Lay My Hat

I think it's time for a little update on what I'm up to... You already know StaySavr? If not, please look it up. It is the nemesis of homeawry and it's been around now for about 20 months. Although it works well, there are not enough people who know about it for it to make a real difference. It is p...

As well as reporting to the Police, I think you need to report it to ActionFraud. Police don't like fraud because it takes a huge investigative resource. ActionFraud is also police, but it coordinates reports of fraud and identifies patterns. Then they go after the fraudsters who are causing the mos...

that's interesting, Little Villa. I would be inclined to actually send an enquiry and see what happens. You never know, you might be able to book your own villa through a long string of intermediaries! I haven't had a single enquiry through either Everystay or Hometogo yet, as far as I know - and I'...

We don't list with any other big listings but it seems you can independently sign up to Everystay dot com - it appears to be the only other Hometogo partner that fits our situation. Has anyone signed up to Everystay? I've just signed up with Everystay as an experiment. The one and only reason for d...

Mmmbobby wrote:I got a booking request from TA this morning telling me I could earn £173.20 for two people for three nights. Meanwhile quoting the guests £326. Greedy TA

Are you sure that the 326 doesn't include the security deposit?

Giraffe wrote:Thanks Igor. Did you have a large G&T when you paid? I think I would have 2!

Igor drinks only vodka, while playing the Volga Boatman on the volynka.

Giraffe wrote:Igor, just seen your post. From your experience it would seem that TA subscription works much better than OD's, although TA's commission bookings take a much higher % than OD. How much is the current TA subscription please?

It was about £1 change from £600. Gulp!

Apologies. I read it as Greedy HA, not Greedy TA. I think it's a word-association thing. I should do more reading and less writing. Much less. It's with HA that we are on commission and raise the price to cover commission etc. On TA we are on subscription. It's a big subscription but at least they p...

We get the odd enquiry. Almost all have been from overseas, so we are getting presence in areas that our other marketing doesn't cover so well. We inflate our prices to cover the commission. We subtly offer about 20% off for direct booking. Of those who go on to book about 75% do it direct. So overa...

I thought I'd have a look at what Bing does with accommodation searches. I've no idea why I thought that but I did it. It does something very similar. But it has less than half the number of places and so it's less useful. On the plus side, it seems to be consistent and it knows the difference betwe...

Claire, On HolidayLettings/TripAdvisor pricing, you can add a static fee to each booking. Look at your seasonal prices table, and scroll down past it to find "Looking for taxes and fees" and click on "They're over here". Now you can make your pricing work with a changeover fee th...

My first thought was that it was sensible to give people the ability to change their minds within 48 hours after making a booking. In most cases, it would do no harm. Then I saw other people's comments about this on a facebook group and see that the fear is that some will manipulate this: We book se...

ooops! Should be:
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it won’t be long before they start monetising their listings too I think it's unlikely. There's another live thread on this at the moment: https://www.laymyhat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28111&highlight= (corrected) Currently, the new Accommodation Search box shows paid and free listings alongsi...

I would agree with that, Newtoit. Google is going to be around for a long time to come. I wouldn't be so confident about homeaway.