversation with guests, they show up at the door at 2am looking for the front desk and the calendar synch never worked with me. I hated the experience and would never again use Booking.com.

3

Interesting numbers:

Home →
UK

35,669 properties

London

→

2,904 properties

homestays in London

25 properties

1 Like
4

I am using booking.com and get quite good amount of booking at a higher price than my airbnb (private appartment).
I agree some clients are more “hotel” type but in general it went fine for us. I would never be able to make the occupancy rate we have and price we do without it.

5

I’m wondering if this Homestays is “Instant Book” only, like with all their other listings.

That is the biggest downside of booking.com.

6

I am with them and have a lot of future bookings, but they are still thinking of you as a hotel. I get a lot more cancelations with them and bookings as far out as a year. If you set up with them make sure that you contact them after the first booking to make sure you view all credit card details and ask about guests address since you will need the zip code to process the credit card either via square or paypal.

7

I’m going to flag one problem I’m aware of with them; if there’s a chargeback against the credit card, you’ll be liable.

I know someone who was suddenly out of pocket for a stay several months before worth 3k. They just took it out of her future payments… Apparently hosts are responsible for payments.

Airbnb don’t do this. So yes diversify, just be aware of the potential pitfalls