Important updates to the Owners Direct Booking Platform

[jafa]

I did have OB and couldn't see any info. They told me to see the info to come off OB. Bollo..., they lied, I still cant

[jafa]

Important updates to the HomeAway Booking Platform

Dear Steven,

Last year, we transitioned to a booking platform. Since then, we have continued to evolve and improve to support the needs of travellers, owners and managers. Here's what you need to know about recent and upcoming changes we are making to support this transition.

• Online booking: In the near future, online booking will be required when you list on HomeAway. Owners and property managers who have not yet enrolled in online booking will receive more information when it becomes applicable to them.

• Messaging through the HomeAway platform: All pre-booking enquiries and responses will be facilitated through HomeAway’s secure messaging platform. You can message back and forth with travellers as you do today, but phone numbers, links and emails will be hidden in the messages. Contact details will continue to be available in your dashboard after a booking is accepted. Keeping communications and bookings on HomeAway helps to protect you and travellers from phishing and other fraud.

• Auto-declines hidden from search results: If a booking request for one of your properties is auto-declined because a traveller has not received a confirmation or decline in 24 hours, we may proactively hide the property in search results to help preserve your search ranking. You can easily un-hide the property when you are available again.

• House Rules for your property: A new House Rules feature allows you to set policies for what is permitted when someone stays in your property. Travellers will be asked to agree to your House Rules before they can send a booking request.

• $1M liability insurance: When a traveller books and pays through HomeAway checkout, the reservation automatically includes $1 million USD in primary liability insurance. This new program helps to protect you against claims related to traveller injury or damage to another person’s property. There is no added cost to you.

What’s coming next

We’ve heard your feedback about wanting to know your travellers. We’re working on enhancing traveller profiles, and we will continue to keep you posted about these and other updates.

Kind regards,
The HomeAway UK team

So they are saying they've heard our feedback about wanting to know our travellers, but have disabled the facility for us doing so.

[COYS]

For those worried by compulsory OB, the following from Owners Indirect today

"We do appreciate your feedback. Please be advised that the secure online booking will not be automatically opted in and it will only become mandatory at renewal. We would like to clarify that the service fee covers cost of other services" .........zzzzzzzzzz!

So, if you have some time left on your non OB/OP subs you're safe - for now. Best get started on those contingency plans though.

[amandajane]

I've said this before, but I'm quite sure that their ultimate aim will be to insist on "instant booking". We will then have no control whatsoever over who stays and whether they are really a suitable match for our properties - or whether we even want them in our property!

Airbnb are already encouraging it as well as applying their pricing algorithm. No doubt they will want to discount odd empty days to a level that means an actual loss to to the owner after costs such as cleaning are taken into account.

[apexblue]

Can you switch off OB?

[jafa]

Just been on to CA. They say I should ring the European Consumer Centre (as the company is swiss registered) and report them under the Supply of goods and services act 1982 01268 886690 maybe if we all done it, theyd soon have to change

[terrerouge]

just looked at my last enquriy - no e-mail address nor telephone number showing, and I don't have online booking as far as I know. But then I also did not have auto renewal set up, and that was slipped in... definitely a dodgy business model!!

[SPJ]

For those of you who have yet to renew and have not activated the "book now" button, I suggest you go into your OD inbox, click on every enquirer (which brings up their details) and download their email address and telephone number while you still can.

[Boomhulay]

• Messaging through the HomeAway platform: All pre-booking enquiries and responses will be facilitated through HomeAway’s secure messaging platform. You can message back and forth with travellers as you do today, but phone numbers, links and emails will be hidden in the messages. Contact details will continue to be available in your dashboard after a booking is accepted. Keeping communications and bookings on HomeAway helps to protect you and travellers from phishing and other fraud.

That statement is totally opposite! Without knowing any real details about people who ask to book, there is no way to screen them. We've not had to turn many bookings down, but when we have it's been for reasons that protect our property from abuse. This was only possible because we could check out email addresses and names and on one occasion, within minutes of an (apparently)innocent enquiry for a guy and his cousins, I could see on his twitter feed that he was boasting he'd found a great 'crib for da next house party'!

Now we'll be expected to accept all bookings, then try to check out who is actually staying and why. If we then decline the booking, we'll get buried at the bottom of the listings!
I wondered if this was the reason airbnb adopted this policy, in the guise of anti racism, but in reality as a means to increase their revenue by insisting owners accept every booking.
All the websites bought by Expedia will go the same way, because they're running them like hotel booking sites and not holiday rentals, which is a far more personal business.

At the moment, most of our bookings still come via those websites, but I'm not sure about the future.

[terrerouge]

I've just spoken to someone at HA and have been told that they will not be making the guest details available to me, despite the fact that I do not have online booking enabled. That was "hidden" to protect the privacy of the prospective guest and myself, apparently. It sounds as though the guy had been fielding calls from disgruntled advertisers - he certainly knew how to reply! As to the fact that they are changing the contracts as they wish, he said that 'they' would have looked into that before doing it. So basically, HA will do what they want when they want, and never mind what the advertisers want!! Buyer beware!!

[The Olive Grove]

"I would like to give you a more detailed reply privately, but the HomeAway portal does not make your email address or telephone number available to me until after a booking is confirmed, nor mine to you. Many owners are unhappy about this, as we like to build up a relationship with potential guests. If you are happy to communicate with me outside of the HomeAway portal please email me at "xxx at yyyy.zz" - suitably corrected of course."

Above is the text I used in my reply to an enquiry this morning. I think I will save this as a standard reply.

[zebedee]

broomhulay wrote

boasting he'd found a great 'crib for da next house party'!

My blood has just run cold. Ahhhh!!!!

[Mouse]

"I would like to give you a more detailed reply privately, but the HomeAway portal does not make your email address or telephone number available to me until after a booking is confirmed, nor mine to you. Many owners are unhappy about this, as we like to build up a relationship with potential guests. If you are happy to communicate with me outside of the HomeAway portal please email me at "xxx at yyyy.zz" - suitably corrected of course."

Above is the text I used in my reply to an enquiry this morning. I think I will save this as a standard reply.

Good reply OG. I would add 'due to the service fee they charge you' to the 1st sentence.

Terrerouge....how do they expect you to move to a booking if they hide the details and don't have OB? Are you still being blocked if you ask for their email address in your reply?

Mousie
x

[The Olive Grove]

"I would like to give you a more detailed reply privately, but the HomeAway portal does not make your email address or telephone number available to me until after a booking is confirmed, nor mine to you. Many owners are unhappy about this, as we like to build up a relationship with potential guests. If you are happy to communicate with me outside of the HomeAway portal please email me at "xxx at yyyy.zz" - suitably corrected of course."

Above is the text I used in my reply to an enquiry this morning. I think I will save this as a standard reply.

Good reply OG. I would add 'due to the service fee they charge you' to the 1st sentence.

Terrerouge....how do they expect you to move to a booking if they hide the details and don't have OB? Are you still being blocked if you ask for their email address in your reply?

Mousie
x

Very good suggestion Mouse - I will add that and make it a template.

[Nemo]

If you put your email address in the reply surely it will simply get screened out? It's what all other commission portals do - TA, HL, ebay and more. You need to be extremely creative to communicate how to reach you within the confines of a messaging system.