HomeAway Traveller Service Fee

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
Essar
Posts: 3243
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2011 5:24 pm
Location: Bournemouth
Contact:

HomeAway Traveller Service Fee

Post by Essar »

A letter from Brian Sharples to all owners:-

Letter to Owners and Property Managers from Brian Sharples
Since the launch of the new service fee on HomeAway, I have heard from many of our long-term customers via email. And I’ve been following posts on the subject on social media. Many of you share the same concerns, so it makes sense to respond with an open letter to all concerned customers so you have the opportunity to read my answers to your questions.
I want to let you know that I am listening to your concerns, and every HomeAway employee is committed to making you as successful as possible.
First, I understand that many of you would like more and clearer communication on changes coming to our sites. Despite our attempts at communicating this change in advance, we fell short of your expectations. I take full accountability to make sure we are better on this in the future. Below, I want to explain our rationale for launching a service fee, and tell you a bit about how we plan to incorporate your feedback going forward.
Second, I want to acknowledge that we are in the middle of a huge shift for the industry. The good news is that vacation rentals are now considered a mainstream travel option, but as a result travelers are demanding more from listing sites like HomeAway and VRBO. Our research and experience shows that it is no longer enough for us to just operate an online classified listing site. (I miss the good old days too – believe me.) We know this because properties that are online bookable get chosen at almost double the rate of ones that are not. And our most dissatisfied travelers are complaining louder than ever about listings with inaccurate calendars and offline payment methods that can’t be backed up with online receipts and solid financial protection from our company.
As a result we announced in late 2014 that we would ask all of our owners to make their properties bookable online by the end of 2016. This doesn’t mean you can’t still communicate or negotiate with travelers prior to accepting a booking request, but it does mean that your properties need to be accurately quotable online, calendars need to be maintained, and we need to be able to process the booking through our systems in order to provide the financial guarantees travelers are demanding.
To incentivize our owners to adopt online booking, we have increasingly been favoring online bookable properties in our sort algorithms. It is no secret to any of our owners that a higher position in sort leads to more bookings. We are also rewarding listings in sort when they have higher conversion rates – because a listing that rejects most of its booking or inquiry requests is not a good experience for travelers. Most of the travelers who choose to stop using our sites say it’s because they are frustrated by not being able to find a property that is actually available. This is offset by being able to book the property online so it increases the number of travelers who gravitate to HomeAway listings that are bookable online. Worst case for our customers and HomeAway: travelers leave our sites and go to sites where all properties are already required to be online bookable.
Our #1 goal at HomeAway is to drive more bookings to our owners and property managers. Your success is our success, as it has always been in this business. Every piece of evidence says that the right way to do this, given the demands of the “new” vacation rental consumer, is to do the following:
•Provide transparent price and availability data so travelers can get accurate quotes online
•Back up every transaction with a strong guarantee, instilling trust in new travelers who are unfamiliar with our industry and how it works
•Invest heavily in brand and online marketing to compete with other travel alternatives such as hotels. Now that vacation rentals are mainstream and the category is large, we need to work harder than ever to bring in more travelers
•Protect the rights of owners to rent their homes on a short-term basis. We are currently fighting battles in dozens of cities and investing millions of dollars to maintain your ability to rent out your home to guests.
So why did we launch a service fee?
The biggest motivation was to better accomplish the things I’ve mentioned above. Today, our subscription customers pay us roughly 3% of the revenue we generate for them while our major competitors charge 6-15% (mostly in service fees). We’ve always been proud to be the lowest cost solution for renting your home. But we simply can’t provide the level of marketing and service that today’s travelers expect without asking travelers to also pay a fee for the service we provide.
