Are you new to the forum? Introduce yourself!

10 October 2018 12:22
Edited

Since our last Introduce Yourself in June, we’ve had a lot of new members join our community. I’d like to welcome everyone who is new to the forum and give our community a place to say hi to the newcomers!

I’ll kick things off! I’m Laura and I’m part of the Partner Communities team at Booking.com. While I used to live in Australia, I’m now based in Amsterdam and my focus is to help you connect with other partners. You’ll see me post weekly questions to the community and from time to time I’ll post in the threads.

A few facts about me:

I love biking to work every day.
I love cooking, especially Thai and Indonesian cuisines
I don’t have any pets, but I do have a green thumb for plants. I especially love growing my own vegetables and herbs.

It’d be great to hear a bit more about you. Here are some questions to get you started… but feel free to and anything you would like to share!

Where are you from?
What’s your property like?
What kind of advice would you like to get on the forum?

Looking forward to meeting all you :-)

Housekeeping

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Please do not post any personal information (i.e. confirmation numbers or email addresses that aren’t yours). If it happens, the sensitive information will be edited and you’ll receive an email from our moderation team letting you know. Thanks for your understanding!

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Comments

57 comments

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Dsandoval

10 October 2018 12:45
Good morning

Is a pleasure for me to be part or this forum

I want to know how to pay the comissions to Booking. com
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M Adamopoulou

10 October 2018 15:02
I'm also new and I'm very excited to be a member of this forum. So many things to learn from all of you and very good and helpful advice. Many thanks to everyone for the great support.
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Zoinks

10 October 2018 15:40
How do you collect payment from guests? If you let booking.com collect payments you need not worry about commission as booking.com just deducts the commission when it pays you (usually by bank transfer).
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M Adamopoulou

10 October 2018 16:53
Joey exactly so simple. Although a guest told me that I am a very strict hostess because guests have to prepay and they have no other option.
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Zoinks

10 October 2018 17:37
M Adamopoulou Thanks for replying - that is not strictly true - BDC lets US choose the cancellation policy so guests can prepay 50 days in advance or just one day.
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M Adamopoulou

10 October 2018 17:43
Joey my cancellation policy is 7 days but my guest would prefer to pay with his credi card.
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Zoinks

10 October 2018 17:47
M Adamopoulou don't know what to say - pay for what with his credit card? Just the cost of the accommodation? I never had issues with guests wanting to use credit cards. I take a damage deposit in cash when guests arrive and if they magically have been travelling without a penny I point them to the ATM next to my house.
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Polatbey6565

10 October 2018 17:48
Hello everyone,

We are Mahmut and Bolat managing our property together.

The first thing that we would like to understand is as follows: We applied for two of our properties located in two different neighbourhoods of Alanya city of Turkey. One has become operational and we have already received two reservations. But, we have not been contacted by booking team for the other one. To whom we should talk about this?

Thank you in advance.
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M Adamopoulou

10 October 2018 18:04
Joey unfortunately my property is up the hill 5 klms away from the nearest ATM. Yes for the accommodation. Am I doing something wrong?
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Zoinks

10 October 2018 18:28
M Adamopoulou I've been with BDC for less than a year so please don't consider me an expert. In my opinion (some partners agree, others don't). The best thing that booking.com has is payment through and by booking.com. You have to activate it (send a message and they'll do it for you) and guests will always pay booking.com and you never have to worry if a guest is going to pay you or not - check in is a breeze as you don't even need to look at a credit card...... guests just pay online BUT NOT TO YOU - they pay booking.com. Booking.com the next month - usually around the 15th pays you all the money you have earned minus their commission.
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Zoinks

