That stinks! I’ve used VRBO and was very pleased
How is the booking fee calculated?
Booking fees apply for listings on the pay-per-booking listing model.
This overall fee, for bookings completed on HomeAway, VacationRentals, and VRBO, is comprised of:
5% commission charged for the rental amount, any fees (such as cleaning or pet fees), and any additional payments.
3% credit card processing fee charged on the total payment amount you receive from your traveler, including taxes and refundable damage deposits. The portion of the processing fee charged for the damage deposit is refunded when you refund the deposit.
2% international surcharge if using a non US credit card.
Products offered to your travelers, such as Property Damage Protection and Cancellation Protection, are not subject to any fees.
If you are a property manager managing your HomeAway listings from within your software, you are charged a 5% booking fee calculated on the total rental fee, excluding taxes, fees, and security deposits, payable the month after your traveler has stayed at the property.
Flipkey is Trip Advisor, there seems to be a fee built in there, too, perhaps hidden.
Yes, you can contact the homeowner through VRBO or Homeaway and can arrange to pay versus Paypal outside VRBO
As near as I can tell, you can still reserve a location you have found on VRBO or HomeAway without the service fee IF you do NOT pay via that website. Many homeowners will offer you the ability to mail a check or pay via PayPal and they can do an invoice to avoid the fee.
I am an owner and have two listings on both VRBO and HomeAway. I pay over $1,250 for each of my listings. They started adding service fees between 4-10% on 2/18/16 without notifying owners. My Hawaii listing they are charging a 9% service fee on the total which includes the cleaning fee. Not right. They are trying to scare guests into paying directly through VRBO. Hopefully, most people know that credit card companies protect them should they experience any fraud when booking a home. There is NO reason to pay the new 10% VRBO service fee.This is pure GREED. Many owners, like myself, accept payment through PayPal, cashier’s check, etc. We are PayPal verified AND PayPal is secure. Yet VRBO is now implying to guests that they can not trust the owner’s…
I have two listings on VRBO and HomeAway. Have you looked into HomeEscape.com? or VacationHomeRentals.com?
Just to make sure I understand… the ‘Service Fee’ is only paid if you send payment through VRBO? I do a lot of vacation rentals and I do not ever remember paying through VRBO, always pay to the owner and/or property manager. I’m not sure how they validate the Service Fee, except maybe because they are holding it in ‘escrow’ in case renter wants a refund or something?
And, service fees should never be charged on anything more than the base rental cost. It is outrageous to add it to taxes, damage deposit/insurance and cleaning fees since these can run hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
I didn’t know this until my son told me but Expedia owns a number of other travel sites including Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, trivago,Travelocity and Orbitz.
VRBO in something I read said they would plan to implement the fee on all rents by the end of the year, but I am not sure how they can do that!
I didn’t know they owned all those sites, @MichiganGeorgia . That sounds like a monopoly,
As a vacation rental owner I am upset with this new fee. However, it is only for bookings that go through their online booking feature. Owners can opt out of this feature. Love or hate Expedia, please understand often you can work directly with owners to avoid this fee.
It’s not easy to avoid Expedia: http://www.expediainc.com/expedia-brands/
@Jumpin- I have been on both VRBO/HomeAway since 2008. I have never accepted payments through VRBO and I do not use the Book It Now option. However, as of 2/18/16 all of my quotes include there service fee. I called and requested they remove the service fee from my listing and was told that they could not remove it. I was told they are implementing changes to all of there listings and that by the end of the year all owners would have to charge the service fee. It is terrible because they do nothing for the guests to justify the charge. I pay $1,300 for one listing. Guests who pay by credit card are already protected from any potential fraud from their credit card company. It is all about greed.
Nnnoooo! VRBO and Homeaway has been my go to for years. I do also sometimes use Expedia but more for airfare. You are correct that if you have to change a flight the customer service is awful. Why do great things always get bought by big corps that ruin them???
Ok, Expedia if you want your fee on my VRBO and Homeaway rentals then you owe me reward points as if I booked through Expedia’s main site.
For 2016 you can ask the owner if you can pay outside the VRBO/HA system and avoid the fee, but come 2017 VRBO says everyone will pay the fee. Not sure how, but they likely will block contact info. I am creating a website for my place and hopefully people will find that and people may be able to send the contact info in code that is not caught by the bots, but trip advisor is slick on catching stuff like that.
I just booked a beach rental via VRBO and was able to pay the owner directly via credit card to avoid the fee. In fact, the owner’s e-mail to me specifically said that I could pay directly to avoid the VRBO fee. So now I have the points on my credit card plus the fraud protection. I’ve rented this house before but it was sold last year, so had to go back through VRBO to find out info on the new owner.