Many owners have asked me if our fee was motivated by greed. The reality is that we’re re-investing the majority of this money into marketing to bring in more travelers (we nearly doubled marketing spend with the introduction of this fee) and to provide true financial guarantees that can protect and help travelers who have bad experiences from using our sites. And we’re also more than doubling our investment in government relations efforts to continue fighting for the rights of property owners all over the world.
With that said, let me address some of the other things I’ve heard in the letters and posts from our owners and managers:
“The new fee represents double-dipping because we’re charging both the owner and the traveler” – In our marketplace there are two people that benefit: travelers and owners. Going forward, we are asking both sides to bear some of the cost for the service we provide, and research shows us that travelers do not see the fee as a barrier to booking.
“The combination of the new fee and what you already charge is too much” – We hear you on this. With the launch of the service fee, we did take down the rates charged to our suppliers for our pay-per-booking listing product (and our subscribers are always welcome to choose that option). In April we will announce a new long-term plan for subscribers that we believe is more balanced than what we have today. This will be based on our research leading into the launch, the data we are observing from this launch, and also will include the feedback we’ve been receiving.
“Travelers won’t pay these fees and they will choke off bookings” – I can completely understand this fear, in fact, I had that worry, too. So we did a lot of research and testing before launching this fee, which is already charged at even higher rates by our two largest competitors in the United States. We’ve processed tens of thousands of bookings in just the last few days with a service fee. Early data tells us that the fee has not been a meaningful deterrent for travelers making a booking on our sites. We will be carefully studying how these fees impact bookings at different pricing levels, and adjustments may be made in the coming weeks. The booking data we’re seeing supports our belief that this fee will not have a meaningful negative impact for the vast majority of our customers.
“By simply calling it a ‘service fee’ on the site the travelers don’t know who is actually charging them.” – The community is right about this and we hear you. We’ll be adding language to the sites to let travelers know the service fee is being paid to us, and will clearly spell out the extra guarantees that come along with booking online.
“I’m better off dropping online booking, even though it is what you asked me to do.” – Many of you are justifiably concerned that non-online bookable properties now look cheaper on the site. And you may think switching back to the “old way” will make you more competitive. I completely understand the point here, but it would not be the right move for your rental business, because the benefits of sort would completely outweigh any short-term benefit of opting out of online booking. The fact is that all online bookable listings are advantaged in sort order. And our sort algorithms going forward will be incorporating booking history and booking conversion as a factor in determining search position. Simply put – the more and higher frequency of online bookings you do, the better you’ll perform on our sites over the long term.
I hope this explanation was helpful, and I appreciate that many of you are nervous and still quite concerned. I also want to acknowledge again that I could have done a better job of communicating our rationale up front. Please know I am listening to your concerns, and we will take them into account as we design our new pricing plan to be announced in April. And rest assured that if we see a meaningful decline in bookings from the fee, we will make adjustments to get it right. But at the moment bookings are flowing at a very good pace (consistent with booking volumes before launch of the fee), and I should also note that most of the calls made to customer service have been from owners, not the travelers paying the actual fee.
Please continue to write and provide input. Again I’m sorry I can’t answer everyone’s email personally. But I will read them and come back in a few days with a post to answer other questions that are consistent from our community. In the meantime I ask you to please bear with us through these changes and evaluate our service as you always have – based on the business we deliver to you over the next several months and years.
Thank you,
Brian Sharples
Co-Founder and CEO
"Write something, even if it's just a suicide note"
"There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise"
"As for my amnesia, I've had it as long as I can remember"
Real name: Steve
Gender: Male
User avatar
Nemo
Posts: 7062
Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2008 10:15 am
Location: Norfolk

