Tripping over T a

[Sunshine]

So T r i p A calls and wants me to do a business listing with them. (so far I have not).
They tell me I have a "Huge" amount of traffic to my current (free) listing at 1,411 views for the past year and that I'm losing a ton of revenue by not having the business listing.
Our website has had 17,826 views in 2014
and so far in 2015 4,234 (thats the first 3 months)
So T r i p A doesn't sound all that great to me.
They say they will give me a big discount to do a business listing with them...
What do you all say to this?

 

[gillumhouse]

Go with your gut - tell them you do not live in Missouri for nothing. They did not show you anything - just unsubstantiated words. There has been a lot of discussion on a UK Forum about T A. Many who had signed up got renewal notices for double OR MORE, being told there was xxxxx traffic to their site so the value of the listing has increased.

 

[Anon Inn]

We tried them twice, about 3 years ago then again two years ago. The first time I cut the trial short, too few click throughs, the second time too few conversions, though I did let the second trial run its course. For us, not worth it, and that was before they jacked their rates to the stratosphere.

 

[Evan]

Business listing is a great waste of money
but...
Their trip connect looks great if you can have a better price direct rather than an OTA

 

[TheBeachHouse]

If your website is the main marketing source for you, I wouldn't.
Right now, we get more than half our guests through t a. So we keep it. It allows them to book direct instead of through b ooking dot com.

 

[Aussie Innkeeper]

BIG discount, eh? Well, maybe for the first year. Then, watch the cost of your 'auto-renewed' listing increase 50-fold!

 

[Stu]

We just renewed for our second year, but i have to say i would go with the flow. Forget the business listing, it is a lot of money for a tiny link, next year I will only do trip conn ect.

 

[Aussie Innkeeper]

And the thing that just irks me most about the 'business listing'...well, two things, actually. 1. they assign you a phone number. It's not your actual phone number, but guests don't know that. The call eventually gets to you, but not before being routed thru TA to allow them to 'track' the calls and then use this ammunition to charge you more for the listing in the future. It also screws with g00gle SEO and such. And 2. even though you pay thru the nose for the listing, OTHER properties still show up on YOUR page!!

 

[Sunshine]

I thought you all might say such. I also thought that I read somewhere on here someone else saying something about them doubling the rates after a while! I didn't know about the different phone number, but now it makes total sense because their site says something about tracking the number of calls. I was wondering how they do that!
NO I don't want a different number.
Thanks y'all!

 

[happykeeper]

I thought you all might say such. I also thought that I read somewhere on here someone else saying something about them doubling the rates after a while! I didn't know about the different phone number, but now it makes total sense because their site says something about tracking the number of calls. I was wondering how they do that!
NO I don't want a different number.
Thanks y'all!

.

I little late adding in a thought.. They can be flexible, so if you are getting a decent offer, you may want to at least consider it. We still have ours and we were able to opt out of the phony number nonsense. It did go up but ours wasn't outrageous. I know that if they decide to go that route again, we may drop it and keep Tr Connect. I wish I had been better at tracking it, but it did become one of our larger click overs, so there may be some value in that.

 

[gillumhouse]

I thought you all might say such. I also thought that I read somewhere on here someone else saying something about them doubling the rates after a while! I didn't know about the different phone number, but now it makes total sense because their site says something about tracking the number of calls. I was wondering how they do that!
NO I don't want a different number.
Thanks y'all!

.

They did the phone number routine several years ago. I had no idea they had given me a different number until someone mentioned it, perhaps here. I checked my listing, and sure enough it was NOT my number. A VERY bitchy phone call later, my number was restored. They are going thru this now in the UK.
Have any of you tried looking at your TA listing lately? I get a gray film over everything and cannot read the reviews unless I go to management response. Folks in the UK are experiencing this also. Supposedly there is a way to make it go away, but I was never able to find it.

 

[Morticia]

I thought you all might say such. I also thought that I read somewhere on here someone else saying something about them doubling the rates after a while! I didn't know about the different phone number, but now it makes total sense because their site says something about tracking the number of calls. I was wondering how they do that!
NO I don't want a different number.
Thanks y'all!

.

They did the phone number routine several years ago. I had no idea they had given me a different number until someone mentioned it, perhaps here. I checked my listing, and sure enough it was NOT my number. A VERY bitchy phone call later, my number was restored. They are going thru this now in the UK.
Have any of you tried looking at your TA listing lately? I get a gray film over everything and cannot read the reviews unless I go to management response. Folks in the UK are experiencing this also. Supposedly there is a way to make it go away, but I was never able to find it.
.

I was trying to get the link today specifically to email to someone who wanted to write a review.
Rather than go directly to my listing I went at it like a guest would.
Brought up ta. Searched for my town. Selected lodging in my town. Zero B&B's came up. Option to select hotels, specialty rentals and one other thing.
The only way to find the B&B's was to click on one of them that had a special going on. Then from there click where it showed '1 of 10 inns'.
So why pay them when they've removed any easy way for guests to find the B&B's?
This happens a lot. They change how results are shown in different markets so you never know what you're going to get.