Lay My Hat

Excellent analysis Oldhacker & has long been my view that the 'one size fits all' mantra so coveted by the OTA's fails to consider differing regional regulations & laws across the private rental sector. They will have little interest in this until it bites them on the bum like Uber, Ryanair...

Ive already contacted Trading Standards in the UK. As they are a Swiss registered company, they weren't interested. Hi Jafa - they are not a Swiss registered company. From their website and T&C's: The operations of HomeAway in Europe are managed by HomeAway UK Limited of Level 25, Portland Hous...

There is an irony to a company called Owners Direct not letting you communicate directly with an owner. For the 4 big listing sites, or OTAs as they are called now, they will do whatever they want to maximise profit. Until such point as people vote with their feet. Which won't happen for now becaus...

I'm curious - how do owners vet people based on their contact details? All I do is ask (through the messaging system) what kind of group they are (family, couple etc) and why they are visiting, if they haven't already provided that information, which they usually do. I also ask for the names (and a...

This is a grey area. According to Visit Britain as a self-catering accommodation provider you can discriminate on grounds of age only if you can objectively justify it, for example "if you can show evidence of problems they have had with that age group in the recent past or where other provide...

Vetting is all very well but on what grounds do you legally bar someone from booking? I don't think you can block someone without being discriminatory - young people have rights too. Hi Paolo - vetting potential guests to verify that they are suitable for your property / community is completely dif...

There is an interesting review on Trustpilot which raises the legal implications of HA/OD, as an advertising listing site rather than agent, preventing pre-booking vetting of prospective renters by owners - https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.homeaway.co.uk I know in the area of Cornwall where our ...

I did not renew with HA/OD in July but received the following email in August which suggests that Yapstone (HRP) has been ditched and that they are now handling payments in house. Has anyone else seen this or have any idea what has happened? I have not seen any other comment on it. Your payments acc...

I just share my findings on Trustpilot and was interested to see that the line Owners Direct is also stating - 'Our records do not show that the service fee has been a deterrent to travellers booking.' in its responses to reviews. If the evidence on here and on Trustpilot is anywhere near accurate t...

I am sure OD/HA will be trying to come up with ways to reduce 'leakage'. As per the table in my opening posts my bookings through them have dropped off a cliff since the service fee was introduced. OD / HA only need a couple of booking through their sites a year for my cottage to maintain their reve...

There has been much concern expressed over the impact the imposition of the traveller service fee and other changes Expedia have made to Homeaway / Owners Direct will have on bookings. I now have some hard numbers and my fears are being confirmed. I advertise a single cottage in North Cornwall on HA...

The following message is now appearing on my HA owner dashboard - For subscription listings, your phone number will be moving from the listing page to the confirmation pages. This means that all of your conversations with travellers will be in one place, and it will be easier to get credit for your ...

Given that it seems a lot of HA inventory is agencies, and my instinct is that this will increase, it would be fascinating to know what kinds of agreements there are between HA and agencies, particularly large agencies. We will probably never know, non-disclosure etc. It would be fascinating indeed...

This appears to be a feature currently only offered to PM's. There are 26,547 UK properties listed on OD of which 12,487 are listed by PM's. Of these 6,682 have the 'Book it now without waiting' feature enabled and most of these are listed by Sykes Cottages. Sykes Cottages have 7,123 UK properties ...

I don't think there's much wrong with 'random' search results as such. So long as the requested filters & search parameters are correctly applied at point of search, the potential guest should get a good choice of properties to browse in an area of their choosing, within the desired price range...