For those using Guest for Hosts...

[Ken Boone]

Been using Guesty for Hosts for quite some time with multiple properties with AirBnb and VRBO.  Typically 85 -90% of my bookings come from VRBO.  Yes we have had problems which I have mentioned before, and GFH always told us well once we get our API connection to VRBO we won't have those syncing problems happening, such as price changes and occasional booking issues.  They don't happen often, but lets face it, they have awful support, but when things are working it works great.

I just learned recently through another post, that GFH now has the API connection with VRBO.  They call it the upgraded connection vs the standard connection which I have always had.  Apparently, anyone who has joined GFH since I think February of this year will be automatically put on the upgraded connection with the API connection to VRBO.  And then there is a host of other folks that say between I think November of last year and February of this year may or may not have been boarded with the upgraded connection.  Bottom line by 2Q 2023 they will be moving everyone on standard connection over to the upgraded connection to VRBO.

At first glance, this sounds great - yea no more syncing problems with pricing, reservations, etc.. they are now a VRBP premier partner, they have straight up access to VRBO support which they don' with standard etc..  However, after reading through their FAQ on this and thinking about this I see a whole bunch of negatives from the way I run my business today and I just want to throw these out there and see if you guys are seeing this or if I am misunderstanding something or have better thoughts about doing this.  This is how I see things once I am forced to move over to the upgraded connection:

1) Again, 85-90% of my bookings are VRBO, and VRBO has handled all the payment processing.  Adding a day, refunding someone etc.. is easy in VRBO.  Pice of cake.  Now that goes away and I have to use Stripe.  Well ok, I recently started doing that with my direct bookings, and I suppose there is a learning curve, but its a payment processing system that I have to work with now for almost all of my bookings instead of easy VRBO, that was built specifically for these functions and not just simply a payment processing system.

2) Since, VRBO is offloading the payment processing back to the user, they are no longer remitting the taxes.  Yes I do have to do that for my direct bookings now, but it is minimal, now it's going to be most everything.

3) Since you will no longer access VRBO to edit your listings, that might sound nice, as you will have one stop shop for your listings and pics and so forth.  My question is, what happens to my boosts, and looking at my rankings and metrics that are really helpful in VRBO?  Am I losing my boosts and stuff like that when the connection gets upgraded.

4) Will I still have my VRBO account rep?  Due to my status I have a $1 yearly subscription costs with VRBO through my account rep.  Will I lose that as well?

What are ya'lls thoughts on this?  Big deal?  Not a big deal?  More headache? Less headache?

[Luke Carl]

Moving to more of on ownerrez model which I'm guessing is also what Guesty (not gfh) uses. Anytime there's a change there will be kinks. I think I'd probably wait it out at this point. If you want something easier hospitable is a fine option.