As a host, I am very surprised that Pibimarco thinks what Booking.com does is all OK. As mentioned before, we list our properties on multiple platforms and the protection and assistance from booking.com is the least and it has become very clear to us now that all the customer service does is push a send button and tell you there is nothing they can do. They do NOT care.
When you report a bad guest, like the one we had, who smoked weeds in our bedrooms, pulled blades off the ceiling fan, and stole our fine wines, I really wish that booking.com would black list him so that other hosts can avoid them. But no ... there is even no way for us to leave a review on this person. Once he leaves and booking.com gets paid, sorry, if the host had damage. "Please report to the police" is the advice we received from booking.com.
If all booking.com does is as they said to us -- "there is nothing we can do", then, lower the commission charged and therefore lower the expectations on the level of services and support.
Many people say that airbnb is the same. From my own experience as an airbnb host, I would say that's not true. To start with, airbnb does not charge hosts much and therefore, if they say that the guests are their customers, you kinda think it is fair. When there is bad behavior, if you report within 24 hours, airbnb will help to resolve the situation. In addition, on the airbnb platform, you can read reviews of all guests and therefore, decide if you want to host a group. Again, take our property as an example, we prefer families and working professional as we are more experienced in hosting them -- know what they want and therefore prepare well. And we ask our guests to respect our home as their own. We had one incident with airbnb booking, but the level of support and response from airbnb gave us confidence that we can stay and this can be prevented in the future. Booking.com however would not allow you to refuse or cancel a booking and would not give you the option to accept of decline a booking either.
Anyway, if a host thinks he is doing well on booking.com, and can continue, that's fine. But as someone who experienced bad guest, damages to our home, and no support from booking.com and very little protection or choice, I have decided to delist my property from booking.com.
You can report a bad guest and this is what you will get from booking.com's Customer services: "I apologize that there isn't much more that we can do from our position between you and the guest. " Throughout the process, we felt strongly that booking.com has trained their customer service to push the hosts around. All they care is they get commission paid.
We also use airbnb and never had this happened in three years we are on airbnb. We have now requested to terminate the contract with booking.com and delist our property.
As a host, I am very surprised that Pibimarco thinks what Booking.com does is all OK. As mentioned before, we list our properties on multiple platforms and the protection and assistance from booking.com is the least and it has become very clear to us now that all the customer service does is push a send button and tell you there is nothing they can do. They do NOT care.
When you report a bad guest, like the one we had, who smoked weeds in our bedrooms, pulled blades off the ceiling fan, and stole our fine wines, I really wish that booking.com would black list him so that other hosts can avoid them. But no ... there is even no way for us to leave a review on this person. Once he leaves and booking.com gets paid, sorry, if the host had damage. "Please report to the police" is the advice we received from booking.com.
If all booking.com does is as they said to us -- "there is nothing we can do", then, lower the commission charged and therefore lower the expectations on the level of services and support.
Many people say that airbnb is the same. From my own experience as an airbnb host, I would say that's not true. To start with, airbnb does not charge hosts much and therefore, if they say that the guests are their customers, you kinda think it is fair. When there is bad behavior, if you report within 24 hours, airbnb will help to resolve the situation. In addition, on the airbnb platform, you can read reviews of all guests and therefore, decide if you want to host a group. Again, take our property as an example, we prefer families and working professional as we are more experienced in hosting them -- know what they want and therefore prepare well. And we ask our guests to respect our home as their own. We had one incident with airbnb booking, but the level of support and response from airbnb gave us confidence that we can stay and this can be prevented in the future. Booking.com however would not allow you to refuse or cancel a booking and would not give you the option to accept of decline a booking either.
Anyway, if a host thinks he is doing well on booking.com, and can continue, that's fine. But as someone who experienced bad guest, damages to our home, and no support from booking.com and very little protection or choice, I have decided to delist my property from booking.com.
Good luck to you all.
You can report a bad guest and this is what you will get from booking.com's Customer services: "I apologize that there isn't much more that we can do from our position between you and the guest. " Throughout the process, we felt strongly that booking.com has trained their customer service to push the hosts around. All they care is they get commission paid.
We also use airbnb and never had this happened in three years we are on airbnb. We have now requested to terminate the contract with booking.com and delist our property.