Provide a better traveller booking experience with price consistency

When pricing is inconsistent between search, checkout and the property details page*, up to 50% of travellers drop off. 

Inconsistent prices can also put your listings at a disadvantage, compared to individual homeowners whose rates are all managed in one platform and therefore don’t have these consistency issues. 

To solve this challenge, we’ve released Price Consistency, a software upgrade that ensures travellers see the same price — with the most accurate rates, taxes and fees for your listing — from the search results page to checkout. And to ensure a good booking experience for travellers, we’re asking all property managers to use it.

• More bookings: On average, property managers increased conversions more than 10% after upgrading to Price Consistency.**
• Total price: Travellers now see the most accurate total price in the search results instead of just the average nightly rate, which builds their trust in the booking process. 
  
• New features: New features such as listing-level Instant Booking, custom house rules fields, discounting and other special offer opportunities are only available to property managers on Price Consistency.
• More data: Price Consistency unlocks MarketMaker™,  a revenue management tool that provides real-time data about your market to help you optimise your rates and maximise revenue.
• More tools: Price Consistent Premier Hosts also have access to Boost, a programme that helps you improve your listing’s search position for select days. This means that your listing can show up higher in traveller search results!
• More visibility: Get up to 750 million views*** per month — and Instant Booking listings — by getting your properties across the Expedia Group family of sites. Only property managers on Price Consistency can access this benefit.

We want to continue delivering optimal travel experiences, so using Price Consistency is required for both software providers and property managers — and not implementing it will result in certain disadvantages, such as:

• Hidden pricing, or ‘view details for price’ in the search results — travellers must click from the search results page to view the total price**** on the property details page, which impacts conversion
• Drop-in sort order on the search results page, so fewer travellers see inconsistent prices in listings
• No access to opportunities to adopt new products or features such as discounts, special offers and other customisations

To be Price Consistent, property managers first need to make a few updates in their software. Since some of these updates are specific to the software you use, your software provider can help you get started. 

If you don’t see any of the fields mentioned further in your software, your software provider may not have completed the integrations. Contact them to learn when this will be ready. If you have proprietary software, contact your account manager. 

Note: your software provider needs to integrate Price Consistency before you can begin the upgrade. Contact your software provider to find out when they can start.

First review your rent, fees, taxes and discounts to remove price variances between your software and our platform. Standardised fee descriptions help prevent confusion and make it easy to translate the fee name into the traveller’s native language throughout the network. 

How to make these updates will vary according to your software. Ask your software provider for further instructions if needed.

There are six house rules all travellers must review and accept before booking your property. Your software provider may also build up to three custom house rules fields.  

Make sure that you have set your house rule preferences in your software, including check-in and checkout times. You may find these rules under different names in your system, depending on your software.

Here are the six house rules you’ll see: 

• Minimum age requirement
• Maximum number of overnight guests
• Events
• Pets
• Children
• Smoking

Standardised, pre-defined cancellation policies displayed in a traveller’s native language help reduce traveller cancellations and shorten the time it takes to book.  

In addition to being on Instant Booking, standard cancellation policies also help unlock your eligibility for Expedia distribution and will show across all Expedia Group distribution sites. 

Along with our current standardised cancellation policies, we’ve added a custom cancellation option that you can configure to fit your business needs.  

How to set up a cancellation policy 

Set a cancellation policy for each of your listings. These may already be available to you. If not, contact your software provider to see when they’ll be available. You may set up a standard or custom cancellation policy per listing.

Standard cancellation policy

Select the policy that most closely matches your rental agreement so travellers clearly understand your terms. If there isn’t an exact match, we recommend that you select a stricter cancellation policy or adopt a custom cancellation policy as per the instructions below:

• None. The traveller will not receive a refund if they cancel their booking at any time after it’s accepted.
• Strict. Travellers who cancel at least 60 days before check-in will get back 100% of the amount they’ve paid. If they cancel after that point, they will not receive a refund.
• Firm. Travellers who cancel at least 60 days before check-in will get back 100% of the amount they’ve paid. If they cancel between 30 and 60 days before check-in, they’ll get back 50%. Otherwise, they won’t receive a refund.
• Moderate. Travellers who cancel at least 30 days before check-in will get back 100% of the amount they’ve paid. If they cancel between 14 and 30 days before check-in, they’ll get back 50%. Otherwise, they won’t receive a refund.
• Relaxed. (Recommended) travellers who cancel at least 14 days before check-in will get back 100% of the amount they’ve paid. If they cancel between 7 and 14 days before check-in, they’ll get back 50%. Otherwise, they won’t receive a refund.

Custom cancellation policy

Your software provider must develop custom cancellation policies before you’re able to adopt them. Contact them to understand if/when custom cancellation policies will be available.  You can set up a custom cancellation in a number of ways:

• By defining the percentage refund to be given in the event of a cancellation and the number of days ahead of check-in that this particular percentage will be refunded.
• By refunding a certain percentage for up to three different tiers, which is applied up until the check-in date. For example, a 100% refund if cancelling at least 90 days before the arrival date or a 70% refund if cancelling at least 60 days before the arrival date.
• Adding a flat non-refundable cancellation fee across all tiers. For example, you can set a 50% refund for cancellations within 30 days of check-in, plus a £50 fee. Please note that adding in a non-refundable fee will make your listing ineligible for free cancellation treatment on travellers’ search results.

Rental agreements ensure that your guests understand your policies and restrictions. Once you’re ready for Price Consistency, your rental agreement will appear as a PDF at checkout. How this is entered will depend on your software.  

You may need to upload your rental agreement as a linked PDF, or your software provider may generate a PDF for you based on data you enter in your software. After your listings are Price Consistent, travellers will be prompted to review the rental agreement during checkout.

There are two options for rates models that software companies can develop to make sure your listing prices show consistently. Since your software provider decides which rates model to build, ask them to see which option they selected.

Nightly rates

The nightly rates model requires a rate for every night of the year. Set a standard nightly rate that applies to every night in your calendar, then use rate rules to charge more or less on particular nights. We calculate the total cost of a booking based on these nightly rates and rules, including your fees, taxes and discounts. 

You may need to adjust rates in your software to accommodate the nightly rates model. You’ll receive detailed instructions on the next steps once you’re ready to upgrade. You may need to update your rent, fees, taxes and discounts, and choose structured policies for Price Consistency.

Length of stay

With the Length of Stay model, your software calculates rates and bases the final rental amount on factors like check-in date, checkout date and number of guests.

You don’t need to make any adjustments to your rates with the Length of Stay rates model. However, you may still need to update your fees and taxes and choose structured policies for Price Consistency.

To get started or if you have questions, work with your software provider or account manager to move to Price Consistency. If you haven’t started yet, we recommend reaching out to your software provider for further guidance. 

To keep the booking experience optimal for travellers, implementing Price Consistency is mandatory and should be completed as soon as possible to maintain or improve the performance of your listings. 

Please note that after June 2021, any listings not Price Consistent will be removed from the search results.

*Based on global Vrbo internal data from 2018
**Based on analysis of thousands of properties in the US and EU comparing booking conversion rates (bookings/page views) five months before and after implementation with the same period one year prior.
*** Source: monthly visits based on data for Brand Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, Travelocity, Wotif, Vrbo, trivago and Hotwire combined during 2018
****Total Price includes all mandatory unavoidable charges payable at the property or to Vrbo. ‘Unavoidable’ charges include room charges, taxes, resort fees, optional charges selected on our site, once selected, etc., but not charges for optional services that may be booked in the future or charges that will be refunded based on the guest’s actions (e.g., damage deposits).