The truth, at last - OD is NOT an advertising platform!

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
Tremewan
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Jan 07, 2014 11:35 am
Location: Yorkshire Dales

The truth, at last - OD is NOT an advertising platform!

Post by Tremewan »

Having spent a considerable time on their online chat facility, I finally got an OD representative to admit the following :
"Please note, however, that Owners Direct has transitioned form (sic) an advertising platform to a booking platform and all of the bookings should be done online." Well, although we've always suspected as much, I just wish they'd come clean before I last renewed my subscription!

Incidentally, I've been employing various subterfuges to give enquirers my contact details since the latest "hiding" of their details. The best one at the moment seems to be spelling out my phone number, which seems to fool their auto-censoring software. Anybody got other tricks that work?
e-richard
Posts: 5008
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 11:33 am
Location: Algarve, Portugal
Contact:

Re: The truth, at last - OD is NOT an advertising platform!

Post by e-richard »

Tremewan wrote:I just wish they'd come clean before I last renewed my subscription!
Expedia bought HomeAway in November 2015.
OwnersDirect is part of HomeAway
Expedia announced publicly that ALL bookings were to be done via the new conglomerate websites. It was well covered here on LMH and various other forums, blogs and Facebook groups

Yes, there was an outcry and yes, it took a while to implement, and yes, we all hoped and wished it would not happen, but I do not think that 2 years notice is really hiding the truth !
** Richard
PIMS: Holiday Rental Management system
They say we learn from our mistakes. That makes me a genius !
Drax
Posts: 185
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2016 4:36 pm
Location: Yorkshire Dales

Re: The truth, at last - OD is NOT an advertising platform!

Post by Drax »

[ Anybody got other tricks that work?[/quote]

As a previous subscriber to Owners Direct my 'trick' was to 'ditch' this dreadful company.
Keep your powder dry.
Tremewan
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Jan 07, 2014 11:35 am
Location: Yorkshire Dales

Re: The truth, at last - OD is NOT an advertising platform!

Post by Tremewan »

e-richard wrote:It was well covered here on LMH and various other forums, blogs and Facebook groups
The atrocious behaviour of OD over the past couple of years has indeed been well covered and discussed on forums, however the most recent disgusting behaviour whereby OD will not allow paid up owners to view the contact details of prospective guests was totally unknown to me in advance.

Your reference to LMH and other forums, blogs and Facebook groups, together with your "e-richard" alias shows that you obviously spend a lot of time online. I'm afraid some of us have real lives to lead (not to say say real jobs, as well) and cannot spare the time to browse every piece of electronic chit-chat that is flying around the ether.

As owners we should all be fighting the bully boys together (rather than criticising other owners). We should be putting our full support with those newbie companies that are daring to put their money where mouth is (such as Simply Owners) and are actually generating some real business. I have had many enquiries from SO and several firm bookings through them, so will be letting my (3) OD subscriptions lapse when they become due for renewal.
Hells Bells
Posts: 13173
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 8:42 am
Location: French Alps
Contact:

Post by Hells Bells »

What makes you think e-richard doesn't have a 'real job'? Browsing electronic 'chit-chat' may even be part of it. As he runs a web-based system for managing holiday rentals, I would jolly well hope he was online, and keeping his finger on the button. You imply that being online is a waste of time and not part of the real world. I think you need to join the 21st century. To run a successful holiday rental business these days you have to embrace change and start to use these useful tools.
COYS
Posts: 795
Joined: Sat Jun 06, 2015 1:24 pm
Location: Greek Islands

Post by COYS »

The writing really has been on the wall for a long time Tremewan but I fully understand & share your frustration/anger at both the behaviour of the US giants & the gradual shift in acceptance of their ground rules by the owner community.
However I’m afraid the tired old debate about embracing change or being a dinosaur will forever rage on. Whilst I don’t buy into the ethos that becoming an anonymous 3rd party US commodity is the best way forward, increasing number of owners will & have embraced these apparent technological ‘advances’ & punitive terms on a dubious promise of full calendars. Personally I see no future in being continually manipulated by pressure monopolies & fear that long term the squeeze on owners will really be applied once they have sufficient compliant numbers on board & therefore reliant upon them. Maybe it will all work out fine for those devotees, or maybe the fees, search criteria, booking terms, cashflow will also succumb to a future model. who knows?

