Isle of Wight Vacations

You'll need to contact Booking.com via your Extranet

It's a bug .... it's well known about here ..... BDC know about it too, although they will deny it and any other bugs or flaws in their system exist .....

Hi Barry

Sounds like you're experiencing the usual things that all new hosts experience.

A couple of tips:

1. Don't do "cheap" - you'll attract the wrong type of guests - be "on a par" with other properties
2. Block out your property and do the bath - if a guest finds one thing they don't like, everything can become a problem to them - don't wait, do it now
3. Guests often print the Booking Confirmation page without checking their inbox for messages / directions / access information. Go to Property > View Your Descriptions and scroll down to The Fine Print and click on "Can't find what you're looking for above?". This will allow you to add some fine print to the Booking Confirmation page that they print. Ours tells our guests to check their Booking.com Inbox for directions and access information.
4. Require a damage deposit. Booking.com do not collect this for you. If you have recently joined, your policies may restrict this to cash only. Contact Booking.com and ask for the damage deposit to be Bank Transfer to protect your property and to protect future guests. They will refuse, but you will have opened a dialogue, at which point you can ask that the Damage Deposit is mentioned in The Fine Print and that guests must pay by bank transfer. BDC will not change The Fine Print to say "damage deposits must be paid by bank transfer" unless you have that discussion with them and get their agreement.
5. Keep It Simple - if guests can't find towels, put them on the bed - put tea and coffee out by the kettle so that guests don't need to look for them
6. One simple guest handbook is enough - make sure you have a "Customer Care" section asking guests to contact you if there's a problem so that you can resolve it - guests really appreciate it if you resolve a problem the same day and the last thing you want is to find out about it 2 weeks later when you read a review

If a guest gives a poor review, it is not them trying to get a refund, they are simply saying how they felt about the property (and especially it's cleanliness). I had issues with the cleaning company I used saying "the guest was just trying his luck to get a refund" - I had to point out that no, the guest was saying you missed this, missed that etc and you need to improve the cleaning.

I did spot checks and pulled the cleaners up (politely) on a few things here and there. They upped their game and better reviews came in. However, they still missed things, didn't report damage, mixed up bedding with that of other properties etc.

The problem with the cleaners is that they were always in a rush to do as many properties as they could for multiple owners in multiple locations, all for a fixed price per property. Rush, rush, rush and blame guests for everything.

I now employ my own cleaners directly and have work procedures / checklists in place for them. They check the inventory, check for any damage, they test the smoke alarms, the lights, the TV remote, etc etc, and they clean the property throughout. If they find a problem, they tell me and I get it fixed before the guest arrives.

Hope the above is helpful / useful in some way!

There is a calendar sync, but doesn't show up for some users .....  you have to contact BDC support via your extranet .....

Be aware that even if you get calendar sync set up, it doesn't work properly, it's broken .... best is to manually block out when you get bookings ....