payment

Hi

This simple answer is you dont, 

This is the price you pay when you dont have a prepayment setup to be taken by BdC , Guest at checkout time. aka Online Payment by BdC or Payments by Booking.

The way it is meant to work when Guest must pre pay you is, if they fail to send payment within the time you give, regardless of them notifying you to cancel, you cannot expect them to pay a cancel fee, once the 24 hours expire.

At this point you are meant to cancel the booking, reservation details page, click request cancel, choose option 1.

That would be immoral and unethical, even for a last minute booking.

As we say in Ireland , you cant get blood out of a stone - :)

Good day.

Goggas Nest here in Swaziland. Southern Africa.

We are pretty new with Booking.com and do not have the option available to ask for card details from clients. It seems that Booking.com has blocked this option as we are new hosts.

We now have clients from Phakistan making false long term  bookings to print a booking confirmation in order to get a entey visa to Swaziland. These clients then do not cancel their booking, blocking our calendar and obviously not arriving.

We have written many letters to Booking.com asking for assistance and received not a single response?

We need to change our booking settings to stop this practise as we losing other bookings and payments.

How do we get Booking.com to respond to us as we are now wanting to co tact Interpol police and local immigration authorities to take action against this fraudulent practise.

Please advise urgently so we can rectify this setting.

Kind regards.

Gary Emmett.

• "It seems that Booking.com has blocked this option as we are new hosts." Yes by default new partners are not allowed until they complete their first few bookings and no drama. However as Isle of Wight said since the day I arrived on year in 2019, "do not take no for an answer insist they give you Payments By Booking or Online Payments (VCC issued by BdC). or you will close account and go else where.  
• "Interpol police and local immigration authorities to take action against this fraudulent practise." Lets manage realistic expectations, that is never going to happen, it has nothing to do with interpol /immigration, nor is it BdC being fraudulent, that's fiction.  

This has been a perceived issue much longer than a year, and BdC wont be changing it anytime soon.

For first time bookings, you should use this method :  

• Set policies for guest payment to Prepay.  
• Update New Reservation auto template to contain:  
  • "As this is a prepay rate, please use the following payment method info to make payment in x hours /days. Your reservation will be void and cancelled should you fail to do so within the time. " Deposit [if any ]: same method   
  • can be bank transfer/ SEPA / Revolut / BIC , SWIFT / other payment service providers etc.  
  • Should a guest fail to pay as instructed you can initiate a cancellation by clicking it on the right pane on the reservation details page.  
  • To cover yourself just before you do the cancellation, scroll down and send a preset message template of notice to cancel due to prepayment failure.   
  • When you click Request Cancellation, choose option 1 (not 2).  
  • In some cases you may need to follow up with Partner Support, but once a guest fails to prepay, even a deposit you are in your right to cancel.  
  • I would also add a note on it into the Fine Print area (property > View my descriptions).