Paying online with credit card or eCheck on StayHomeAway is the most secure way to book a vacation rental on our sites. Properties that offer the ability to pay with a credit card or eCheck can be identified with credit card or eCheck icons on listing as seen below.
To book with StayHomeAway, simple click your dates, follow the prompt and await within the hour to 24 Hours. You can request the booking by going through the checkout flow and entering your credit card or payment information.
After you submit the booking request, you will receive a confirmation number. The vacation rental owner or property manager then has 24 hours to accept, at which time you receive an email confirmation. If you booked using a credit card, your card will be charged at acceptance. By booking or paying through StayHomeAway's payment system. Your booking is secure with us as we ensure that all owners are checked and only receive money when you get your rental
Booking With Confidence
You should feel confident booking on our platform. From the moment your payment information is entered, StayHomeAway protects your credit card and personal information using encryption to protect your credit card transaction. If property does not have online booking, you can contact the owner by sending a message with your dates and details. Once your request is received, the owner or property manager of the property will contact you via email with either a payment request or a specific link to access their payment instructions.
We also recommend that where possible, that you call the telephone number published on the property listing if you are paying by credit card, check, PayPal or bank to bank wire transfer. If the listing does not have a phone number, you can contact customer support for assistance.
When you are ready to make payment, review and sign a rental agreement and read it carefully as each rental typically has their own cancellation policies and house rules.
Please avoid the following practices
*These payment methods are preferred by criminals and using them voids any guarantees from us.
How do I contact a vacation rental owner or manager?
Most of our rentals are done via StayHomeAway platform and all owners or listings are checked out. However, there are some listings which have names and numbers, so If you would like to learn more about a listing before submitting a reservation request, you can call or email the owner directly or via admin@stayhomeaway.com.
Call an owner or manager
Email an owner or manager
Owners and managers are encouraged to reply to inquiries within 24-48 hours. If you do not hear back in this time frame, you may want to consider alternative properties.
If you have already made a reservation and unable to contact owner or manager, please contact our Customer Support for assistance.
The best practices listed below can help you feel safer about renting a vacation property on the Internet. We also use transactional platform to do our best to protect you the traveller
Give the owner/manager a call
Prior to submitting payment to an owner or manager, call the telephone number posted on the listing and speak with them directly. If a phone number cannot be located on the listing, please contact Customer Support for further information.
Read the property reviews
Our review system enables travellers to provide a review of a property after their stay and leave comments for future travellers. Owners/managers cannot hide negative reviews on their listings or opt out of the reviews system. The number of stars in a rating gives you an idea of the property itself as well as the experience of past travellers. Owners/managers can post one response to each review, providing an additional opportunity for you to get a feel for the owner/manager.
Speak with previous visitors
Ask the owner/manager for email addresses or phone numbers of past travellers who have agreed to serve as be references, and contact them to ask about the property and their stay.
How does the cost of my reservation appear on my credit/debit card?
Depending on what you purchased and the details of your transaction, the line items you see may vary. A complete list of the different transaction items is listed below.
Please note, the brand name may show as StayHomeAway Ltd depending on which brand the listing is registered
> What is online booking?
Online booking allows renters/travellers to:
As an owner/manager, our online booking allows you to:
Getting Started with Online Booking
We've made it easy to turn this feature on! You may see a pop up message in your dashboard when you log in. This is designed to provide a shortcut to make your listing online bookable. If you already have StayHomeAway Payments and are interested making your listing online bookable now, simple choose one of the Free packages with pay per listing. If you are not interested in the pay per listing package, you can still make your listing online bookable by setting up your alternative payment methods - learn more below:>>>>
How do I manage Alternative Payment Methods?
Alternative payment methods can be applied to subscription listings only, and are not available for pay-per-booking listings.
The instructions you provide will be displayed to your guest only after you have accepted their online reservation request, or if you send the guest a payment request directly. If you have previously defined alternative payment methods on another listing, you will have the option to duplicate the information to another listing for ease. Please note, the duplicate feature does not duplicate StayHomeAway Payments information. If you want to add StayHomeAway Payments to another listing, select the listing the applicable listing from your dashboard and go to the StayHomeAway Payments page within your account Settings.
