Success with subscription on homeaway sites?

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
leon
Posts: 91
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2012 4:12 pm
Location: niort

Success with subscription on homeaway sites?

Post by leon »

Once again I have taken a booking via a HomeAway site and been charged a high sum for commission. I remember that on subscription I never got enquiries until the month before my contract with them expired.
My question is for anyone on subscription: is this still the case (no enquiries until the last month), or do you get enquiries all year? (I expect nothing has changed.)
Thank you.
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bornintheuk
Posts: 538
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2011 11:18 am
Location: Southern Charente

Post by bornintheuk »

We get inquiries all year and havent noticed any difference with our other property that is on commission, however they are completely different types of property as regards size.
The reason one is on subscription is that the commission charge would be too high - such as yours, I guess.
What would Plato do ?
Stewart
Posts: 131
Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2011 1:32 pm
Location: Fife, Scotland

Post by Stewart »

We never had success with this company either as subscribers or via commission only. In our case I noticed that they had placed the cottage in the wrong geographical area (maybe 20 km error) and their help desk wouldn't accept that I knew where our property was located.
jafa
Posts: 88
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2017 2:08 pm
Location: Kirchberg in tirol
Contact:

Post by jafa »

They are terrible for that on two fronts.

Firstly if someone puts in a geographical location ie in my case Kirchberg in Tirol, other places up to 50km away would be ahead of you in the search if they are higher up in their scale of things. I complained and asked why do they not just focus on what the individual had requested. They came out with the usual b shit saying it worked the other way too if ie. someone put in say Westendorf 5kms away. What he couldn`t get over was the fact that THEY prioritise who came where in the list of properties.

Secondly, as we are in the Kitzbuhel ski area, other properties who were again 30/40kms away from here, were to put Kitzbuhel in the title, again it would come up. They reckoned they could do nothing to control that when I brought it up.
Jafa
gardenboy
Posts: 283
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2011 2:14 pm

Post by gardenboy »

Yes ha algorithm for ranking is for their benefit not yours. In denia spain for eg there were c 200 rental units within 5km radius. On ha there are now listed 11200. On closer inspection thats really a 50km radius.

're subs I was on a paid ha listing and over the last few years ha sourced lets have dropped off a cliff. I got 2 last year, out of c 12. My other 10 were repeats.

The algorithm favours those who put 100% ha way, I don't know whether it prioritises com only v paid, but once you start straying away (by repeats booked direct) you are dumped down the listings.

The commission is 20% I believe, net of cleaning fees. That and the full tax liability kill my economics. That's nearly 50% revenue gone before utilities and running costs.
whirlybird
Posts: 69
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2014 1:24 pm

Post by whirlybird »

We got a couple of bookings when we first went with them and then nothing. Have cancelled all OTA sites now and can only book direct.
https://www.moorparks.co.uk/farm-stay-self-catering/
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Moorparks Holiday Cottages Moorparks, EX19 8NA 07850 356627


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