The stark realities of HomeAway from an owners perspective
In the early days HomeAway which traded under the name Owners Direct was an excellent concept - Owners paid a fee to advertise with Owners Direct and clients had direct contact with the owners allowing the owners to easily decide if they wished to accept the booking or not. Slowly but surely the business model changed. Whilst one can communicate with the prospective guests and vice versa, the exchange of email addresses and telephone numbers is prohibited. In my experience, villa clientele want personal contact with the owner prior to booking - there is no substitute for a nice personal friendly chat on the phone and personal contact is something that has been eroded by big business over recent decades to the point that it is now almost non existent. HomeAways response to this point was that guests can call the company - yes and they will speak to someone in a call centre in a distant land on a fuzzy telephone line, a person who reads from a script and has no real knowledge of the travel industry and our business that we have spent years developing. Now when an owner accepts a reservation request, they will not receive any part of the payment until after the guest has checked in. As owners we have considerable running costs, that exist through the year, in some cases, mortgages to pay which are covered by rentals, in exactly, the same way as they would be on any short medium or long term rental property where a buy to let mortgage for example, is in place. I think we all know that the the lenders do not wait for their money. HomeAway however have no interest in this very real issue. It's almost as if they are saying that if we have a mortgage we should not be renting the property and the attitude I and others like me have experienced on the phone from staff is arrogant to say the least. For some of us this is our only source of income. Homeway's policy is not right, its not fair on the owners and the truth is that it is a business model set up for the sole purpose of generating cashflow for the company. In no way does this benefit the owners. In addition to this issue, HomeAway has confirmed (and I have two recorded telephone calls where where staff members have confirmed this) that unless owners sign up to their instant booking system, their properties will be pushed down the line in searches. Now of course they are a little more cautious about the way that they say this now. Essentially they claim that by signing up to instant booking, owners homes will gain greater exposure in search engine visibility etc etc. Ie less so if we do not comply - It is clear therefore that they are not only able to manipulate this but indeed they actively do so. My understanding is that this practice is tantamount to a form of extortion and is essentially illegal. In this respect, I am currently in the process of establishing which regulating authority covers this issue. In the early days of Owners Direct 90 percent of my reservations came from that platform. Today it is around 20 percent so if I am able at some point to withdraw from them completely I will certainly do so. HomeAway charges hefty fees often around 300 pounds to the guests. My guests all carry travel insurance (which protects their payments) and I have full public liability insurance to protect my guests as do many owners. They do not actually need HomeAway's protection and they do not want to pay it. HomeAway, must change their policy regarding payments to owners. They have been advised to implement either a simple system of advertising fee only or a commission based system where they very simply collect their commission from the deposit. But they are adamant that their policy is here to stay. Finally, if we refuse to accept a booking, we are penalised by HomeAway which is not only incredibly patronising but frankly feels like we are being told off like naughty school children, by unqualified teachers.