New VRBO/HomeAway service fee

I am a VRBO host - I know this is an Airbnb forum, but we face many of the same issues.

I chose VRBO because they charged an annual $399 subscription to list my property and then no booking fees (outside of credit card processing fees).

Today, I responded to an enquiry and found they had added a "service fee" of more than 10% to my quote. Supposedly this is a charge to the traveller but I have mostly Canadian guests who are already reeling from the currency exchange (CDN$ at .7 US$) and I discount my rates for most Canadian bookings this year. This means that fee will be coming out of the money I make!

This seems to be a breach of contract to me (but of course their Terms and Conditions say they can change these things). I can advertise on Airbnb or TripAdvisor for free and pay the per booking fee. I am six months into my one year subscription and they are unilaterally changing our agreement.

I waited 30 minutes to talk to a rep who know exactly why I was calling. He said: "No, they won't remove the service charge from my booking or give me a pro-rated refund." He also mentioned they would be monitoring booking to see if hosts moved them "off-site" for payment to avoid service fee.

They announced this change in an monthly email they send out that absolutely did not make it clear that a fee would apply to subscription listings. It was buried at the bottom of their January email that highlighted their new TV ad!

I would like to make all hosts aware of this change and make sure we provide feedback to VRBO that this is fraudulent!! If anyone has any suggestions of how to publicize this better, please let me know!