If you are looking at the ClearStay analysis and wondering why vacation rental managers provide great deals if you book a certain way, here's the answer. It's not just good for the traveler, it is good for the vacation rental manager, too. For someone who rents out vacation homes, getting some money for a hard-to-book period is a lot better than having the home sit empty.
Like the rest of the travel world, vacation rental managers are discovering yield management -- the benefit of using pricing to motivate renters to behave in a certain way. You might have noticed that the ways to save money involve doing things that many other travelers won't do -- like booking offseason, arriving mid-week, staying a longer time or renting a larger home. For someone who rents out a vacation home, getting someone to stay in the high season for three days over a weekend is a lot easier than getting someone to stay in the slower season for five days during the middle of the week. If you are willing to do that, the manager is often willing to make it worth your while.
Many vacation rental managers don't provide those kinds of deals because the software they use to manage their business usually doesn't make it easy for them to do so. ClearStay's parent company, Escapia, provides vacation rental managers with the most advanced software that lets them easily create pricing rules lowering the price when they think it will help them get a rental that they might not otherwise get -- and, yes, increasing the rental rate when you want the same home at the same time as the rest of the world.
So the thing that makes it all a win-win for the traveler and the vacation rental manager alike is that giving a great deal in certain cases lets the manager make more money when they might otherwise make very little. And that lets the renter stay in a wonderful home at a great price.





