Isle of Wight Vacations

Yup, that's how it works.

Reviewing guests is pointless. It's so easy for guests to open a new account to hide any bad reviews.

It's all about the discounting .... or rather, it's all about encouraging you to use discounting. It's all a big con. Ignore the ranking. Search on Booking.com and you will see your property. If you can see it, others can too. No need to boost your ranking with more discounts and lower earnings.

For damage, you have the damage deposit. You did take a damage deposit, didn't you?

Anything above that amount, claim on your property insurance. You do have property insurance for holiday lettings, don't you?

For theft, report to the police. Theft is a crime and it's always a police matter.

And report the guest. Go to the booking in your Extranet and click the button for Report Guest Misconduct or whatever. You won't get any extra money, but you can report them.

You are looking at the end result without looking at the cause.

If the guest had paid in full before arrival, you wouldn't have had these problems.

Always use Payments by Booking.com - take payment in advance, save yourself a lot of problems. Always always always.

Always always always prepare all the beds. You never know if the guests are husband and wife, father and son, mother and daughter, work colleagues or whatever. Even husband and wife might prefer separate rooms. Never assume they are a couple who will share a bed.

And remember that you should always charge a flat rate for the property, regardless of how many people are coming. Charging for the number of people means you are discounting when fewer than the maximum arrive.