Alta Vista -- Frequently Asked Questions --

Fees -- what fees, if any, are you paying when you rent "Alta Vista" from us?

We charge for rent, our cost for cleaning, and the required taxes.  There are no hidden fees or other expenses.

We have owned “Alta Vista” as a personal vacation home and made it available for vacation rental since 2004, providing several hundreds of multi-day guest rentals during these years.  In addition to featuring our home on this "acviews" website (the name stands for Affordable Comfort and VIEWS), we have listed it with a few vacation rental sites, including "VRBO" and "HomeAway."  Traditionally, these listings provide inquiries from travelers looking for vacation rentals.  We will then respond to such inquiries with a quote, handle the subsequent booking, and manage the rental details.  We do not charge a fee for these services, as well as for all associated costs, including the expense for the listings with these outside advertising companies.  We use PayPal as primary means for our guests to pay with their credit cards, following our guests’ agreement to our no-nonsense rental conditions.  In most cases we even absorb the fees charged to us by PayPal for their services.   

In 2016, HomeAway, now owned by TripAdvisor, changed their business profile.  They forced us homeowners -- their clients who pay for their listings (!) -- to accept their new “on-line booking” program, for which our guests have to pay a high additional “Service Fee” directly to them (about 10% of rents). We ourselves have been providing on-line booking all-along, without charging any such fees -- and this with better, more personalized service and considerations than what the computerized HomeAway booking system is providing.  For example, our exceptionally consumer-friendly refund policy through PayPal dwarfs the “enhanced consumer protection” which HomeAway claims to be offering in partial justification for the fees they charge to our customers.  

We are also listed with Airbnb.  Similar to HomeAway, bookings through Airbnb are also subject to a booking fee, and directly paid to them, as compensation for their services.  However, Airbnb's fee is more modest, and they do not charge us for listing with them, and we reduce our pricing when you book through Airbnb, thus partially compensating for their fees. 
 
The upshot is that we offer our guests avoidance of substantial, unfounded third-party service and booking fees by encouraging booking directly through us, without extra fees. 
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