Profile picture for the user j
7

scaring guests away with our policies but we do this to attract only serious ones!

We have a 2 bedroom apartment in Malta and all of our business comes from booking.com (...irony is that we lost our preferred partner status but that is a seperate discussion!).

The apartment is on the seafront and a second home to us - infact when we are not renting we spend a lot of time there - it is well equipped and furnished to a pretty decent good standard.

As part of our T&Cs we have implemented some which I feel deter guests from bookings (e.g. minimum 4 months, bookings only 3 months away from today, full payment upfront on booking, zero tolerance cancellation) as in the past we had all sorts of complications with no shows, fake bookings at peak times for long stretches which apparently where being used for visa applications to show an address etc.

All these problems went away following the introduction of our new policies but I guess it might scare some away - is there a better way of doing things?

cheers

J.

 


Profile picture for the user b
1
Barbicangirl 5 years ago

Why did you lose your status? And yes there are no-shows etc, but maybe too onerous policies will keep away the good ones too! There is a way to strike a happy balance.

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7
jaybeegee 5 years ago

We lost our preferred partner status because we did not generate enough sales to qualify to remain part of the programme.

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3
Aphrodite Studios 5 years ago

Hi J,

We also have a strict policy. Full deposit when booking and 30 days prior to arrival date no refund on cancellation. It saves us so much time on fake bookings, no shows and late cancellations! It seems a trend ( and it's promoted by booking.com) to reserve multiple locations and decide later. And in addition to the standard we also offer same rooms as non refundable (with a nice discount).

We always check every cancellation for reason and decide on the spot if we want to make an exception. (which rarely happens but it happens)

It saves a lot of stress, frustration and unconvenient pricedrops at the last moment to refill the rooms again so yes it scares some people away but the advantage wins.

Profile picture for the user s
5
Sara Jarvis 5 years ago

Jaybee I have Exactly the same rules as you and turn people away stick to your rules

j
1
Jay Wright 2 years ago

I also have the same problem, which has not been solved so far.