Re: HomeAway Traveller Service Fee

Post by Nemo »

This doesn’t mean you can’t still communicate or negotiate with travelers prior to accepting a booking request, but it does mean that your properties need to be accurately quotable online, calendars need to be maintained, and we need to be able to process the booking through our systems in order to provide the financial guarantees travelers are demanding.

Our #1 goal at HomeAway is to drive more bookings to our owners and property managers. Your success is our success, as it has always been in this business. Every piece of evidence says that the right way to do this, given the demands of the “new” vacation rental consumer, is to do the following:
Provide transparent price and availability data so travelers can get accurate quotes online
•Back up every transaction with a strong guarantee, instilling trust in new travelers who are unfamiliar with our industry and how it works
Well that would be excellent if their system could reflect our pricing methods. They can't though and they never will. I don't offer flexible booking in the peak season, I have two fixed changeover days, I do offer two night stays but at a three night price, I may accept a five night booking on a different changeover day in the winter months and so on and so on.

I know you've worked out the system Essar and I so wish I could do the same but I can't. It either ends up priced too low, so people enquire but then get a shock, but if priced too high they simply don't enquire. I really don't know where I'm going to end up after all their changes are made.
tavi
Posts: 2578
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2011 9:07 pm
Location: Algarve

Post by tavi »

VRBO/HA in the US where the service fee was rolled out last week - owners (and guests) are not very happy at all:
https://www.facebook.com/SayNotoVRBO/?fref=ts - this is the open group - there is also a closed group.

There's also a lot of annoyed people on the Tripadvisor forum - google VRBO SERVICE FEE.
Essar
Posts: 3243
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2011 5:24 pm
Location: Bournemouth
Contact:

Re: HomeAway Traveller Service Fee

Post by Essar »

Nemo wrote:Well that would be excellent if their system could reflect our pricing methods. They can't though and they never will. I don't offer flexible booking in the peak season, I have two fixed changeover days, I do offer two night stays but at a three night price, I may accept a five night booking on a different changeover day in the winter months and so on and so on.

I know you've worked out the system Essar and I so wish I could do the same but I can't. It either ends up priced too low, so people enquire but then get a shock, but if priced too high they simply don't enquire. I really don't know where I'm going to end up after all their changes are made.
The problem we all have is that we have traditionally sorted out a way of pricing, changeovers and date range seasons to suit ourselves, the locale and the competition for a similar property(ies) nearby. The listing sites just don't have the functionality to match the dozens of different ways owners apply their tariffs.

They have opted for the nightly and weekly format to cover as many owners needs as possible. Yes some of them have different rates for weekend nights, minimum stays and arrival/departure days, but often they may apply these differently.

I abandoned my traditional way of pricing a long time ago and adapted my tariff to reflect the majority of the listing sites formats. I too had dual changeovers - Monday & Friday with a minimum 3-night stay. This gave the opportunity to have a Monday 4-night stay, In the peak season I just allowed 7-Night stays with a Friday changeover.

All gone - all I do now is have a peak season with a minimum 7-night stay with a Saturday changeover. Off-peak is a minimum 3-night stay with a flexible changeover. For half-terms & easter I up the minimum stay to 4-nights but leave flexible changeover day. I set my weekends to F/S/Sun and have a different rate for these nights.

Although, not what I really want it does work and fit most sites. I have to tweak Fridays through the calendars on sites where they don't allow Friday or Sunday in a weekend.

I completely ignore traveller service fee/booking fee issues as I believe these will just become a standard across the board - whose left that isn't planning to introduce them sometime soon (I predict BC will be next)?

The HA issue that is currently boiling over the interweb will be last weeks news in a couple of months. Maybe a large number of properties will walk away or be pushed but all that will do is get rid of the properties HA/VRBO/OD don't want anyway.

Lifes too short to worry about this issue - my bookings are coming in as usual - I know I have always said we should adapt to survive, it's always harder to change how you work because the world is running away from you and you resent the changes because they are just that, changes you don't want to have to deal with. I can understand why some owners want to pack it in, but I have a few more years in me yet.

My best sites are HA/OD and BC. HL since the TA upgrade has just fell off the planet.
"Write something, even if it's just a suicide note"
"There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise"
"As for my amnesia, I've had it as long as I can remember"
Real name: Steve
Gender: Male
newtimber
Posts: 1945
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:57 pm
Location: Brighton
Contact:

Re: HomeAway Traveller Service Fee

Post by newtimber »

Essar wrote: All gone - all I do now is have a peak season with a minimum 7-night stay with a Saturday changeover. Off-peak is a minimum 3-night stay with a flexible changeover. For half-terms & easter I up the minimum stay to 4-nights but leave flexible changeover day. I set my weekends to F/S/Sun and have a different rate for these nights.
This is fine if your cleaners can work any day of the week including Sundays. Most can't or don't want to.
User avatar
kevsboredagain
Posts: 3207
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 9:32 am
Location: France
Contact:

Post by kevsboredagain »

I notice he justifies the fees by quoting a subscription example of 3% of revenue. So for a £300 subscription I would expect £10,000 i revenue just from that site. Dream on! I have never achieved anywhere near that proportion.

