Do you like paying more for your vacation than you need to? Of course not! Nobody does. Well, if you’re booking your vacation rental home through sites like Airbnb, VRBO, FlipKey, or Booking.com, you’re likely paying anywhere from 7-22% more than you need to.
“What? How could that be?” you ask. Well, take a look at the photos below and notice that in the first one there’s a service fee of $74 (which is a fee of about 13%) and taxes aren’t even included, so besides paying a service fee that costs more than the taxes, you’ll need to pay those taxes after booking, adding another $55.96 to your total that the booking site won’t clearly tell you about.
Why these fees? Well, the booking sites want to make a large profit, so they tack on fees that are usually never uniform, varying from property to property, season to season, and person to person. They have sophisticated algorithms that play around with the rates all the time to see just how much they can get away with charging you.
Feels dirty, right? Well, you know what, I agree. And the best part is there’s something you can do about it! Instead of making your vacation rental home reservation through one of the large booking websites, contact the owner of the home directly! Many vacation home owners have set up websites (like this one) with lots of helpful information not only about their home, but the local area as well. Most put their phone numbers and emails directly on the site so you can reach out and talk to them before booking. And best of all, you save hundreds of dollars in fees.
“But what about the ‘booking guarantee’ that the booking site offers?” I completely understand your concern about wanting to feel secure in the fact that your reservation is confirmed, the home will be spotless and ready for your arrival, and that you’ll have support from the owner or manager during your stay, and should anything go horribly wrong there’s a third party who can help you make it right, or at the very least get your money back. The listing sites have mastered the art of the scare tactic to make you believe that only they can provide this sense of security, but that’s simply wrong. If you book with a credit card (no matter where you book – a large booking site or direct with the owner), most credit cards have consumer protections built in; 0% fraud liability, travel insurance, the ability to file a chargeback if the merchant doesn’t deliver the promised service, etc. so you’re really no better off with a large booking site than if you were to simply pay for the reservation with your credit card.
So, how do you find the owners of a vacation rental and save lots of money on your next vacation? If you’ve found their home on Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com or one of the many other listing sites you can try simply copying the title of their listing into Google, since us owners tend to use the same property names and descriptions across all of our marketing. Or, try searching (using Google, Bing, or whatever your favorite search engine is) using the terms “{town/city/region} vacation rental”, “{town/city/region} vacation rental home”, “{town/city/region} ski house rental”, {town/city/region} short term rental” … replacing {town/city/region} with the area you’re trying to find a rental in. Chances are you’re going to see lots of results for the big listing sites, but if you dig a little deeper you’ll likely find smaller regional listing sites that don’t collect fees as well as the individual websites for the property where you can book directly with the owner. You may also want to take a look at Google Maps, as some savvy vacation rental owners have made sure that their home shows up on the map!
I hope that you found this article helpful and look forward to welcoming you to Vail during your next vacation. Remember, always #bookdirect!