While Booking dot com is not the best in partner services nor attention, I find that they have improved since 2022.
But I have to say that my experiences with AirBnB customer service were pretty darn horrible too. The last straw was when there was a client who snuck in double the number of persons staying in the property that were on the booking form (so not paid for) and then they had a huge sex party in the property damaging furniture, leaving it super filthy & stinky with disgusting surprises left on the floor, the kitchen, the beds and sofa. ZERO help from AirBnB on that issue. They were the absolute worst so we left them (as both host and traveler) and we remain with Booking dot com.
So go figure.... individual personal experiences help make the decisions of whom to work with. While I have not been 100% happy with Booking dot com, I gice them credit for for being better than Expedia (bad payments system) Vrbo (a complete disaster) and AirBnB in my experiences.
Any suggestions on others who are offering these or similar services to small businesses like us?
My recent experiences with calling for assistance has been shockingly bad. Writing to them gets you no where either. Booking.com has apparently decided to save money on service and appears to now not have any call centres in Europe so the people answering the phone are in a different time zone, don't speak the same language correctly and don't appear to to have had any kind of in depth training.
Waits are so long on a call and then, many times, I get disconnected and no call back. Recently I have been having pricing issues on bookings with incorrect pricing to my disadvantage and booking has simply ignored my many messages asking for an explanation. And when they have replied, i was threatened to have to pay relocation costs for a client if the booking was not honored,. something that was never even mentioned.
I just can't believe how bad they have become. Abismal.
I FIND THAT BOOKING.COM CUSTOMER SERVICE HAS completely DISAPPEARED and failed me as a partner. Issues with rates on bookings have no end in finding answers as to why the tarif on a booking are as they. Speaking to people on the phone is a nightmare. They try to be helpful but are ignorant of the issue, don't seem to have any training on how to elevate an issue, promise to get back to you and disappear into the ethers or simply hang up on you. That is my experience of late, June 2021. I took the time to write and ask Booking.com for answers and the message disappeared, did not appear in my sent messages folder.
Trying to call the Spanish help line (as I am in Spain) is an endless wait as "they are experiencing a large volume of calls in Spanish at this time". When they offer to let you speak to sopmeone in English, it sounds to me as though it is someone in the Philippines who does not understand the issue and gets frustrated by my own frustration and so hang up the line.
I have had clinets tell me that they havew tried to call Booking.com to resolve or clarify a question on rates but cannot get through to anyone.
So the giant that Booking.com is has decided to just ignore partners seekign assistance and then not speak to clients either. Is this a result of Covid-19 pandemic or is booking.com just too big for its britches?? To herll with proper customer service. Been witht his service for well over ten years and this is not one of its best moments. Very frustrating and disappointing to have to count on booking.com for anything, this after all those seminars earlier this year on how to recuperate the travel industry after the lock downs. A load of bollocks really.
I would not recommend to anyone, and in particular smaller accomodations, to join or work with booking.com, at this point, strongly advise against it.
Note:- cloudbeds is rather expensive for a small hotel. their recommended package, less than 10 rooms, is 129€ and surely IVA is not include so add another 21% if you're in Spain.
Quite complicated is the answer. I have been working with one called "otelsMS' for a few months now on a one year trial basis and I am not 100% pleased with the service. Have recently been researching other providers but it is difficult to discern which would be most suitable in both functionality and economically. I have a small hotel with just eight rooms so a grand channel manager service is not required but a reliable one would be helpful. With this one, after launching with connections to only Booking.com and Expedia, in January they tried to get my Airbnb listings on-line and completely screwed it up to the point where one of my rooms disappeared from Airbnb and I almost lost paid for images. Not impressed that they only speak Spanish which makes it a bit more complicated for me even though it appears they are a Bulgarian company.
While Booking dot com is not the best in partner services nor attention, I find that they have improved since 2022.
But I have to say that my experiences with AirBnB customer service were pretty darn horrible too. The last straw was when there was a client who snuck in double the number of persons staying in the property that were on the booking form (so not paid for) and then they had a huge sex party in the property damaging furniture, leaving it super filthy & stinky with disgusting surprises left on the floor, the kitchen, the beds and sofa. ZERO help from AirBnB on that issue. They were the absolute worst so we left them (as both host and traveler) and we remain with Booking dot com.
So go figure.... individual personal experiences help make the decisions of whom to work with. While I have not been 100% happy with Booking dot com, I gice them credit for for being better than Expedia (bad payments system) Vrbo (a complete disaster) and AirBnB in my experiences.
Any suggestions on others who are offering these or similar services to small businesses like us?
My recent experiences with calling for assistance has been shockingly bad. Writing to them gets you no where either. Booking.com has apparently decided to save money on service and appears to now not have any call centres in Europe so the people answering the phone are in a different time zone, don't speak the same language correctly and don't appear to to have had any kind of in depth training.
Waits are so long on a call and then, many times, I get disconnected and no call back. Recently I have been having pricing issues on bookings with incorrect pricing to my disadvantage and booking has simply ignored my many messages asking for an explanation. And when they have replied, i was threatened to have to pay relocation costs for a client if the booking was not honored,. something that was never even mentioned.
I just can't believe how bad they have become. Abismal.
I FIND THAT BOOKING.COM CUSTOMER SERVICE HAS completely DISAPPEARED and failed me as a partner. Issues with rates on bookings have no end in finding answers as to why the tarif on a booking are as they. Speaking to people on the phone is a nightmare. They try to be helpful but are ignorant of the issue, don't seem to have any training on how to elevate an issue, promise to get back to you and disappear into the ethers or simply hang up on you. That is my experience of late, June 2021. I took the time to write and ask Booking.com for answers and the message disappeared, did not appear in my sent messages folder.
Trying to call the Spanish help line (as I am in Spain) is an endless wait as "they are experiencing a large volume of calls in Spanish at this time". When they offer to let you speak to sopmeone in English, it sounds to me as though it is someone in the Philippines who does not understand the issue and gets frustrated by my own frustration and so hang up the line.
I have had clinets tell me that they havew tried to call Booking.com to resolve or clarify a question on rates but cannot get through to anyone.
So the giant that Booking.com is has decided to just ignore partners seekign assistance and then not speak to clients either. Is this a result of Covid-19 pandemic or is booking.com just too big for its britches?? To herll with proper customer service. Been witht his service for well over ten years and this is not one of its best moments. Very frustrating and disappointing to have to count on booking.com for anything, this after all those seminars earlier this year on how to recuperate the travel industry after the lock downs. A load of bollocks really.
I would not recommend to anyone, and in particular smaller accomodations, to join or work with booking.com, at this point, strongly advise against it.
Note:- cloudbeds is rather expensive for a small hotel. their recommended package, less than 10 rooms, is 129€ and surely IVA is not include so add another 21% if you're in Spain.
I suggest using the recommended unscented bleach to water solution. Then you won't have any odors to be concerned about.
Quite complicated is the answer. I have been working with one called "otelsMS' for a few months now on a one year trial basis and I am not 100% pleased with the service. Have recently been researching other providers but it is difficult to discern which would be most suitable in both functionality and economically. I have a small hotel with just eight rooms so a grand channel manager service is not required but a reliable one would be helpful. With this one, after launching with connections to only Booking.com and Expedia, in January they tried to get my Airbnb listings on-line and completely screwed it up to the point where one of my rooms disappeared from Airbnb and I almost lost paid for images. Not impressed that they only speak Spanish which makes it a bit more complicated for me even though it appears they are a Bulgarian company.
Good luck.