Book a stay through Airbnb or VRBO and you’ll pay a service fee on top of the nightly rate. It wasn’t always this way. When you make a reservation through a travel booking site such as VRBO or Airbnb, you will pay a service fee. It was not always this way.
Note: Airbnb recently eliminated the guest-facing service fee, and simply shifted the fee onto the host. The host, naturally, passes this fee on to the guest, anyway. So, you still end up paying the extra fee, even though it isn’t itemized on Airbnb anymore.
VRBO used to work differently. Owners paid a flat annual fee to list their home, and travelers booked directly with them at no extra cost. That started changing around 2006, when companies like HomeAway began inserting themselves between owners and guests. Airbnb launched around the same time. By 2015, Expedia had acquired HomeAway and VRBO, and travelers who’d never paid a service fee before started seeing one on every booking, stacked on top of the fees owners were already paying.
The result: a marketplace that was built to connect homeowners and travelers directly now has a corporation taking a cut on both ends.
Owners have been pushing back. Over the past several years, a growing number of websites, some worldwide like Houfy.com, others regional, have returned to the original model: no fees, no middleman. You can find them listed on the Direct Book Network.
StayInArnold.com is our version of that. No service fees for guests, no booking commissions for owners, no third party profiting from the connection between you and the person whose home you’re staying in.
If you’re an owner, you don’t have to choose one or the other. Plenty of us still list on the big corporate sites and also list here for free, where the guests who find us keep more of their money and we keep more of ours.
If you’re a traveler, the Direct Book Network is worth a look wherever else you’re headed. And if you’ve found us through Airbnb or VRBO, you may be able to book the same place for less by reaching out directly next time.
We’re not a corporation. We’re neighbors who live in the Arnold area, rent out our own homes, and would rather deal with you directly than pay someone else to stand between us.