Direct bookings for a holiday let: how to take the stay yourself and still fill the calendar

Dmitrij Sitki · lead engineer at ReceptionGO
Published 31 October 2026 · 5 min read

General information, not legal or tax advice. Check your own case with your local council, HMRC or the relevant revenue authority, or an accountant.

A direct booking is a stay the guest books with you, not through Airbnb, Booking.com or Vrbo. On a £200 night you keep about £197 after Stripe’s standard UK card fee, against about £169 after Airbnb’s 15.5% host fee. The guest will only do it if the price is clear, the dates are really free, and check-in works without a platform inbox.

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The fee changes of October 2026 made the direct booking worth more than it was. Airbnb’s single 15.5% and Vrbo’s 12% come off the host. A guest who books the same week with you pays card processing and nothing else. The obstacle is not the arithmetic. It is a page that feels less safe than Airbnb, and a calendar that double-sells the Saturday.

The gap, on one night

Using the percentages in the fee guide, before VAT on the platform’s fee:

	Guest pays	You keep
Airbnb, 15.5% host fee	£200	£169.00
Vrbo, 12%	£200, plus Vrbo’s own traveller fee	£176.00
Direct, Stripe standard UK card (1.5% + 20p)	£200	£196.80
Direct, discounted	£185	£182.02

The discounted row is the offer worth making to a guest who has already stayed. They save £15. You keep £13 more than Airbnb would have left you. A visitor levy and a cleaning fee have to be inside whichever price you show, on both routes, or you are cheaper only until the last screen.

What the page has to do

Show live dates. A direct booking that lands on a week already sold on Booking.com is an overbooking. The direct page has to close the same calendar the channels use. That is the job of a channel manager, not a spreadsheet you update on Sundays.
Take the card now. “Email me and I’ll send a bank-transfer invoice” loses the guest who was ready at 10pm, and it is how payment scams impersonate hosts. A card into your own Stripe account is the same gesture they use everywhere else.
State the total and the cancellation rule before they pay. The cancellation guide is the wording; the page is where it has to be read.
Send check-in without a platform inbox. The link, the house rules and, once they have checked in, the door code. If those only exist inside Airbnb, a direct guest is a phone call at midnight.

Where the guests come from

The last stay. A short note at checkout, with the direct price for their dates next year, converts better than a newsletter. Templates are in the message guide.
Google. A Business Profile with the right category, real photos and a link that lands on a bookable page, not a homepage with a phone number. Ask for the review on Google from guests who booked direct; do not buy them.
Repeat and referral. A named offer for a guest who sends a friend. Keep it as a discount code on your page so the dates still close on the channels.

Do not ask an Airbnb guest to cancel and pay you instead. That breaches Airbnb’s rules, it is how hosts lose accounts, and the guest loses the protection they booked for. The direct relationship starts after a stay that was honoured where it was made.

From our own practiceThe direct bookings that fail are the ones where the guest had to wait for a reply to know if the week was free. The ones that work look like any other checkout: dates, total, card, confirmation, and a check-in link the same evening. The commission you save is the reward for removing that wait.

Frequently asked questions

Will Airbnb punish me for mentioning my website?

Airbnb’s rules restrict taking a booking off the platform before it is made, and putting contact details in a listing where guests are steered away. A guest who has already stayed can be told how to book next time. Do that in your own message after checkout, not by asking them to cancel an Airbnb request and pay you by bank transfer.

Should the direct price be lower?

It can be, and still pay you more. At £185 against an Airbnb price of £200, Stripe’s standard UK fee is about £2.98 and you keep about £182, which beats £169 after a 15.5% fee. The guest has a reason to come back. Match the cancellation terms, or the lower price is not the same product.

Do I still need the platforms?

For a property nobody has heard of, yes. Direct bookings grow from guests who have already stayed, from a Google listing, and from people you can email because they agreed. They rarely replace the first discovery of a new cottage. The aim is the second stay and the referral, not a boycott.

What has to be on the booking page?

The total price, including anything mandatory, the dates, how many guests, the cancellation term, and who they are contracting with. A page that collects the card and then emails a PDF of terms is where drip pricing and unfair-term arguments start.

Can I email last year’s guests a discount?

Only if you have their consent for marketing, or a soft-opt-in that actually applies. A message about their current stay — the door code, checkout — is a service message and does not need marketing consent. “20% off October” to a list you scraped from Airbnb is marketing, and PECR applies.

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Sources

Rules last checked on 22 October 2026.