For accounts with more than 10 listings, we offer the option to create Groups with alternative payments options managed together. To learn more about how to use groups, follow instructions below. For any issues please contact us at admin@stayhomeaway.com for your specific requirements.
How to manage Alternative Payment Methods by Groups
The grouping feature is available if you have more than 10 subscription listings within your account or you are using the Property Manager dashboard. This feature allows you to:
Set up Default
Edit a single listing to be different than the Default
You can create a new group that can be used by other listings in the future that are different than your default.
Create New Group
Once all listings are added to a new group, you have the ability to edit the methods for the entire groups should you need to in the future.
Edit methods for an entire group
Be advised that modifying these settings will cause our system to send you a confirmation email.
Add alternative payment methods:
After you have successfully entered and saved your payment method(s), you can add or edit at any time.
Edit alternative payment methods:
In the event you do not want your travelers to pay using a method previously entered, you can disable that method. Please note, if you do not offer HomeAway Payments, you must keep at least one alternative payment method enabled at all times.
Disable alternative payment methods:
How do I manage Alternative Payment Methods?
Alternative payment methods can be applied to subscription listings only, and are not available for pay-per-booking listings.
The instructions you provide will be displayed to your guest only after you have accepted their online reservation request, or if you send the guest a payment request directly.
If you have previously defined alternative payment methods on another listing, you will have the option to duplicate the information to another listing for ease. Please note, the duplicate feature does not duplicate StayHomeAway Payments information. If you want to add StayHomeAway Payments to another listing, select the listing the applicable listing from your dashboard and go to the StayHomeAway Payments page within your account Settings.
For accounts with more than 10 listings, we offer the option to create Groups with alternative payments options managed together. Contact us for more than 10 listings. Be advised that modifying these settings will cause our system to send you a confirmation email.
Add alternative payment methods:
After you have successfully entered and saved your payment method(s), you can add or edit at any time.
Edit alternative payment methods:
In the event you do not want your travellers to pay using a method previously entered, you can disable that method. Please note, if you do not offer StayHomeAway Payments, you must keep at least one alternative payment method enabled at all times.
Disable alternative payment methods:
Only an unpaid payment request can be edited. Canceled payments cannot be modified.
Edit a payment request
Please note, first payment requests that remain unedited, or unpaid by a traveler, will expire within 10 days. The 10 day clock is reset anytime a Payment Request is edited.
If your guest has already paid their first installment and you need to revise the balance due, follow these steps:
If you currently use StayHomeAway Payments and are refunding a traveller due to cancellation, refunds must be issued prior to cancelling a reservation. Refunds should also be issued within your set refund policy.
To Issue a refund to traveller
Refunds through the StayHomeAway online payments system can take from 5 to 7 working days depending on the location of your bank. To avoid scams, always refund through our tools if the traveller pays with credit card through StayHomeAway Payments. Do not refund them via bank transfer or check – you must refund them via the same credit card option.
An email with the details of the refund is sent to both you and your traveller and the Payment Details page is updated to show the payment status as refunded or partially refunded.
While vacation rental owners and property managers pay processing fees to collect monies there are no processing fees associated with refunding a StayHomeAway Payments payment.
Please note if you are refunding a payment made via eCheck, you must wait 10 business days from date of payment before issuing refund.
If you are using Paypal, you have 60 days with receipt of payment to make refund. If using OpenEdge (formerly known as PayPros/PPI), you only have 90 days from date of payment to refund in dashboard. Otherwise Anything past 90 days must be done through the OpenEdge portal.
If you are having difficulty with two-factor authentication, please take a moment to review this troubleshooting article as below. If you are still unable to access your account, please call customer support. You can reach our customer support team by clicking the Contact Us. Try trouble Shooting where applicable
The code you received is not working.
If you are using a iPhone, make sure you open the text message. The verification code is sent to you. If your phone is locked, this number is displayed on your home screen and can be easily mistaken for the verification code. You must open up the text to view a 6 digit verification code. Codes are only valid for 30 minutes. If it has been more than 30 minutes since you received the code, you must request a new code.
You have not received the verification code.
