Vacation Rentals Community

I have two properties and they are situated close by eachother.

The nearly invisible link to our personal website seems to go unnoticed by almost all the folks making inquiries.

I have been on the phone and talked to the robots at Homaway and it seems to fall on deaf ears. They even told me it was designed to protect me from scammmers? I think the gal was well versed on what to say. I tried to explain that policies need to be reviewed and updated periodically???

I look forward to the day I can dump their sorry aces

Vent over!

Crockettlakeguy,

I feel your pain, but unfortunately advertising on vacation rental portals is still important and it will be very difficult getting bookings without being on them.  It would cost you alot of money if you tried to compete with them (you simply won't get a good return on investment).

In regards, to links to your site.  They purposely make the links not visible to search engines and hard to find for travelers.   The reason for them offering unfriendly search engine links and hard to find external links is because they don't want to promote other websites (this goes againts their business model).

The only vacation rental directories that I am aware of that could help you promote your own personal website is vrwd.com and yahoo.   Otherwise, you need to try link exchanges with other owners that have websites.  If you have a vacation rental blog, I suggest you place it on blogcatalog.com. 

I know I won't compete with them in search engines. I just don't understand why they won't make an owners website more visible to the client?

I guess you are correct that they seem to want control of it all?

They piss me off  Not to far a drive to Austin, maybe I should go see them in person?

Thanks for the tips and I will try those!

Well, the reason why they also don't want to make external links more visible is because they don't want travelers to leave their site.  HomeAway spends thousands of dollars per day in marketing and promoting their site, and if they were to lose this traffic to another site it would be just like buying a ferrari and making someone else drive it.  Well, may be that is not the best analogy, but I hope you understand what I mean. 

By the way, I hope my explanations don't make you even more upset.... I would hate to be caught-up in a "murder" conspiracy!!   
And even worse....I wouldn't want that lady from CNN ..."Nancy Grace"....nagging on both of us for the rest of her life!

LOL

 If I was gonna snap I'd have done it long ago.   Not to mention the wife does enough nagging without adding more!

It does bother me to hire someone and customer service seems to be at the bottom of their cares?

I wonder how many rentals I loose because people don't see we have a web site with virtual tours and area info etc.?

We have found if you don't get back with folks quickly they find something else many times. Are they really working for us??? Is a class action lawsuit imminent? I can see it happening

Homeaway actually went in and added a few lines in each listing telling people to view our web site listed below!

I was amazed they went that far. Just goes to show you can still budge the rock of Gibraltar.

Do you mind posting your homeaway listing URL on this forum so that we can see what you are talking about?

http://www.homeaway.com/crockett/s/10979/fa/find.squery

Those are our two houses.

Yes, now I see how they went the extra step to help you out.  Do you think HomeAway did this for you because you started posting complaints on this forum?  I know that HomeAway is very familiar about this community and I am sure that they don't want to receive too many negative posts from upset customers.  In any case, I'm glad you got it your way!

Million dollar question John?  I did call and then write and e-mail.

I have no problem paying them because they serve their purpose. I can't see ever wanting to drop them if they were more agreeable to making owner site more prevelant?? it's all about renting not controlling. If I rent, the fees they charge are like pissing in the ocean (they don't amount to anything)......you would think they would want that?

I sense they (as mentioned) want to keep it all on their site. They can't possibly contain enough info on that site as I can on mine. Not to mention the changes I can make at will on mine....without the 2-3 day or more lapse.

 A little disappointing to say the least!