Your take on VRBO?

With a contract, you at least have a relatively airtight way to recover your loss, IF you can find assets to attach.

‘Airtight’? You’ve heard of the ‘fog of war’? The substantially same concept applies to litigation.

  • Few of us actually do everything right.
  • In MA fire extinguishers need to be tested monthly, the test must be documented on a tag on the extinguisher, and yearly an independent licensed firm must inspect the extinguisher.
  • How many of us in MA do that? Willa court or a jury find that relevant? I don’t know .
  • 70% of Americans have less than $1,000 stashed away. Astounding, isn’t it?
  • Whether there are recoverable assets can be a BIG RISK, depending on the Host’s clientele.
  • The Host itself will need to advance the costs of litigation, which easily could require a retainer of $5,000 or more.
  • The Host will not recover the often substantial costs of litigation unless there is an enforceable provision in the agreement that would require the guest/losing party to pay that.
  • A separate signed agreement is one of several best practices to limit the Host’s liability and losses.
  • The Host needs to balance tradeoffs in the Host’s marketplace of the potentially discouraging effects of booking to require a separate signed contract vs the potential benefits of a contract
  • It keeps coming back to the benefit of having a quality commercial insurance policy, doesn’t it?
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You are right, I could do that! Thanks. For some reason I never thought of it. Kind of a pain, though.

Good arguments for using a contract that won me over. Does anyone know of a good downloadable one that applies to this context?

Many Thanks!

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I am on Airbnb and Vrbo. I’ve had success with both although Airbnb is higher volume. I find for my cabin VRBO tends to have longer bookings - so I earn more per booking. My rates are also higher on VRBO. I have the mandatory deposit or purchase insurance feature on and that’s been fine. I also have a rental contract configured. I’ve yet to have anyone complain about providing information - but my cabin is in a gated community that requires identification to be presented and copied upon entry.

The not blocking off time before and after kind of sucks - so I have to be on it but it hasn’t been an issue. Since we live by our phones and watch with alerts - when a booking comes in - we just block the checkout day immediately.

The platform is worth exploring - just nail your processes down.

The iCal isn’t lightning fast but since we are only on 2 platforms - we will manually block the dates on the other calendar if it doesn’t pop up instantly.

We don’t allow one day bookings so while it may change in the future - we just don’t have bookings flying in fast enough to become an issue. If we use more channels - then maybe a channel manager will be needed.

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VRBO used to be my platform of choice years ago when you paid an annual fee of $400 and they simply permitted you to have a listing with all of the interaction done between host and guest. Simple. Then Expedia bought them out and things changed for the worse. I no longer have the option of paying an annual fee and the guest paying less in fees. It amounts to about 18% of the total which can be substantial during peak periods and has cost me bookings.

Some of the things I don’t like about VRBO:

  • they started sending messages/reminders that made it appear they were from ME… even though I didn’t send them and didn’t give permission to send on my behalf
  • the inability to give a discount for stays other than 1 week or 1 month. (This doesn’t work with the way we do our pricing.)
  • their customer service is terrible! I’ve had to remind them to send my payment a pretty large percentage of times guests have booked through VRBO
  • they cancelled a booking and then when the guest asked why their payment wasn’t refunded, VRBO said that I had to do it. I spent hours with CS trying to convince them that they needed to do it, since it was cancelled and I was never paid. A similar experience happened a second time. It takes SO long to get them to do something that should be a “no-brainer”.
  • regular calls asking to take 5 minutes of my time to explain why I should be doing this or that. They take 25 minutes asking me leading questions and it’s always the same result. It’s already set up the way I want it. (Why don’t I allow smoking? Why do I set the age limit higher?)

I hesitantly went on to Airbnb when it was new but still preferred VRBO. But over the years Air has proven to listen and make changes while I feel VRBO has gotten worse. In my case (whole house) we have about 50% of guests book directly, 35% through Airbnb and about 15% through VRBO.

My Airbnb calendar is automatically exported to my VRBO listing. I don’t do Instant Book on either platform so that I can ensure there are no double bookings.

All guests must sign our Rental Policies. It’s there to ensure they are fully aware (since people rarely read it before booking) and to hopefully dissuade potentially disruptive groups. If they are opposed to reading or following our rules, I don’t want them anyway.

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I started on VRBO only, right about the time Expedia bought them. I heard the hoopla & joined some host FB groups that thoroughly educated me on how things should be and how Expedia was messing up.