My advertising costs are close to 10% and an additional 10% fee effectively forces owners to reduce their prices to compensate. For one of my properties this makes it an nonviable business unless I can obtain most of my bookings elsewhere.

I wish I could increase my rates by 10% and then tell my guests, in a patronising way, it's really a benefit in disguise. I'm sure they would just suck it up.
Bunny
Posts: 3387
Joined: Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:48 pm
Location: South of England

Re: HomeAway Traveller Service Fee

Post by Bunny »

Nemo wrote:
This doesn’t mean you can’t still communicate or negotiate with travelers prior to accepting a booking request, but it does mean that your properties need to be accurately quotable online, calendars need to be maintained, and we need to be able to process the booking through our systems in order to provide the financial guarantees travelers are demanding.

Our #1 goal at HomeAway is to drive more bookings to our owners and property managers. Your success is our success, as it has always been in this business. Every piece of evidence says that the right way to do this, given the demands of the “new” vacation rental consumer, is to do the following:
Provide transparent price and availability data so travelers can get accurate quotes online
•Back up every transaction with a strong guarantee, instilling trust in new travelers who are unfamiliar with our industry and how it works
Well that would be excellent if their system could reflect our pricing methods. They can't though and they never will. I don't offer flexible booking in the peak season, I have two fixed changeover days, I do offer two night stays but at a three night price, I may accept a five night booking on a different changeover day in the winter months and so on and so on.

I know you've worked out the system Essar and I so wish I could do the same but I can't. It either ends up priced too low, so people enquire but then get a shock, but if priced too high they simply don't enquire. I really don't know where I'm going to end up after all their changes are made.
I had an traveller advert email from OD the other day and the small print under the photographs said:
"Prices correct as at 13/02/2016 for a week starting 6/6/2016. Easter prices correct for week starting 21/03/2016. May bank holiday prices correct for week starting 30/5/2016."
That's a bit of a wild statement and false advertising IMO. We (hosts) all know that prices are most definitely not always correct across the site. Sorry Brian, but you are definitely not listening and clearly think that OD is above the law.
User avatar
PW in Polemi
Posts: 1781
Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2012 5:23 am
Location: A village in Paphos, Cyprus

Post by PW in Polemi »

sorry - duplication :oops:
Last edited by PW in Polemi on Tue Mar 01, 2016 9:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
Dogs have masters. Cats have slaves!
Zorba
Posts: 200
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 6:41 am
Location: Agios Dimitrianos Paphos Cyprus
Contact:

Post by Zorba »

I have not got that letter -yet. We have recently paid a subscription for another year.

So we did a test booking (we have online booking but not online payments enabled) To our surprise HA have changed our deposit from 30% to 50% and are offering a full refund up to 30 days before arrival. Given that flights to Cyprus get very expensive at short notice we would not be able to let any such cancellation.

We have a tried and tested contract and one HA are not going to re-write for us. (heavens HA will have us owners just making the bed and repairing the damages soon).

I also know that arguing with a big American corporation will just put up my blood pressure. So I just added this on "additional terms that holiday makers need to know"

Changeover day is flexible. Arrival from 2pm to midnight (delayed flights excepted). Departure time 10am. Guaranteed late check-out (up to 10pm) £30 - if available. Booking Deposit of 30% non refundable. 70% plus damages deposit due 8 weeks before arrival. Cancellation refund after the final payment is the full damages deposit plus any weeks the owners have been able to secure alternative rental for, less any expenses.
An easy to read booking contract is sent by email. Payment in Sterling into owners' UK bank account, BACS preferred. Breakages deposit held in UK bank account and returned wherever possible within 24 hours of departure. Our terms supersede any standard terms offered by our advertising agents Home Away or subsidiaries. It is Important you read and understand our contract before making any payment.