10 October 2018 18:38
As regards the damage deposit I only ask for Euro 50 in cash and BDC told me to send a message to all guests before they arrive informing them of this damage deposit in cash. Even though it is written in their fine print. DO NOT MAKE EXCEPTIONS. Once I had two girls who arrived without ' knowing' anything about this deposit. I let them in and as I was tired I just went to sleep. My mobile phone woke me up and it was booking.com from the USA. I could not understand at first as I thought they wanted to assign me two guests and I told them I was full up. Turned out that these two girls had checked out of my place while I was asleep and escaped - taking with them a hard drive (nothing irreplacable and it cost just under Euro 100) and as en excuse they said that they did not feel comfortable with me. No idea what I did wrong! I hardly spoke to them for 4 minutes. I reported the theft to BDC and all they could come up with was ' we offer you our deepest sympathies'. Let me stop here.....
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Zoinks

10 October 2018 18:50
Hi Polatbey6565 - I would say that you should contact the same people you contacted for your first property and who listed it with booking.com :-)
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Weigelt

10 October 2018 19:55
We own a bed and breakfast in Kona Hawaii (Beautiful Edge of the World). We're on a small coffee and macadamia nut plantation. It's always fun hosting owners from other B&B's -- to commiserate and share funny stories.
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Katerinka12

10 October 2018 19:58
Joey, it seems to me those 2 girls didn't understand what is security is all about. They thought they lost that money and will never get back. That's why they stole the hard drive. As "compensation" for their security deposit.

Did they leave bad review?
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Zoinks

10 October 2018 20:10

Edited
No Katerinka12 I did not take a deposit - that was my mistake. BDC called me and asked me if I wanted to waive the cancellation fee. Heck NO! They could not leave a review since they cancelled - but of course they cancelled after they had checked in so BDC had to withdraw payment from their card for their stay at least.
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Katerinka12

10 October 2018 20:13
You are a bit lucky that there was cancelation fee. I just don't get... How there were able to get access to hard drive?
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Zoinks

10 October 2018 20:24
Katerinka (1). With payments by booking.com you can set your cancellation fee 7 days, 14 days or so away from the check in date, (2) There was a hard drive in the bedroom connected to the TV. That is why it was nothing important - just copies of films I had.
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Bandara Hotels & Resorts

11 October 2018 04:22
Hi all,

We have several hotels/resorts all located in Thailand from 3-5 stars. We are here to help B.com/B.com partner and hopefully B.com can share good tip with us as well.
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Thariwasc

12 October 2018 03:26
Hi all, nice to be part of this of this forum. I'm from Phuket Thailand. I have a 14 bed room villa in one of the well-known Golf Course in Phuket. Several questions, I like to know;

1. If I want to do special package to attract a golfer, can B.com do it and how.

2. If we want to offer special deal for a specific country like China apart from the program you offered for Chinese Golden Week. Can we tailormade it?

please advise, Tony
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Bandara Hotels & Resorts

12 October 2018 03:35
Thariwasc It very nice to have property from Thailand join us here.

Regarding your question,

1. Yes, Booking.com can do that but it will not much information that we can put on website.

1.1 Create new room type (e.g. "Deluxe room with golf package")

1.2 Create new rate plan and add text same way when we have value add offer. But not sure how much it will be help as there is limited space for text.

Either each option I suggest that you put your package details on Fine print note as well but keep it short and clear. And you can consult with you MM again.

2. Now (as of Aug' 18) Booking.com can do over 30 POS by country (reference as below image). All you need to do is inform your market manager.
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M Adamopoulou

12 October 2018 09:57
My husband and I own a Studio of 85 sq m that can accommodate up to 4 people. The Adam's Studio is located at the suburbs of Athens in Oropos. It is situated up in the hills surrounded by a beautiful scenery with a panoramic view to the sea and th mountains, which is admired either from the inside or the outside of the Studio.
Please feel free to visit us whenever you come to Greece for an unforgettable experience.
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Sara Jarvis

12 October 2018 11:29
Hope to visit you all , I love to travel

im in London UK and really enjoy hosting favourite hobby football and go to many matches with my guests.

