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Commission on noshows
We have a problem with very high proportion of no-shows. In Zimbabwe we are unable to take credit card deposits without the physical card at hand. Our cancellation policy is set as non-refundable. When guests no-show, we are unable to charge their credit card and we have to swallow the no-show. To make matters worse, occasionally our staff fail to waive the cancelation fee so Booking.com charges their comission o n the no-show. I cannot find any way to contact a human being at Booking.com to discuss this issue over email. Please can someone in the community or a Booking.com staffer advise possible solutions to this ongoing problem.
This is the system BDC have in place and we have to work with it.
I would suggest being stricter with your staff. If they know they are supposed to waive charges but neglect to do so then make it clear the next time the charge will come out of their salary!!!
I bet the occurrence will disappear.
So no solution, easy money for BDC.....
You can mark in policies that deposit/payment via bank transfer is required. When guest makes a booking, you send them your banking information with a deadline. If payment is not done by the guest, you can request to cancel their booking in extranet (payment not received), booking.com notifies the guest and if the guest does not respond or make the payment in 24h, then you are able to cancel their booking.
Thanks for suggestion Pibomarco, it seems impossible to contact BDC directly to correct the error already made. Any ideas on how to get in touch with a human being withing BDC via Email?
About the error (commission on no-shows) it's a problem because you didn't waive the no-show fee although you are not able to charge credit cards/collect payments. Perhaps you know now for future bookings how to act in this matter. You can still try and send requests to dispute these charges by sending them a message via extranet -> inbox -> Booking.com messages. Replies usually takes some time.
On the right side you will also see a contact (phone) number.
https://partner.booking.com/en-us/help/where-you-can-reach-us
The only solution to prevent fake bookings and no-shows is to take payment at the time of booking, just as you would with AirBnB / TripAdvisor / HomeAway. Ask Booking.com to set up Payments by Booking.com. If they refuse to do this or it is not available in your country, switch to another OTA such as AirBnB / TripAdvisor / HomeAway or whatever else. Do not try to make an indequate system work - it won't.
Thanks Pibomarco, I will try the South Africa number, no zimbabwe listing.