The Scarlet Letter Listing

Bed & Breakfast / Short Term Rental Host Forum

Help Support Bed & Breakfast / Short Term Rental Host Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

JBloggs

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 7, 2008
Messages
17,744
Reaction score
9
If you don't have a business listing on TA there is a warning right on your listing with this:
" ! We don't have room rates for this hotel" then mouses over to check rates at nearby flea bag hotels. Isn't that sweet! I know we are all the same to TA, money. There is no difference to an award winning B&B and a fleabag hooker trucker drug hotel.
And of course the big RATES BOX right below - which is ON YOUR LISTING:
"CHECK ROOM RATES FOR OTHER HOTELS IN YOUR TOWN"
And so this makes me want to pay them $500 (or whatever it is now) to remove this? To be part of this? It really ticks me off. Put a big scarlet letter on our listing. I wo'nt be blackmailed, they can take a flying leap!
 
That is indeed interesting - if I recall correctly they used to list our rates! I don't think that will be a problem - people go there to check reviews. They all know how to google us for our websites too, for our rates and availability.
Riki
 
I just changed our rates and it still shows and I PAY the #$^%^^^&&!!! grrrr just rubs me the wrong way.
 
We used a paid business listing with TA for 6 months a couple of years ago but pulled it for several reasons that you have already mentioned. The last straw was listing the B+Bs in our town on the same page but AFTER all the fleabag motels. So the user has to scroll down past the lowest rated motel/hotel before even getting to the top rated B+B's. Am I going to PAY for a listing that sends folks someplace else and barely gives us any notice at all? No way. Besides, we got more clicks to our web site from other sources, some free, mostly local. And the big advantage of not having a paid listing is not getting the rabid-TA-user-with-an-attutude as a guest. Makes our life so much easier. Granted, we are in a sought-after location with limited choices for up-scale lodging so folks who are looking for a nice B+B find us through other means. We try to maximize our ratings on TA by asking a select group of guests for reviews and we include a link to our reviews in our reply to all e-mail inquiries. It has worked for us and saved us the $$$$ that we would pay for a TA business listing.
 
The only way your rates get out there is if you're signed up with a GDS.
 
The only way your rates get out there is if you're signed up with a GDS..
Madeleine said:
The only way your rates get out there is if you're signed up with a GDS.
Yes, exactly. TA customer service called me today to discuss the changes to their website... and that was one of the things I asked about. When you look at the whole town listing the rates are there, but on the hotels/b&b's page the only rates show for the people in the big three GDS systems.
=)
Kk.
 
Back
Top