So lets see what happens now.
newtimber
Posts: 1945
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:57 pm
Location: Brighton
Contact:

Post by newtimber »

Zorba wrote:So I just added this on "additional terms that holiday makers need to know"
I don't think that is going to work. If you go straight to the book it now page, you don't see this - all you see is under the rental terms is that the cancellation policy is 100% refund if cancelled within 30 days and it is those terms that they have ticked that they agree to.

Having paid my money under those terms and also paid for HA's insurance policy, I wouldn't be at all happy if you tried to change them. The place where they put your additional terms is very well hidden - you have to look under "prices" and then view "all prices" which most people wouldn't think of doing.
Zorba
Posts: 200
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 6:41 am
Location: Agios Dimitrianos Paphos Cyprus
Contact:

Post by Zorba »

I think you miss the point New timber

We take online bookings (which in effect means nothing) you can refuse as we did a couple of weeks ago. We tell the guests to read the contract first and they are have been surprised the deposit is less.
Only when Mr Guest accepts the contract do we ask them to pay the deposit. The Contract clearly states that by making a deposit payment signifies agreement to our contract.

While I don't ever think it would come down to a legal dispute - an actual contract between 2 named parties would take precedence over a quote by a 3rd party - in this case HA .
Additionally our own website is featured on the HA site giving out T&C's. A conflict between HA who are only misinformed agents and the owners.
We will see how it goes. :D
Ps Paying HA's insurance policy is nothing to do with us - it is between the guest and HA. We just cannot be dragged into a contract we are not part of.
newtimber
Posts: 1945
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:57 pm
Location: Brighton
Contact:

Post by newtimber »

Zorba wrote:I think you miss the point New timber

We take online bookings (which in effect means nothing) you can refuse as we did a couple of weeks ago.
I think what I was trying to say is that for some properties, the rental agreement is available for download on the booking page and the guest has to accept it by ticking a box before they give their details and make any payment. Your property doesn't seem to have this for some reason, but I would have thought it would be a good idea to put it there if you can.

For example https://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/accommod ... id=3348325 if you put in dates and do a book now, you can see what I mean.
Zorba
Posts: 200
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 6:41 am
Location: Agios Dimitrianos Paphos Cyprus
Contact:

Post by Zorba »

New Timber

That has been really really helpful - thank you.

The ability to change the standard HA to our own house rules was certainly not obvious. After about 5 minutes of searching the HA site, we did find the relevant page to insert our own terms and upload a draft contract.

We have done this now and are grateful for you pointing it out because it is certainly not obvious. There may be others who have missed this and I would recommend everyone with HA or OD checking their listing.

Thanks again - you learn something every day. :D :D
FelicityA
Posts: 2816
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2010 2:54 pm
Location: Cotswolds
Contact:

Post by FelicityA »

Zorba wrote:New Timber

That has been really really helpful - thank you.

The ability to change the standard HA to our own house rules was certainly not obvious. After about 5 minutes of searching the HA site, we did find the relevant page to insert our own terms and upload a draft contract.

We have done this now and are grateful for you pointing it out because it is certainly not obvious. There may be others who have missed this and I would recommend everyone with HA or OD checking their listing.

Thanks again - you learn something every day. :D :D
I am not surprised you found it difficult to get to this page.The ability to actually ACCESS the page in settings where you can upload your rental agreement changes daily with me! One time I go in through settings and online booking has been switched on without me doing anything. Frequently at the same time (greyed out wording) I can't get into the page for adding the agreement and altering the cancellation terms. Not that I want to keep changing them ( I might though) but it drives me mad. I switch off online booking when I can but often that ACCESS is greyed out too. I am jumping up and down in frustration and anger because they are quite clearly setting up their systems ready to funnel all those who have been foolish enough (moi for example) to add details of alternative payment through their service fee collection. 5 emails now to them and one useless reply. I am being ignored.
User avatar
roxytoo
Posts: 1701
Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2005 8:23 am
Location: Spain Costa Blanca

Post by roxytoo »

They are now rolling it out to be called VRBO service fee or Homeaway service fee
Post Reply