The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: jeromedawg on May 25, 2016, 02:30:34 PM
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Hey all,
I found a place to stay for an upcoming Hawaii vacation via VRBO - when I messaged the owner (property mgmt company there who manages that particular unit) I got a reply back with more information about the property as well as a link to their website, which apparently you can also book on. Booking through their site, we would avoid an additional $60.75 fee, which is the VRBO service fee I guess and includes some note about how it's for a safer booking experience + premium 24/7 customer support.
Should I book direct to avoid this fee? Or should I definitely use VRBO? I have Chase Sapphire so I inquired about trip cancellation but it's not covered when we book vacation/owner rentals (they would only cover hotel stays). There is an option that's $80~ for "TripHedge Travel Insurance" that can be tacked on too (I'm assuming this would cover what the Chase trip cancellation benefit would have covered). Safe to proceed without that too?
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Another crazy thing about this place I'm looking at is that they tack on so many fees that it almost doubles the cost of the place when all is said and done!
Rent for 3 nights is $675 but the additional charges are:
$50 non-refundable booking fee
$69 accidental damage protection (required for this property, despite the $500 refundable security deposit for whatever reason)
$210 cleaning fee
$33.68 reservation processing fee
tax is $118.75.
so it ends up costing $1156.43 for 3 nights (and this is direct booking outside of vrbo). should we try to negotiate lower pricing with property/rental mgmt place? and if so, what would the best 'leverage' be or way to approach it? e.g. "can you work with us to rent it out at a lower cost per night?" or "can you waive the accidental damage and cleaning fees?"
(this is in Kauai btw).