What are your favorite alternative booking platforms?

Question

This has been talked about a couple times in different posts but I wanted to see if we can get some more answers from different people. BESIDES Airbnb and VRBO, what are some booking platforms you've liked and/or had success with?

We recently listed on Booking.com and have had great success so far. 26% of our reservations in the last 2 months have been from Booking.com. So far the guests have been a little more needy than Airbnb, but that's about it. And we just got our first international booking which is exciting.

I'm sure many of the alternative platforms are niche or market dependent but what are your experiences?

Ryan Moyer · Answer

I've quite a few horror stories about Booking.com fraud and chargebacks.  You haven't had any issues with that?

Garrett Gruss · Answer

How do you prevent double bookings on booking.com?

John Underwood · Answer

I have not needed to look beyond Vrbo. They keep my calendar full at top dollar.

No need to fix what's not broke for me.

Kevin Luttrell · Answer

@Garrett Gruss

Chanel manager with calendar synced up. I use Guesty For Hosts that syncs our calendar across airbnb, vrbo and booking.com.

@Ryan Moyer

No issues so far, but we’ve only been using it for a few months so we’ll see. It’s a little more work because you have to remit lodging taxes, but other than that we haven’t had any problems.

Thomas Dempsey · Answer

I believe listing on all platforms with a joined calendar, along with a website to promote direct bookings can be extremely beneficial. The joined calendar will allow you to list on all platforms without running into issues with overlapping bookings.

Stacy Edwards · Answer

I was wondering the same thing. One of the people I worked for had to stop using Booking because of all the double bookings.

Kevin Luttrell · Answer

Anyone have success with Tripadvisor?

I recently learned that anyone can post a review on Tripadvisor, which is a big benefit in my mind since you can direct someone from another platform or who booked directly to post a review.

I've used Tripadvisor a lot in the past but only for looking up reviews on hotels/resorts, restaurants, etc. Didn't even know that you could directly book STRs on there, so I'm wondering if that means others don't know either and it's not a significant source of bookings for those advertising there.

Chee Saw · Answer

How many STRs do you have and in what region?  I'm looking to start my first one soon (as soon as a couple of small renovations are taken care of), and I'm thinking of just going with VRBO first and adding AirBnB later if necessary.

Paul Sandhu · Answer

Craigs list.  But I rent to traveling workers, not vacationers.

What are your favorite alternative booking platforms?

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