Your money stays with us until you have seen the place.
Most mid-term rentals in Bali and Da Nang are still arranged over WhatsApp and settled by bank transfer. You send two months up front to someone you have never met, and if the apartment is not the one in the photos, that is your problem. This is the part we are actually trying to fix.
You ask, the host says yes
You send dates and a short note about who you are. The host approves or declines. Nothing is charged while you are talking.
You pay the first month, and we hold it
First month plus our fee, charged to your card. The money sits with us. The host sees that it is there, which is what makes them hold the dates.
Your deposit is held, never handed over
We place a hold on your card for the deposit amount. It is not transferred to the host and it is not sitting in anyone's bank account. Nobody can spend it — including us.
You arrive and look around
You have 48 hours. If the place materially differs from the walkthrough you watched, you tell us and we refund you in full and rebook you — because we still have the money.
The host gets paid
48 hours after check-in, month one is released. Every following month is charged on the same date and paid straight through.
You leave, the hold drops
The deposit hold is released when you check out. A host who wants to claim against it has to show us what was damaged, and you get to respond before anything is charged.
Two numbers, and one of them is capped.
You, the guest
5%
Capped at the $400 equivalent. On a six-month stay that cap is the difference between a few hundred dollars and a few thousand — a long stay is closer to a lease than a hotel booking, and the fee should reflect that.
The host
0%
For the first twelve months, then 3%. We would rather have supply than margin right now, and saying so is more honest than pretending it is permanent.
Why a cap at all?
A percentage fee makes sense on a weekend. On a six-month stay it stops being a service charge and starts being a tax on staying still. Our costs do not scale with your rent — a 180-day booking takes about as much work as a 30-day one — so the fee should stop growing at some point. It stops at $400.
Answered the way we would answer them in person.
- Is this a lease?
- No. What you sign here is a Stay Confirmation — a plain-language record of the dates, the all-in price, what is included and what happens if either side cancels. It is not a tenancy agreement and we do not pretend it is one. If you want a local lease as well, you and the host can attach your own; we give you a slot for it.
- So what are you, legally?
- A verification service and a payments facilitator. The arrangement to stay is between you and the host. We check the property, hold the money, and stand behind the walkthrough being accurate. We are not your landlord and we are not your letting agent.
- Who holds my deposit?
- Nobody, in the sense that matters. It is a hold on your card through Stripe — no cash moves, so there is no account for it to disappear from. Compared with wiring two months' rent to a stranger's Indonesian bank account, which is what most of this market runs on today, that is the entire point.
- What if I need to leave early?
- The cancellation terms are on the Stay Confirmation before you pay, in the same words we use here. There is no separate policy document and no tier system. What you read is what applies.
- What stops a host lying in the walkthrough?
- Not much, on its own — which is why it is one continuous take with a device timestamp, why a person watches all of it, why the speed test runs on the property's line, and why the badge expires after twelve months. Any single one of those is gameable. Together they are a lot of effort for a listing that then gets a refund claim on day two.