I only used ABB to fill in gap nights in the upcoming few weeks, but one of many algorithm changes vigorously discussed that year or two did hit me and dropped my bookings dramatically. I went from 3/4VRBO the first year, to 3/4 ABB the second year.

I also book direct though don’t put a lot of energy into marketing and SEO.

I like that VRBO is less intrusive than ABB. In my case, I think I am a little OCD about calendar syncing. I use, and adore, a channel manager. Feel free to PM me if you want details, I would not want it to appear spammy. But some of the advantages of that are instant syncing, I collect the CC payments on VRBO bookings, I control them, I am truly the host, VRBO is merely an OTA and I don’t often have to call into their lackluster CS. Not that ABB is any better, just different. VRBO is useless on CS, ABB is actually interfering and useless :rofl:

A lot will depend on your market. You might search VRBO and see what share of homes in your area are listed. I see half the listings on VRBO in my area than are on ABB, but still it’s 4x as many as when I began!

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As a home-share host, I am very limited as to suitable platforms. VRBO does not list private room home-shares, for instance (they would be wise to, as hosts of all types of listings become fed up with Airbnb’s dastardly ways).

I heard about the platform Go Lightly when they first started up, a platform for female hosts and guests. Male guests can be guests, but booked by and accompanied by the female booker.

I took a cursory look at their website, but never pursued it, as Airbnb was working well for me and they had such a small, niche market.

But a couple of weeks ago, I checked them out and emailed them with some questions about how their site works. I was impressed to get an immediate response from one of their founders, who sent a very nice, very personal, and informative response, answering all of my questions clearly and completely. It was also surprising that she was acquainted with my little tourist town in Mexico and said it is actually one of their most popular destinations. And said she would love it if I listed with them.

Another thing that is attractive to me about them is that in response to my question re whether they tried to push instant book on hosts, like Airbnb does, lowering search ranking if hosts don’t use it, she said that while they do have the instant book option, they actually encourage hosts and guests to communicate before a booking is made, to ensure a good fit, and there are no penalties in the form of lowered rankings for not using IB, nor do they push hosts to offer it.

As a home-share host, I have hosted both males and females, all my guests have been great, so I am not particularly focused on female guests. But I am going to try them out. It seems like I might get more bookings through them than other hosts might, as I only host one guest at a time, and that is pretty much their niche- a safe option for women travelling alone.

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Thank you for your kind words.

I don’t have a contract, but when I get an OwnerRez I think I will if the Host agrees (I am co-Host) At least I’ll test whether it deters bookings in my area.

Hi all,
This was my first year hosting and I listed with vrbo, airbnb, the local version of craigslist, and fb groups. While I received many inquiries through vrbo, all the actual bookings came from airbnb.

I noticed that vrbo allows the listings to be also listed on abritel, and I don’t have the option not to participate in that. The problem with this kind of syndication is that you don’t have any control over how your listing looks. I found there were quite a few inaccurate perceptions or lack of information available to the people inquiring through abritel.

But the main huge problem I have with vrbo is that if for whatever reason you decline a reservation request, you are automatically submerged or hidden in the listings. This makes it difficult to actually have autonomy as a host over choosing which guests you want. I hope airbnb doesn’t also move in this direction of algorhythmic punishments.

Welcome to the forum.

I’ve been hosting 9 years and to my knowledge, Airbnb already does this and always has. They reward hosts who are available. You may not appreciate as a host, but as a guest, it makes sense. It takes a lot of time to read through listings and choose a place and if a host doesn’t have instant book, they have 24 hours to respond. So as a guest I could spend hours choosing the perfect place, and request to book and then be turned down. It’s happened to me once in 10 years and I’m still mad.

Hi KKC,
This is interesting, because I was actually using my listings as market research. I never blocked the calendar at vrbo, even when I had bookings via airbnb, because I wanted to see the reservation requests from vrbo. (Ultimately I learned that the vrbo>abritel people wasted a lot of time asking questions and never made reservation requests.)

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to decline a request, based on the guest’s specifications, or multiple requests at the same time (which we had for the most popular week of the summer), or whatever. There shouldn’t be any expectation that a request will be accepted.

This is a host view, on a narrow situation, and the way you worded your issue, it makes sense. But the algorithm isn’t going to know all those details, it only knows “decline.”

Airbnb has a filter whereby I can search only for properties that have instant book enabled. My first search always filters for superhost and instant book so that I don’t encounter hosts with this business model. As I guest, I have every expectation that a request will be accepted and I expect it to be done quickly. And so does Airbnb.