The verification code should only take a few seconds to get through to you, but please allow up to a minute.
If you are not receiving the code via SMS / text message, try retrieving the code using the call to phone option.
You are prompted to enter two factor authentication multiple times from the same device. Ensure that the Remember this device check-box is selected. If you change between browsers, you may be prompted with two factor authentication multiple times from the same device. Two-factor authentication looks at both your device and the browser you are using to log in. If you regularly use multiple browsers, we recommend you take a minute and authenticate them all to minimize your challenges in the future.
You are using the same code on multiple devices.
The same code cannot be used on multiple devices. When signing into your account from a new device, you must request and enter a unique verification code.
Still having trouble?
If you are locked out of your account or still experiencing difficulty with two factor authentication, please call customer support for assistance. You can reach our customer support team by clicking the Contact Us
> On boarding Proper Billing type
Billing options must be configured for your StayHomeAway listings. Select the options you would like to offer your travellers who are booking your StayHomeAway properties by choosing any of the following options:
The following document helps guide you through the appropriate screens to set this up.
The booking experience a listing provides reflects a large variety of factors that are important once the traveller has inquired or requested to book your property. Similar to traveller preferences, these evolve as we learn more about the booking experience travellers prefer. Here are a few examples of booking experience factors that may be taken into account in any given search, many of which you can monitor through your listing quality scorecard:
None of the above or any other booking experience factor requires perfection, and you still get time with each booking request to consider traveller best match from your perspective. While online booking isn’t the only way to provide a great booking experience, usage of those tools provide the strongest signals StayHomeAway can read to assess factors such as accurate rates and calendars, among other experiences.
Everyone wants to find and buy the things that match what they are looking for quickly and easily. That’s true of travellers looking for vacation rentals.
Best match is a sophisticated process that looks at traveller preferences as well as the booking experience a listing provides to place listings within search results. Our goal is to provide an efficient experience for owners, property managers, and travellers by showing properties that are most likely to be booked.
Traveller Preferences
StayHomeAway enables a variety of search options and features designed to help travellers find what they are looking for without difficulty, which in turn also drives qualified inquiries and bookings to our owners and property managers. We use the information travellers enter into the search box, such as date and location, and take into account any filters selected, including map views. Since each traveller and search is unique, search results vary for each traveller.
Booking Experience
The booking experience refers to how easily and reliable a listing can be booked by travellers. It can be indicated by factors such as an accurate calendar, response time, and accepting online bookings. The most important way to be successful is to enable online booking and increase the number of onsite bookings. If we don’t have visibility into your booking activity, we can’t factor that advantage into listing performance with best match.
StayHomeAway continues to strive to drive more bookings for our owners and property managers. Delighting travellers with an excellent booking experience encourages repeat travellers and repeat bookings that help our shared marketplace thrive.
The following criteria is required for signing up for StayHomeAway Payments:
For U.S. Resident*
*Includes American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas, and U.S. Virgin Islands
Residents of The United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, British Virgin Islands, Canada, Belgium, France, French Guiana, Germany, Gibraltar, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Jersey, Martinique, Mayotte, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Réunion, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Spain, and Switzerland
Travellers can pay in USD$ or GBP£. Your funds can be disbursed in your local currency or in USD,or GBP depending on your bank account location. If you live in a country not currently supported, we strongly suggest you accept credit card payments through PayPal or another merchant account provider so guests can pay securely online. We are actively working to provide online payment processing options for vacation rental owners all over the world, so please keep your eye on the site for changes.
StayHomeAway does not allow for platform and integrated listings on the same account anymore. The goal is to have all listings being fed through software if you are activated through software. This will allow you to use your software to make use of all our tools & features without facing any restrictions due to different integration set-ups. Furthermore, in the long-term, StayHomeAway will not support manual rates or availability updates anymore. If you are integrated to StayHomeAway through your Software provider, rates and calendar updates will have to be synchronized with us.
Why are you doing this? What are my benefits?
Feeding all your inventory within your account through your software and transitioning manual listings into integrated listings will allow you to benefit from:
© Copyright 2016 StayHomeAway.com. All rights reserved.
Use of this website constitutes acceptance of the StayHomeAway.com Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.