While the best way to grow your business is to add more listing sites to your channel management strategy, you should strive to maximize your performance within each channel too. One way of doing that is gaining access to each channel’s elite host program, like Vrbo’s Premier Partner status.
The Premier Partner program is an invite-only initiative for property managers and owners on Vrbo who meet specific performance requirements. By being a Premier Partner, you receive exclusive benefits and services on Vrbo as a ‘thank you’ for being a consistently high-achieving host.
Vrbo believes hosts who “go above and beyond for travelers” help make the entire Vrbo community a better place. And those property managers and owners who do, are rewarded by the channel for their efforts.
But not everyone is eligible to become a Vrbo Premier Partner. We’ll cover what benefits you receive as a part of the program, what you need to be eligible for an invitation and fast-track tips to reach this goal.
What’s in it for you?
Once you have received and accepted an invitation from Vrbo to become a Premier Partner, you are eligible for a number of benefits as long as your account continues to meet the program’s standards.
Among the benefits of being a Vrbo Premier Partner, you can:
- Communicate with Vrbo’s priority customer support line
- Earn more exposure with higher appearances in applicable searches as well as in searches containing the Premier Partner search filter
- Display the Premier Partner badge on your property listing
- Gain exclusive access to new, unreleased features and tools as a beta tester
- Attain unique opportunities to market your properties with Vrbo.
How you can become a Premier Partner
Premier Partners come in all shapes and sizes, and Vrbo’s requirements vary by the number of properties you manage. If you only have one property, you must meet the following over a 365 day period:
- 5 or more bookings
- 3 or more traveler reviews
- 4.5 or higher average review score
- 85% or more booking acceptance rate
- Under 10% cancellations
- Online payments must be enabled
- Online bookings must be allowed
If you’re invited to become a Premier Partner on Vrbo, your property will display the Premier Partner badge and you will have access to all of the benefits provided as long as you continue to meet all of the above criteria.
If you have more than one property, there is a two-step process to follow in order to become a Vrbo Premier Partner.
First, you must enable online payments and allow online bookings. In addition, at least 10% of your listings must have at least five bookings and three or more guest reviews within a 365-day period.
Once you’ve met those requirements, there are only a few more boxes to check. You must have more than 50% of your eligible properties meet the following requirements:
- 4.5 or higher average review score
- 85% or more booking acceptance rate
- Less than 10% cancellations
For example, if you manage 20 eligible vacation rental properties and 10 of which have at least 5 bookings and 3 reviews in one year, then if at least 6 of those properties (more than 50%) meet program criteria, you should receive an invitation to become a Vrbo Premium Partner. It is those 6 properties that will be able to display a Premier Partner badge in Vrbo search results.
3 tips to help you meet these qualifications
If the thought of meeting these requirements is overwhelming, these five tips will put your properties in a position to succeed on Vrbo.
1. Engage leads with an optimized listing. The first thing that catches the eye of any searcher, is beautiful photos of your vacation rental property. Humans process images faster than words, so photos are often the deciding factor on which listing gets a click or not. Beyond photos, make sure that both your headline and description of your property are professional and appeal to your target audience. Finally, to appear in as many searches as possible, make sure you have denoted all of your properties amenities where available. An optimized listing will get you well over the five booking threshold needed to be a Premier Partner.
2. Don’t be afraid to ask for reviews. Not only do you need guest reviews to be a Premier Partner, but they inherently attract more bookings. Vrbo asks guests to review their stay after they’ve checked out, but oftentimes travelers ignore or forget these reminders. It’s best to follow these steps to solicit more feedback from your guests. Requesting reviews from past guests isn’t just a practice to gain channel favor within Vrbo, but should be carried out across channels throughout your business.
3. Enable instant book. The best way to gain more bookings on channels is to turn on instant book. This will help you gain more exposure, capture last minute travelers and earn a higher ranking in searches. Follow these best practices to get the most out of the feature.
Juggling each of your properties across multiple channels can be both time consuming and an organizational nightmare, but Guesty can help you keep your business in order so you can focus on its growth and its Premier Partner status.
Guesty makes it easy to manage all of your listings on Vrbo – and every other channel in your marketing strategy – to ensure that you gain maximum exposure and reservations without the fear of double bookings.
Our direct connections to every major channel provide superior performance compared to other software providers that use unreliable, third-party channel managers.
If you follow these tips and put Guesty to work for you, you’ll have a Premier Partner badge in no time.
