i advertise with owners direct, really fed up

[danTDM]

anyone else fed up with all the changes with the company? It is not what it was.

We have advertised with them for 8 years. 8 years ago it was clear and simple and people didn't pay to book. Now it is a nightmare.

Anyone else with a rental holiday property that can suggest an alternative?

catnoise and myfriends, really interesting and cheering, thanks.

(on a side note, villa in Thailand! wow!)

We have just booked a property with holiday lettings which I think may come under that umbrella. We paid the fee quote on the website but was shocked when we received the breakdown. A booking fee of almost 90 euros. If they charge the owner too they must be making a fortune.

They also keep all the money until clients have checked in - ok, it gives the clients confidence that the property actually exists - but on th other hand, I'm only going to accept short notice bookings, within the next 8 weeks or so, so Airbnb/holidaylettings clients will never get the opportunity to book my apartments in peak season

Haven't read the full thread, but as holidaymakers we used owner direct quite. A bit but we have now stopped, Searches for properties are much harder, the website design is dreadful, and yes it has certainly got more costly .

sorry costa, you may have said, who do you advertise with/think the best options are? (I know you are in the Algarve/portugal)

hotbot the website has become so ridiculously 'over egged' that I can't find my own property.

highland, that is shocking.

I still have ads on homeaway, but on annual fee not commission and instant booking - I have tried to set up online payments, but it was a complete waste of time.

Luckily I've been doing this a long time and have lots of repeats and recommendations, so I don't need lots of new clients. Also, once someone has booked via one of the commission sites, they then have my contact info and know the properties are genuine, so then book direct when they come back

Thanks danTDM

We have been looking through owners direct for a few months but looking to book for next year.

Sorry to be a pain, but if we want to rent a cottage/gite etc for a fortnight holiday during summer 2017, we will end up paying more money than what is currently advertised because not only will we have to pay to rent the property but also pay 'OD' for the privilege of using their website to find the property and thus pay THEM (hoping the money reaches the owners!)

I thought this was how most websites work - paying a % of the total cost of the holiday for advertising on their website.

I don't know anything about business, but I thought this would be the 'norm' when it comes to using a website to advertise.

Correct me if I am wrong. I am genuinely confused but concerned about this.

Ignore my 'business sense' which is lacking!

banging for eight happy years I paid about 500/600 pounds a year to simply advertise my villa on an owners website. Punters see it, fancy it, ask sometimes many questions/emails/phone calls and then book direct. All perfect.

Now, in the last few months, it has been bought out again but by a huge US company. the site has changed beyong all recognition, 1000's of properties. You have to put specific dates in so many opportunities for arriving say, a day later, cheaper are missed etc,... It now turns out (we the owners have just been told) that they are charging people on top to book through them, with a credit card, about 90 euros more, rather than the usual pay the owner the price quoted.

They have got all our properties and have become a booking site not a contact site. They are trying to handle all the money aspect and also making it super complicated and our properties appear bottom of the pile if we don't accept their terms.

They are giving a false sense of security also, as if they have vetted, they have done no such thing

try and find a way to contact the owner directly! The owners have nothing to do with this 90 euros they seem to be adding.

Interesting, I'd not noted the charges and we're just about to book somewhere for October. Have used owners direct, home away and airbnb in the past and airbnb has by far the best search facility. Plus the other two irritate me as the only have the option of selecting 2+, 4+ 6+ beds etc. So I have to trawl through loads of 12 bed villas when I just want a cosy place for two.

Actually it was 95 euros. Feel annoyed that this money is going to them and not the property owner. Anyway if we return next year we will contact owner direct.

It is true to say now that if you book online using the Owners Direct/HomeAway booking system that you will be charged about 10% extra without your knowing it, over and above the property owners advertised rates, but you do not need to pay this, by just using as a shop window and then finding the advertiser directly, OR you could just send a MESSAGE Enquiry to the advertiser, without using the "Request to Book". You will know the difference because one asks for a credit card number and the other does not! Smart property owners also use a name for their property so you could google that in your chosen location, and you can also google search the pictures used as they are likely used somewhere else. Also try Facebook.

There has been much talk in the press recently about the problems since Expedia bought the group last year and have now set about changing things and completely destroying the site. It was great, but it is no longer.
There was an article in the Telegraph on 21/6/16 entitled "Holiday Makers Face £299 Price Hike". You can also check out TrustPilot reviews about Owners Direct and HomeAway to learn how upset the Owners are about all of this. So please try and book directly if you are happy with the owner, and do ask lots of questions, most Owners are good people!

I am a property owner and rent out to holiday makers. Last month I started this Group on Facebook:

"Reject Owners Direct Guest Service Fee"

Please like the page. On there you will find a pinned post at the top explaining to you about how to calculate what this Company are adding in as their charges. "The Book with Confidence Guarantee" is worthless, and your own credit card would give you far more protection if in the unlikely event something went wrong! The money is for advertising and so as to pay back the shareholders the US$3.9 Billion they paid for the Group! Way too much money.

The ship will sink. Now many other sites also charge guests a fee, such as Holiday Lettings and AirBnB but not to subscribers who have paid to advertise. This is where Owners Direct/HomeAway have gone wrong, because they have arbitrarily changed the terms of Advertisers Contracts mid term, by introducing this Guest Service Fee. They are not open about it either, preferring to hide it, until they have got your credit card number!

One mother featured on You and Yours BBC Radio 4 on Friday 22/7/16 (17 minutes in to the broadcast that is online now), had £1700 taken from her card without authorization by this Company for x2 separate booking enquiries, each were declined, but that did not stop this Company taking the money and it took her 5 days to get it back!