although it’s a business if guests want to be friendly it’s a bonus

im a floral designer and get to create arrangements for weddings and events

look forward to seeing some of you on my travels
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M Adamopoulou

12 October 2018 18:31
Hello Sara my family is very athletic and love sports. Football is also our favorite we are AEK and we are very happy because this year AEK is playing in The Champions League.
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M Adamopoulou

13 October 2018 08:50
Alana I don’t understand why?
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Thuild - Your world of creation (franchise)

13 October 2018 09:02
Alana seems to have other issues. She is pissed at BDC for not giving her certain options.

But since we don't know the backstory and where she is from, it's hard to see why.

8 years and still having troubles like this shows how doing the same things and expecting different results doesn't work.

That's my $0.02 on the matter after sifting through all her comments.

Cheers,

Zsolt - www.thuild.com
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Thuild - Your world of creation (franchise)

13 October 2018 09:42
Alana, you attitude might be the problem why it took you 18 months to get to where you are now.

Maybe BDC didn't have Payments by BDC active for Spain and that's why it was unavailable. My country has it just from this year. Last year it wasn't available. So you cannot request something that's not possible.

You've wasted more time than you would have wasted searching (using the search engine here) for the answer.

Anyway, you have your answers so you came here just to vent your frustration or what do you seek?
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Katerinka12

13 October 2018 12:00

Edited
"and smart wido answers like that dont help"

Why are you here then? You can go to psychiatrist to help you to treat you. "Pissed off" without even communicating with people who didn't create your problems and trying to help you, is a serious sign of personality problem.

"And yes i do consider my time as precious."

Being ungrateful is another personality problem you have. Did you even thank Zsolt for his precious time? He is a hotel owner and runs consultancy business in addition to it, he is definitely much more busy than you. No one of us has luxury to waste 18 months of our any kind of time.
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Thuild - Your world of creation (franchise)

13 October 2018 13:43
Katerinka, don't stress yourself over her.

These type of people are the ones who are those horrible hosts and they will be eaten by the competition all the time.

All talk, no substance.

Better have a chat with your guests because that is more valuable than wasting time on Alana :)
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Zoinks

14 October 2018 11:27

Edited
Guys and Gals - even though I am not sure what Alana ' s particular problem is - I get the gist of what she is is saying. She is pissed off like most of us are (but most don't have the courage to speak up because they think that booking.com is a GOD).

She is angry because we ask very specific questions about issues regarding our relationship with BDC and they shrug off the responsibility by referring you here. The partner forum IS NOT the place to tackle problems. It was created by one of their ' clever' marketing teams to let us vent with each other and make us think that we have achieved something. Just another way for BDC to screw us - instead of offering real help they send us back to people who may have as many or more problems than we have because of the methods used by booking.com.

Do you know what the only thing good about he partner forum is? It crops up on google searches so any potential guest can see what is going on.

Of course there are some partners who will never criticise BDC because they want to appear as a ' good girl' with her bosses. Guess what ' good girl' your brown nosing is so obvious that it makes some of us sick and I hope that you can sleep at night knowing that you are letting people - both guests and hosts being abused by a faceless and huge multi national company which is ripping everyone off while their top fat cats travel in limousines and private jets.

Edit: Alana: this is where you say ' thank you'.
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Katerinka12

14 October 2018 10:20
"My Name is Alana, i've been a partner with booking.com for over 8 years, i have 2 very different properties on B.com, one in Scotland and the other in Spain. Never used this forum, but already getting pissed off with it!"

Never used... Just got pissed off... Then called someone " folk "... Then didn't ask question again... Just got angry... Then so surprised... Then said "
I came here to ask questions"... 😭😭😭 Just like she came to ask Booking afrer 18 months... She needs medical help, really.

Zsolt,

Correct, I better chat with meaningful people and waste my time (not so precious, by the way) on one miserable host, who screws up our industry.