Stayz.com to disappear

[dajop]

I am not sure if many of you have used stayz.com, my extended family has over a number of years to book accommodation, and we've used them recently to rent out our holiday house.

Well some time ago stayz was taken over by expedia, as the consolidation in web booking services continues and competition becomes more restricted.

When I logged in this morning (as an owner) stayz will now be disappearing altogether being replaced by expedia's own brand "HomeAway". Co-inciding with this, people booking will have to pay between 3% and 12% service fee (instead of 2% currently) and owners will have to pay 5.5% instead of 7%. So net fees on all bookings will be between 8.5% and 17.5% (looking at airbnb, most fees charged those making a booking will end up at the high end around 10-12%) instead of current 9% for all bookings.

And no doubt they will pay no tax, as it will be all off-shored.

 

[RB]

Big changes. In Jan 2015 there was a nearby house (fantastic spot) that was being sold. It was a rental that used Stayz & was presented as returning $118K annually. I guess the buyers may be looking for a different manager & the renters looking for a better deal

 

[dajop]

Big changes. In Jan 2015 there was a nearby house (fantastic spot) that was being sold. It was a rental that used Stayz & was presented as returning $118K annually. I guess the buyers may be looking for a different manager & the renters looking for a better deal

Going local (ie advertising with local agents) may or may not provide a better option. We would actually like to build word of mouth, use facebook etc, but the challenge then becomes insurance, we use an insurer who covers bookings through recognised internet platforms, but not through private channels. The main competition is airbnb , and expedia is effectively moving stayz to closer align with airbnb revenue model. Whatever, it seems that expedia will be increasing their take - and that will probably come from the pockets of both owners and guests.

The other thing that's annoyed me, is they've changed payment to owners as well. At the moment we receive payments when they come in, now we will only receive them after a guest checks in. So this means they hold onto the money for months (in a case of a booking we received last month for Sep 2018, we got the non refundable deposit straight away, under new rules we only get in Sep...).

When I logged in this morning what I saw was the statement "Your upgraded experience is coming soon" .... I've been hanging around here way too long such that whenever I see works like "enhanced" and in this instance "upgraded experience" , I know that is marketing speak for "we're going to screw you over, but we'll use a clearer font and softer colours so you don't feel so bad .."

 

[infinity]

I've used Stayz for years. It used to be fine until they upped their prices and mandated that all guests pay Stayz then Stayz only released the client funds once the client checked in

often 9 months after teh booking was made.

I use Air BNB now which is only a tocuh better

 

[RooFlyer]

As accommodation provider, I agree re Stayz. Going and not lamented.

 

[VPS]

I understand AirBNB don't release funds to owner until week before even though you may have booked months in advance

 

[dajop]

I've used Stayz for years. It used to be fine until they upped their prices and mandated that all guests pay Stayz then Stayz only released the client funds once the client checked in

Actually at the moment Stayz release funds at the point they become non-refundable. So we have a policy of 50% non refundable deposit on booking then remainder two weeks before stay. We get the deposit immediately and the rest 2 weeks before the booking. Under the new “improved experience” we’ll only get money once people check-in.

It will be interesting to see where the fees end up ... be watching closely to see what guests get charged as to which is better airbnb or homeaway. Essentially i think we’ll have convergence on guest fees, which will mean airbnb wins as their owner fee is lower. Whatever it seems likely that homeaway will be grabbing an extra 6-7% which is a huge take across Australia (nb: whilst we are less than 6 months into our holiday rental journey our Stayz bookings are outnumbering airbnb 5:1 for whole house rentals. Airbnb seems more likely to get those renting rooms..)

There’s a new site set up by an Australian called travellingfrogs.com, we may look at them for at least referral/repeat bookings, although they don’t have a big range of listings and are not well known, let’s hope they do go somewhere so the market is not captive to the 2 big US based interests of airbnb and expedia.