Risk free reservations policy - Not!
Anyone else had issues with the above policy? Booking.com's own reservations contradict themselves. On the Extranet, the wording under the Úpdate this reservation" section states
- The guest's credit card details will be available on Jul 22, 2019. Don't worry, your payment is guaranteed by Booking.com.
However under the cancellation policies section it states:
CancellationIf the guest cancels before Jul 22, 2019, we'll find a replacement guest for the same dates. If we can't find a new guest, we'll pay for this reservation. After Jul 22, 2019, guests will be responsible for paying for the reservation.
So apparently we're guaranteed payment until 4 days before the guest arrival, but after this we need to locate the guest credit card (and hope it is valid) to facilitate payment. After long hours on the phone I discovered that we were automatically accepted into this new policy and need to opt out if it is not our choice. This is not advised in any email or contact with your property.
If, like us, you have a 7 day deposit forfeit cancellation policy there is the risk the credit card will be invalid and deposit cannot be taken. Especially in the case of a no show.
To opt out of this policy go to your policies page under Property, scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll see Risk Free there with the option to edit. Once in the edit mode you can opt out.
Janelle
Hi Enquiries ,
Here you'll find all you need to know on Risk Free Reservations and ask questions if you feel like it.
Thanks,
Ilaria
Guest credit card is invalid, so the booking.com don't pay out. No show, booking.com don't pay out. Totally misleading and deceptive. Don't accept risk free reservations. I opted out for all my 45 properties.
I spent 90 minutes on the phone to booking.com today. No clarity what will happen if the guest card payment fails after the "free cancellation period" is over. I conclude I will be keeping a room available for two weeks and will only be able to determine whether or not the guest can/will pay, in the 4 days prior to arrival. At which point if they are not good for the payment, I'm out of pocket completely. I'd rather know there is a problem, at the time of booking, cancel within 24 hours and find my own replacement booking. As opposed to reducing risk, it appears to me that it increases financial risk. I've deactivated the program for my property. When/If I get proper clarity of all the Ts and Cs, then I'll consider it again.
This really is the worse idea any of these clowns has ever come up with, and the fact that you are opted in automatically is totally unacceptable.
We had Risk-free cancellations disabled but we still received a risk-free cancellation. This guest booked just three days before the check-in date. With our 4 hour grace period and 3 day non-refundable policy this left zero minutes that the risk-free cancellation could have worked.
Guest requested postponement of his reservation (which would have worked out very profitable for us) but I was unable to change/cancel/void the reservation because of this unwanted risk-free cancellation.
Just now, after 7 weeks of trying to get in touch with booking.com, I had a call from our account manager who kindly informed me that booking.com will still apply risk-free cancellations as they see fit - even though we have disabled it.