Over the years we have had many a heated debate on this forum - some of us are & always will be at opposing ends of the OTA divide. But opinion is the one thing we are all still entitled to, so rage on & rage loud I say. It may help to vent your frustration, either gain you moral support or criticism but you will still end up with a simple choice to make - comply with their rules & learn to live with it or walk away & throw your support behind other channels.
This time next year Rodney, we'll be millionaires.
Tremewan
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Jan 07, 2014 11:35 am
Location: Yorkshire Dales

Post by Tremewan »

Hells Bells wrote:I think you need to join the 21st century.
OK, Hells Bells, trading insults won't get us anywhere. Of course I use the internet - I wouldn't be on here if I didn't, but what I object to is the likes of OD telling us that they know our business better than we do. Insisting that only they are allowed to take bookings for our properties is outrageous - particularly when we pay a fee to generate contact with potential guests. I've already made my decision to leave OD/HA. It doesn't mean I have to refrain from criticizing sharp practice, though.
AndrewH
Posts: 1499
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2013 1:17 pm
Location: Kefalonia, Greece
Contact:

Post by AndrewH »

BOOKING: Charges guests a large percentage sum for bookings made through their site
ADVERTISING: No such fee is payable
~
BOOKING: Takes and keeps rent payments made by guests for a defined length of time – maybe more than a year
ADVERTISING: Does not ever hold guests’ rent payments
~
BOOKING: Charges owners a commission for releasing the owner’s own funds to an owner
ADVERTISING: No such charge
~
BOOKING: Will not allow owners and guests to make direct contact with each other, either by telephone or private email, until the booking fee has been paid
ADVERTISING: Encourages direct contact from the start
~
BOOKING: Will not permit owners to advertise a website for their particular property
ADVERTISING: Welcomes the advertising of an owner’s website
~
BOOKING: Hides an owner’s listing on a whim without recompense
ADVERTISING: Will only hide a listing for a responsible reason

There's a list of differences between booking platforms and advertising platforms and I doubt that it is complete. The differences are so great that only the most unethical and financially immoral agency would fail to inform their existing and established customers in writing of the change, before they took their customers' subscription payments. I fully agree with Tremewan's initial post.
Nigel Goodwin
Posts: 707
Joined: Thu Apr 04, 2013 3:50 pm
Location: Newquay Cornwall
Contact:

Post by Nigel Goodwin »

AndrewH wrote: There's a list of differences between booking platforms and advertising platforms and I doubt that it is complete.
Yes, and once you change from advertising to booking, there are many necessary consequences.
jafa
Posts: 88
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2017 2:08 pm
Location: Kirchberg in tirol
Contact:

Post by jafa »

Ive just been looking up the "guarantee" that the booking fee gives.
Strangely, one of the conditions before payment in the event of a claim is proof of identity checks. Something that they are denying us to get before we accept bookings

I suspect if someone with deep pockets were to take them to task over it, theyd have to change as how can we be forced to accept a reservation under terms that they themselves wouldn't even pay out under.
Jafa
Ecosse
Posts: 812
Joined: Thu May 29, 2014 10:40 pm
Location: Saint Gervais les Bains, France
Contact:

Post by Ecosse »

[quote="

I suspect if someone with deep pockets were to take them to task over it, theyd have to change as how can we be forced to accept a reservation under terms that they themselves wouldn't even pay out under.[/quote]

Good point: in this age of terrorism (and its not all paranoia... a cell planning an attack who were using a holiday chalet in the depths of the Trossachs were arrested a few years ago), it is our duty to know who is staying. However, as individuals, it would be difficult for us to take the big sites to task. I wonder if this is something the police or local administration in our respective countries would be interested in tackling? Big sites have backed down when faced with pressure from communities/countries before (BC can no longer force owners in France to display their cheapest price on their site, for example, after the French government stepped in) so it may work. Any ideas, anyone?
ManxRed1
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2016 9:52 am
Location: Polperro, Cornwall, UK

Post by ManxRed1 »

OD appear to be a booking portal. But they know they cannot fully achieve this. Witness what happens the moment a booking goes wrong; they advise the guest to sort it out with the owner and refuse to get involved. They are powerless to resolve booking anomalies and they know it.

It simply suits them to be a booking platform, it enables them add on spurious charges in order to swell profits (and provide a return for the stupid money Expedia's shareholders forked out on it). They can never actually function as a booking platform because they don't control the properties.

Witness their cut and paste responses on Trustpilot. If someone complains about one thing they respond that they cannot be held liable as they are only an advertising platform, and when another complains about something else then they cannot be held liable as they are a booking platform.

They are now, by choice, neither.
Post Reply