# How to get direct bookings for your vacation rental

Direct bookings come from people who find your site or already know you. Here are the places to work on, and what PageHub gives each one. Searches like direct bookings for your vacation rental, get direct bookings and direct bookings for vacation rentals lead here.

## The short answer

- Give every home its own page, write about the place around it, and count what each source brings in.
- Guests who book on your site can opt in to hear about future stays, and you can invite them back with one shared promo code.
- A booking on your site is paid into your Stripe account. No booking fee from PageHub. Stripe still charges its processing fees.
- Platform guests stay on their platform. Airbnb's and Vrbo's rules keep that traffic theirs.

## Where direct bookings come from

- **Search.** Each home has its own page with its own title, description and share image, and the page carries structured data built from the fields you already filled in: name, photos, address, bedrooms and amenities. Structured data helps search engines read a page. It doesn't decide how a result looks.
- **The place around your homes.** The rental templates include area pages and guide pages. An area page lists the homes in that city. A guide page is yours to write: what to pack, where to eat, how to get from the car to the door.
- **Your own ads and social pages.** Link to one home's page, not your front page. Add your GA4 and Meta details under Integrations and the confirmation page sends one purchase event per paid booking. A request you hold for approval sends a lead event instead. No guest name, email or dates go to either tag.
- **Guests who booked on your site.** A box on the booking card, unticked, asks if they want offers for future stays. Guests who tick it show in Past guests on the Members screen, and you can send them a book-again email with one promo code you make in the composer.
- **Guests who started and left.** A guest who agreed to offers, reached payment and left gets one email with a link back to the same dates. If the nights have gone, the email says to pick new ones.

## Where to start

1. Publish your homes with your own photos and a description that says what is special about each.
2. Write one area page and two guide pages. Real detail beats filler.
3. Connect GA4 and Meta so every paid booking is counted.
4. Put each home's link in your social profiles and ads.
5. Check which source sent each booking in GA4 or Meta, and put more into what worked.

## Make the booking easy to finish

- **A price the guest can read.** The guest sees the nights, the cleaning fee and the tax as separate lines before they pay.
- **Longer-stay discounts and promo codes.** Type a weekly and a monthly percent on a home. Make a code in Shop under Checkout & shipping, and guests type it into Have a code? on the booking card.
- **Pay part now.** Set a Pay first percent on a home. The guest pays that share and agrees to the rest on the same card. You press Charge balance when it's due, or send a pay link.
- **Rules the guest signs.** An agreement the guest signs by typing their name, and a refundable hold on their card, are both optional and set per home.

## Keep platform guests on their platform

Airbnb and Vrbo each have rules about links, messages, discounts and payments for their own guests. Nothing on this page is for a guest who booked through a platform. Read what each platform allows before you decide how to tell people about your site.

## What a booking costs

Airbnb's host service fee is 15.5% for most hosts, according to Airbnb's help center. A booking made on your own site is paid into your Stripe account.

| Where the guest books | What the booking costs you |
|---|---|
| On Airbnb | Airbnb's host service fee: 15.5% for most hosts. |
| On your PageHub site | No booking fee from PageHub. Stripe still charges its processing fees. |

## Everything in the Rentals pack

$49 a month up to 5 homes, $99 up to 25, $199 up to 100. Your site is included, and PageHub takes no booking fee. Stripe still charges its processing fees.

- **Bookings paid into your Stripe.** Guests pick dates on each home's calendar and pay into your own Stripe account. Charge at once, or hold the card until you approve.
- **Part payment.** Guests pay part now and agree to the balance on the same card. You press Charge balance when it's due, and PageHub reminds you.
- **Refundable security deposit.** Place a hold on the guest's card before check-in, then release it or keep part of it from your Orders screen.
- **Rental agreements signed online.** Guests type their name and agree before they pay. Each order keeps the exact text they signed.
- **Discounts, promo codes and cancellation.** Weekly and monthly discounts, promo codes on your Stripe account, and a cancellation policy that suggests each refund.
- **Guest list and book-again emails.** Every guest who books is saved. Email past guests who agreed to offers, with a promo code for their next stay.
- **Abandoned-booking email.** A guest who agreed to offers and left checkout gets one email about an hour later, with their dates filled in.
- **One calendar for every home.** See every home's bookings on one screen, and close the same dates on several homes at once.
- **Sync alerts.** Homes sync from Hospitable, Hostaway, Guesty or Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com calendar links. If a sync keeps failing, PageHub emails you.
- **A page for every home and area.** Each home gets its own page, title, share image and vacation rental structured data, plus area and guide pages for your sitemap.
- **Purchase tracking.** Each booking sends a purchase event to Google Analytics 4 and the Meta pixel, with the booking's value and no guest details.
- **Set it up by asking your AI.** Connect PageHub to Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor. The Set up direct bookings skill connects Stripe, brings in your homes and checks every fee and policy.

Building by asking? [Connect your AI to PageHub](https://pagehub.dev/guides/connect-your-ai-to-pagehub) in two minutes.

## FAQ

### Will a website bring me bookings?
No page can promise that. A new site has no visitors until people find it, through search, maps, your social pages, ads or word of mouth. PageHub gives each source something to work with and counts the bookings. The results are yours to build.

### How long until my site shows up in search?
Nobody can say. Search engines decide when and how to show a page. Each home's page has a title, description, share image and structured data, and your site has a sitemap, which help a search engine read it.

### Can I email my past guests?
Guests who booked on your own site and ticked the offers box are on your list, and you can send them a book-again email with one shared promo code. Guests who booked on a platform aren't on it, and each platform has its own rules. Read what Airbnb allows first.

### Do I need ads?
No. Ads are one way to reach people. If you run them, connect GA4 and Meta, and the confirmation page sends one purchase event for each paid booking.

### What does PageHub send to Google and Meta?
A purchase event with the booking's id, value and currency, once per paid booking. A request you hold for approval sends a lead event with no value. No guest name, email or dates go to either tag, and nothing is sent if your tag didn't load.

Sources, all read November 2026: [Airbnb Help Center: Host service fees (read November 2026)](https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1857), [Airbnb Help Center: Pricing and payment transparency (read November 2026)](https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2799).

Airbnb, Vrbo, Google, Meta and Stripe are trademarks of their owners. PageHub isn't affiliated with or endorsed by them.