VRBO charges 10% commission for direct booking outside of their platform

[Mary Pastoral]

Hi, 

We had to call VRBO for a bill that they are charging us and this is how I found out that VRBO charges 10% commission for any booking that was made outside their platform. They said that they have access to external direct booking website and they charge higher commission rates if guests book direct vs VRBO platform. Is this your experience as well? Thank you. 

[Lauren Kormylo]

Quote from @Kristi K.:

Quote from @Lauren Kormylo:

Yeah, no way am I paying Vrbo 10% for bookings elsewhere.  Especially when they only charge me 8% for bookings through them.  Where does it say this in their terms of service? If it's not in there, they can't charge it.  

How are you only getting 8% VRBO charges? Our average for almost 1.5 years is about 18%. 

In the example below, it shows my "Vrbo commission" is 5% and their "payment processing fee" is 3%, so they take a total of 8% (of the nightly rate + cleaning fee + pet fee). 
The guest is also paying a $169 "guest service fee" to Vrbo.  I don't get to keep that, so that is subtracted from my payout here. So the guest is paying a 14.23% commission to Vrbo.