PLEASE DO JOIN THE FACEBOOK PAGE, SET UP LAST MONTH.... You will learn a lot, and a lot of things are explained on there!

"Reject Owners Direct Guest Service Fee" Take a look!

I will certainly join scuba thank you so much for your post.

Really helpful. What you say is the case, we are still getting bookings and then encouraging direct contact, but od has made it so if you punters DON'T pay through them, your advert sinks to the dreggy bottom, bottom of the biggest pile in the world and almost comes across as not recommended.

I agree with every point you make, you make it much better than me!

joined, it's great.

What a fantastic place to rant!

www.facebook.com/Reject-Owners-Direct-Guest-Service-Fee-1591148397882561/ Join the Community and learn a lot.... For property owners and prospective guests!

I'm so upset to read this thread. I've used OD over the years for so many holidays. U.K. Spain Portugal Slovenia France. Have short listed loads of places as well. I've noticed it getting more difficult to navigate the last year but to read about extra charges is so sad. I loved the fact it was small and easy to communicate with the owner. This seems too large and corporate. 😔😠

A very interesting thread! I have used OD for the last few years, and more than once this year and have noticed that it has become less user friendly. I have always paid the owner direct, though and so may have inadvertently avoided the charges. It sounds as though it would be a good idea to go through search results backwards, starting with the last page? Although there are loads of properties on the site, I often find that by the time I have put in all the filters (if booking a family holiday, we need 5 bedrooms and this limits the results) there will be only a few pages of results and so working backwards would be feasible I think.

actually yes, going backwards may be the way forwards! OD have featured our property for example, but when you actually look for it it is last on the list. This is because we refuse to take bookings via OD as they take 9% or more on top.

Don't press 'enquire now', press 'contact owner'. We will give up next month though, they have, in effect, illegally changed the contracts, charging us and then customers. Really fed up, where to advertise now?

www.facebook.com/1591148397882561/photos/a.1591826037814797.1073741828.1591148397882561/1614726612191406/?type=3&theater

You do press "Enquire Now" that is much smaller! You do not press "Request to Book". If you press that they will ask for your credit card and charge you a fee on top of the owner's prices.

Please do not be swayed by this "Book with Confidence Guarantee". I assure you it is not worth the paper it is written on, but they are pushing it in order to take an extra 9.6% off you.

On 21 June 2016 interesting article in Telegraph.
www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/holidaymakers-face-hike-in-booking-rental-homes/

Most advertisers pay a subscription fee. This was the beauty of Owners Direct until 1st June 2016. You paid the owner's price, and if you still want to pay the owner's price then just deal directly outside the system by sending an initial enquiry with "Enquire Now". Do not get taken in by this Expedia Inc Scam, who now own the HomeAway group including OD. We property owners are up in arms, as they are destroying our livelihoods! Just use it as a shop window, we still need your business. Take a look on TrustPilot, and most of these reviews are from Owners in the past year or so!
www.trustpilot.com/review/www.ownersdirect.co.uk

A lot of sites do charge fees to the guests including AirBnB and Holiday Lettings from TripAdvisor, but the difference is, that the owner is not paying to list, and the prices come out way more than would be if you booked with the owner directly, many of whom now do take credit cards, and by dealing with the service provider directly, you are covered by Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, if in the unlikely even something went wrong, and this is not so if you hand your credit card over to Owners Direct! Take a look at their T&Cs. But a bit of due diligence, asking a few questions, well both guest and owner should do that, and if possible look for properties that are run by the owner, as there are a lot of bulk listings now appearing and you just will not get the same service!

I'm going to continue to use OD but use the enquiry button. I always line to make contact with the owner first anyway for peace of mind. Thanks for high lighting this issue.

We have advertised with owners direct since 2005. A nice easy to use site, until everything changed this year. Has anyone got the owners terms and conditions any time between 2005 and say 2012 as they have been removed from all searches, and I have asked to take down my listing, but it is still up on their site! And they are quoting their current terms and conditions at me. With auto renewal, I would like to think that the terms and conditions apply from when I first started using the company.

We only bought our Villa on the Costa del Sol this year.
It is now on owners direct and we have had 5 bookings within the first few weeks of the advert going live.
However we have had to pay for the guests using their credit card losing £30 for each transaction, which can add up to £90 per booking if the pay in installments.
We paid the £299 up front fee but I was not aware we had to pay for the privilege of our guests paying by CC :(
We are also on Airbandb who also charge us commission and CC charges.
Holidaylettings is 10% commission but we have had no bookings in 2 months of being on there.
yes all of our guests have to pay a booking fee to OD that we do not receive.

Simplyowners.net like owners direct 8 years ago. Smaller and only been going 2 years but try it.

For the last few years I’ve booked holiday flats and houses through tripadviser. I’ve done it for English and European properties. It was really good until I I had one slightly difficult booking in Corfu but it did get resolved. Sometimes it’s independent owners on there and sometimes it was companies. There were options to pay through the site or deal direct with the owners. I liked the way that people are so rude on tripadviser reviews that you would always get to know the downsides of the places! (We booked once though a company in the Cotswolds wherer the house was horrible and we posted a bad review and the companythey used for reviews, “re-vue “ wouldn’t put up our review as they told us we should contact the cottage owners which sort of made the whole reviewing procedure rather pointless)

I have no idea what it’s like for the owners on trip advisor though but we have had lots of great properties with really easy renting experiences.

I too was fed up with the new changes to OD
And so.. i did this.
owners-properties-direct.uk/

Totally free for the owners and guests to use and allows them to talk to each other without intervention.