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Cancellation "reminders" from Booking.com

Below is an email my partner received regarding a booking he made some months ago:



As a Booking.com partner, I feel that with Booking.com sending out such emails, it is almost encouraging bookers to cancel, at the very least reminding them that they can still cancel. Whatever our cancellation policy as partners, do we really want to be reminding customers that they cancel? Is it really necessary for Booking.com to use their resources in this way - it is certainly not good for partners' business. What does anybody think - I'd be really interested to hear other opinions.


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Leandri Klopper 5 years ago

Hi there!

This is an interesting topic, thanks for your post.

I've been on the forum for about an hour now and I'm reading a lot of posts that say quite the opposite. Most partners feel that Booking.com is not sending enough correspondence when it comes to cancellation of bookings. I think there is a delicate balance to it, isn't there?

If they don't send it, and the guests never pitch up and never paid then one needs to go through the decision making of whether or not to now put in effort in still charging the guest. (Luckily Booking.com doesn't charge commission if you mark the client as a no-show but now your unit also stood open for that time.).

So it's really a question of Do you want Guests who are active in their holiday? (So they book and keep in contact with you regarding whether they will be occupying or not).Which has the plus side of being in the "know". Or Do you want Guests who are not active but Booking.com sends the correspondence to remind them which gives them a chance to become active?

If the first then I don't have a problem with Booking.com sending as many reminders as they can, via email or snail mail, because at least I will be in the "know" with what is going on with every booking. Plus the guest can't then turn around and say they forgot as a means of jumping the cancellation fee.

If the second then yes, the down side is that guests can cancel their booking and you are left with looking for another guest. But the nice thing is, the website works so well that the unit ought to be filled in no time!

Very interesting debate one can have though.

Looking forward to more thoughts on this!

Kind regards.