t
1
Tom Orrow
seeking advice

New Comer Need HELP! - GUESS PAYMENT

Hello everyone,

As the title indicates, I'm new to booking.com and host experience in general. I have a couple of questions to get a head start and solve my confusion.

I just listed my property and everything went very well (I think). I research a little bit in the forum and found out about booking commission by every month.  I have my first reservation yesterday and the guess prefer to pay by cash. Then in that afternoon I received a email saying booking cancel for that day. I thought the guess canceled to pay cash to help me avoid commission. But the next day, he said he didn't cancel it and he thought I did it as it will be beneficial for me. Either he lied or I made a big mistake. 

Is their a booking procedure that I haven't been aware of? For example, inform booking.com that the guess arrive or something. I only just add bank account today.  How can I be sure that I will receive payment if guest pay online through booking.com?

And please share some great tips for newcomer if you have time to spare!

Thank you very much!

b
11
BrookAve 4 years ago

 

Hi Tom,

 

Welcome. So like me I too wanted peace of mind and much of this automated and have BdC do as much as possible .

 

 

In order to do as above you have to enable Payments by Booking.com under finance menu > Getting Paid.



Then choose the payout frequency, 15th monthly and up to 10 days fro m then to receive it versus every 9-10 days .
 

 

That way all deducted are handled at source.

 

Now on the topic of the guest cash and cancel. If I read that right, the original booking was for payment onsite, and then on check in  day you received a BdC email asking to cancel the booking?
 



Note I said asking to cancel and not fully cancelled by BdC nor the guest, since technically they are not allowed to unless you respond and agree.

 

 

I can tell you categorically the guest was not trying to do you a solid.

 

So for new bookings here is what I recommend:

 

  • 1. [Policies] enable Prepay Only 
     
  • 2. [Policies] set strict cancelation policy, with 100% or less if you really want to as a refund option.

    You can have 2 or more cancelation policies based on the 2 different types of rates, Non Refundable and Flexible [refundable]. 
     
  • 3. [Rate Plans] Create a base line model where first plan is the nightly rate and then other plans derived from that based on an amount or percentage.
     
  • 4. [Partner Profile] Just checked your profile to see if I could view your property listing and did not see a link.

    Please link your Property as this greatly give us perspective on what you have set up; looking for clues to what might be wrong etc.

    Simply click on my name to se the article list I have created  in there is a How-To on adding property link to profile.

 

 

Yes there can be a lot to take in at first but what's important is to do these in an order so that you then cant miss a step.



There are plenty of guides preset in Partner Help and Solutions above, including First Steps and what to consider.




Once you post the property link and any other info we should be able to help more.

 

Kind Regards

t
1
Tom Orrow 4 years ago

Hi Barry,

I will take your advice and hopefully by the end of the day figure out these payments.

As for the cancellation, it was done without my confirmation. And I thought that my strict cancellation policy was up(it might not have worked as I only put up bank account today). I am having my second guests today. And they paid by cash too. I don’t mind paying commission fee at all, because I want to have guests’ rates and comments for my list ( I have none at the moment :( )

Thanks a lot for your help, I appreciate it.

Tom

b
11
BrookAve 4 years ago

ok so when a booking is cancelled without your agreement if there was no free cancelation policy in place, you should message the support team.

 

Hard for me to know without seeing your listing.

 

Check the Property menu > Policies.

 

Adding your bank account is not relevant to the cancelation or policy setup.

 

But to reiterate the only way a guest can cancel without your having to agree is if your policy allows it or if BdC upgraded the offer to Risk Free Programme, where they will pay you if they cant find a replacement guest.

 

 

 

Profile picture for the user m
3
MNEgro 4 years ago

" I have my first reservation yesterday and the guess prefer to pay by cash. Then in that afternoon I received a email saying booking cancel for that day. I thought the guess canceled to pay cash to help me avoid commission. But the next day, he said he didn't cancel it and he thought I did it as it will be beneficial for me. Either he lied or I made a big mistake.  "

 

Hi Tom. Don't worry, you cannot cancel a reservation just like that, so you didn't do anything wrong. It would be great to have an option to cancel a guests' reservations just like that, but unfortunately, IT CANNOT BE DONE. ;)

 

So my guess is that this guest did something by mistake. I mean, he canceled it by mistake.

But don't worry, no harm done. You will not pay commission to Booking.com and that's it.

 

But don't think you can do this all the time, Booking.com will penalize you for doing this, so you will end up with no reservations.

 

I cannot help you with this automated payments to Booking.com since those are not available in my country. I charge the guests myself and then I pay commission to Booking.com on a monthly basis.

 

All the luck, M

 

 

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