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Comment by damon_c | Hacker News Reader

Based on a recent experience, Homeaway's search for properties available between two dates is pretty much a non-working facade.

The UI is all there... but after after entering credit card info etc. and attempting to book several different places, only to then receive emails stating that they were not available on those dates despite showing up in search as being available, and "please call us directly because maybe we have something else..."

It felt like shopping for NYC apartments on Craig's List... "we don't have the one you want but what about this one?"

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This is no different than AirBnB and infact AirBnB is worse IMO.

AirBnB has "instant booking" for like 10% of listing but for all the rest you click "request to book" and you've instantly committed to giving the host 24 hours to respond. If they respond in the positive you're booked. In other words, once you pick one place you're on the hook for it. You can't go looking for other places just incase the host says their place is not available.

Worse, the UX has 2 buttons "Request to Book" and "Contact Host". THEY DO THE SAME THING!!!! If you click "Contact Host" it will just send a booking request. The host can charge your credit card even though you only clicked "Contact". How do I know? It just happened to me

This isn't quite true.

Contact Host allows you to send an enquiry to the host and is in no way a booking request. You should always do this before committing to a booking to ensure the place is actually available.

Request to Book commits you to a booking and your card is charged there and then, regardless of if the host accepts your request. It then takes up to 7 days to get your money back if the host declines - pretty frustrating.

Instant Book means the host can't decline your booking without their search ranking score being negatively affected.

I used "Contact Host" and was still booked. Steps

    1) Enter dates
    2) Pick Place
    3) Pick "Contact Host"
    4) Host says place is as available
    5) Get message from AirBnB saying I've been approved by host
    6) Get message from AirBnB saying host has charged my card

At no time did I pick "Request a Booking". I thought it would stop at #5 and I'd have to then login to AirBnB to finalize the details but no, the host was able to do that without me even though I never picked "Request a Booking"

This isn't the expected behaviour because step 5 would mean that the host had sent you a Pre-Approval - this usually requires you to take action to confirm the booking and reach step 6.

(source: I'm both a host and traveller on Airbnb)

Between 4/5 the host pre-approves you for booking (without you requesting to book) that should be the case.

Have been using AirBnB for stays since 2012 and hosting since 2014. Never had an un-requested booking.

+ Host does not have a way to charge you

I've used AirBnB 18 times in the last 2.5 years. It happened. Give me your credit card. I'll go through the process and see if I can get you booked. I'll video all of it.

Or if you're from AirBnB, give me a fake account and all make it happen again. If you think this is how it works I'm telling you there's a bug in your system

> Request to Book commits you to a booking

It doesn't quite commit to you to a booking: at any point before the host accepts the request, you can cancel the request penalty-free [1]. So if you find something better in the meantime and change your mind on the AirBnB place, you can just cancel. It is however a bit risky, since there's always a chance that the host will accept RIGHT as you were about to go cancel. And having two requests outstanding bears the risk that you'll get unlucky, and they'll both accept so close together that you have no time to cancel the other one.

[1] https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/90/can-i-cancel-my-reser...

So now we need to create a web service to send multiple requests and auto-cancel when the first one is accepted. The chance of auto-accepting within the minutes needed to respond should be small, unless you sent to the same host multiple requests.

Agree - it's really frustrating when your preferred options are unavailable and you're just trying to see which of the remaining options are actually free for your dates. But you have to pick one and commit for a longish period, then repeat.

Airbnb should really build a quick-response app for hosts with a fat button for instantly denying a booking. Make it so that it's trivial to see a request and confirm/deny. Give the ability for renters to set a timeout on their requests too, or queue them up.

One of the most recent times I tried Airbnb in Venice, CA, I gave up and found something on VRBO that was cheaper and quickly available.

What I want is the ability to reserve multiple options at once, the first one who says yes is booked and the rest automatically get cancelled. Most cities have quite a number of good options so I'm pretty indifferent to the one I get, what I'm worried about is spending a day each time to hear no and slowly running out of options.

You can however message multiple hosts, and if they can accommodate you then they can "invite you to book" which is a 24h window for an effectively instant booking.

I work in this space (Smart Host - market intelligence for vacation rentals) and this is a common practice. Owners and managers keep their calendars open because they treat a channel like HomeAway/VRBO as a lead source.

So if you inquire on a property that's booked, they will attempt to place you in a similar place within their inventory.

Only ~30% of bookings that happen on HomeAway are actually processed through their payment system. Airbnb handles the payments, so the calendar availability is typically more accurate on Airbnb.

A simple solution would be penalising managers who use the platform as a lead generation tool through search rankings and /or fees.

Probably due to double-bookings from Airbnb. That sort of thing makes being 2nd place a bit tough. If HomeAway does manage to get substantial share of bookings, that problem will begin to shift to Airbnb, though.

Homeaway (and VRBO and its other properties) already have the lion's share of the market in some places, particularly more rural vacation areas.

Just to take an example someplace we regularly go: In McCall Idaho (central Idaho lake/ski destination), there are 219 rentals listed on Homeaway[1] and just 70 listed with Airbnb[2] (which actually includes a larger area in the same search).

Though, it looks like Globally AirBnb has more listings, claiming "2,000,000+"[3] listings compared to Homeaway's "more than a million". Though I'm not sure if that number includes the listings from Homeaway's partner companies.

[1] http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rentals/idaho/mccall/r7311

[2] https://www.airbnb.com/s/McCall--ID--United-States?guests=&c...

[3] https://www.airbnb.com/about/about-us

Interesting that lots of places have more HomeAway listings. Presumably people booking those places tend to check Airbnb first? Difficult to tell, but if there is a discrepancy between where the supply is and where the demand is, that gap probably won't last too long.

HomeAway and VRBO were the pre-AirBnb. For a long time, if you wanted to rent a vacation house, they were the option.

Sure, but on the consumer side of thingsthey've been overtaken by Airbnb. I'm suggesting that it's only a matter of time until the supply follows the demand onto Airbnb.

Unlike the hotel space (GDS), the VR space does not have a real time availability system.

There are attempts to create one of course, but it requires all the players working together rather than trying to dominate the space and cut everyone else out.

HomeAway partners with tens of property management software providers who handle instant online booking and real-time availability.

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