Here is the info that Airbnb provides on what goes into the algorithm:
How search results work - Airbnb Help Center.

"For listings that are not instantly bookable, the algorithm considers how quickly Hosts respond to guest inquiries and how often Hosts reject requests to book. "
they don’t say they “punish you like VRBO does” but that is what they do.

I find this supremely annoying. So I could spend a lot of time searching, choose your listing, and it would be a complete waste of time because your place isn’t even available? So it seems that you are annoyed to have your time wasted but have no problem wasting the time of a guest.

I don’t like being treated like a lab rat.

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I will not use instant booking. The property is not only a rental but also a home and I like to be able to check out the reviews of the people making inquiries. That being said I have rarely refused guests with only a few exceptions.
During the past years I’ve had a good amount of bookings and returning guests with the exception of this summer. After declining a guest who asked for a 60% discount there has barely been an inquiry and I suspect the listing is on the back burner of Airbnb’s algorithm.

Pardon any typos. Sent from my iPhone

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I suspect it is. And that’s really unfair since no one should have to take someone asking for a discount.

I’m sure I miss out on some nice places, even nicer than what I book. But like it’s not worth it to you to take a guest without checking them out, it’s not worth it to me to waste my time with someone who might decline me, or even discriminate against me.

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We used to be like you and did not take instant booking; it’s also our home.

But understanding that Airbnb understandably promotes listings that do take instant booking, and because we were perhaps not as skillful as some in asking questions nor wishing to be intrusive, we chose instant booking.

We immediately send a confirmation message (scheduled 30 minutes after the reservation so if I see it I can edit it before the message is sent – which is almost always) with the rules we care most about (some of these are also in the pre-booking message you can setup, where we ask for the guest to confirm understanding). If we do notice something about the guest we ask about it right away while we’re still in the free cancellation period (or, if not, we’d permit a total refund if there were a mismatch).

So we’ve gotten instant booking to work, and even though Airbnb has expanded who they let instant book, we wouldn’t go back to non-instant booking because it is convenient, helps us get business and – potentially – works for most Hosts and Guests. YMMV.

I was Airbnb shopping in the Hollywood Bowl area last night and I decided to search without the IB filter on, but with the SH on. I found a place that is well located and submitted my request to book. It was in the middle of the night so of course I don’t expect an instant response, but I expect one today. Not only is it a suitable listing and well located but also $100 a night less than the other nearby one that would have been my choice if I’d used the IB filter.

Edit hours later:

Surprise! Declined. This is why I search with IB filter on. Can we talk about incompetent hosts? Yes, I know there are glitches and they fact that for some strange reason they never happen to me has made me biased. I have been rejected by about 50% of the request to book hosts I have tried to book with. This is a very small sample but I’m disinclined to ever stay with a host that doesn’t instant book.

I’m surprised about the 50% Request declines you’ve experienced. I can see why you’d prefer IB.

If the host is being honest about it being a glitch (which of course she could be lying about, but we also know that hosts do report finding their settings mysteriously changed), wouldn’t it end up being the same if you’d IBed? She’d see she got a booking for 1night, realize there had been a glitch and call Airbnb to have it cancelled?

(I realize that getting declined 50% of the time on requests couldn’t be legitimately attributed to glitches, though.)

If that’s the average percentage that requests get declined for you, who I assume has tons of good reviews, newbies must get declined even more.

As a Request only host who has never declined a request (a few have been withdrawn when they didn’t answer my Covid vax requirement and on questioning, said they weren’t vaxed), I’m sorry that other Request only hosts inconvenience guests like this.

I understand perfectly that convenience is a priority for some hosts and guests when booking. It is not my primary priority, however I do swiftly get back to inquiries. But for me, having that window of being able to check out the reviews of the guests is more important and get some idea of whom I’m letting into my home that I am personally invested in with recent upgrades and renovations. I also actually ask to meet the guests to hand over the key when doable.
Perhaps this is in some ways close to the original idea of Airbnb, but regardless this is what I am most comfortable with.
But I do resent the way IB is pushed by Airbnb, it starts to feel like a form of bullying when not using it lands you at the end of the stack.

I have listed on VRBO for about 7 months but only got 7 bookings disregard I have the same prices as on Airbnb and got a 100% 5-star rating on VRBO. Not sure what I did was wrong. It would be greatly appreciated if anyone could share some suggestions for listing on VRBO.