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Richard W

1 reviews | Active since Jan 2022

04 Jan 2022, 20:35

Travelground rips off hosts

Dear Travelground user, you should be aware that Travelground rips off hosts. I have two properties on their site and I used to get many bookings from Travelground, but then they introduced commission percentage that a host chooses to give Travelground as part of their ranking. The ranking system is the highest weighting of all ranking categories (500 out of 1700 for me). Ranking points are used to feature high on searches. The lowest commission is 15% ex VAT which earns 0 ranking points while a host gets 500 points for giving Travelground 25% ex VAT. Think about that. I own the house, furnish it, clean it, yet Travelground want to take nearly 30% of my income and penalize me severely for "only" giving 18% including VAT. While it is a host choice, i refused to give Travelground the high commission to improve my ranking. So now I get far fewer bookings from them. As a consumer you must be aware that Travelground rankings don't reward the best establishments for the consumer, but prioritize reward for those establishments that pay Travelground the most. No other platform I use does this to hosts. Remember the host when you book and not just the booking platform.

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Richard W's update25 Jan 2022, 18:38
Reviewer Update
As an update to the above complaint, Travelground emailed me to inform me that they have now delisted me from hosting on their platform for violating their policy which says I am not allowed to share their commission basis with customers. They chose to do this rather than deal with the validity of my complaint. The base 15% commission structure charged by Travelground is made visible on the internet in spite of Travelground being one of the few hosting companies that are not openly transparent about their fee structure. Travelground has taken the big corporate bully approach of punishing me for exposing their abusive commission structure. Not only is it abusive against hosts, it is also misleading to potential clients, as the ranking on Travelground does not represent the best rated places as the ranking position is dominated by whether the host is prepared to pay Travelground more commission. I highly recommend that customers looking for accommodation use other platforms until Travelground become transparent and fair in their commission policies.