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Half-Board

The hotel is part of a group that currently has over 20 bars, restaurants & shops.

The hotel has added a half-board rate during the peak season (May to September) in which guest have the option to dine in one of 3 different restaurants. As the restaurants are not very large it was decided that the rate should be a non-refundable rate in order to minimise cancellations.

The rate comes with some extra conditions:

  1. It is non-refundable
  2. Guests may only dine between the hours of 19.30h and 21.00h
  3. One of the restaurants has bi-weekly ‘Dinner & Show’ nights. (On those nights Dinners are available in that restaurant by paying an extra supplement)
  4. Dinner consists of a 3 course meal with wine included from each restaurants daily menu (not a la carte)

One the hotel’s reservation system, these conditions are all very clear and form part of the description of the rate and also form part of the terms and conditions of the rate.

It is important for us that the guests understand the conditions when they book and so are not annoyed when they arrive at the hotel and feel that they have been misled.

This half-board rate has been very successful on the hotel’s website and we also would like guests who reserve through BDC to be able to reserve this rate.

We have contacted BDC to ask how to include the rate’s conditions in the extranet and they say that it cannot be done and that we should just add it to the Fine Print on the hotel’s profile. As many of our guests’ gripes come from them not having read the Fine Print we feel that is not the correct place for such important information regarding the rate.

BDC has suggested two options as to how this rate could work.

  1. Once the guest has made a reservation of the Non Refundable Half Board we then send them an automatic message telling them of the terms and conditions that in effect they did not agree to when making the reservation.

Or

  1. We wait until the guest checks-in to the hotel before telling them of the terms and conditions that in effect that they did not agree to when making the reservation

We were very surprised by both BDC’s suggestions for their lack of transparency.

Can any of you guys think of any better ways for us to be able to add this rate to the extranet?


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BrookAve 4 years ago

 

If they dont read the fine print thats their fault not BdC or You.

Add photos with text to also highlight it.

 

There is only so much you can do, ... you can lead them to water but unless your going to dunk them they dont have to drink it. :)

 

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hector 4 years ago

Hi Barry,

BDC would not allow us to add the text to the fine print as they deemed it not important enough.

We don't feel comfortable suprising guests with 'extra' terms and conditions either once they have made their reservation or even worse once they have arrived at the hotel. To us it is not fair practice and we were surprised with BDC would consider it acceptable.

We continue to sell more and more half board rates through our our own website and are about to add beverage package too.

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Community Admin 4 years ago

Hi hector! Thanks for posting in the Community!

 

Our system is set up in the way to show only price, cancellation policy and meal plan of each rate category. So there is no possibility to technically add more information about the rate conditions on the website. We also do not publish the rate plan names on the website, so if you add an information regarding a specific rate conditions to the Fine Print, the guest will not know to which rate it applies and might think it is relevant for all reservations. That is the reason why we do not add this information to the Fine print or to the rate conditions. 

 

A nice way to provide this information to the guest is to send them an email after the reservation was made, explaining all conditions of the deal. 

 

As Barry mentioned above, you can also add this information to your photo Gallery. 

 

Best regards!

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hector 4 years ago

Hi Community Admin.

Thank for your message.

You say "A nice way to provide this information to the guest is to send them an email after the reservation was made, explaining all conditions of the deal"

Do you really think that it is "nice" to suprise guests with extra terms and conditions only once they have made their reservation?

We now understand that we wanted to do cannot be done on Booking.com but we think it is truly shocking that you are advocating deceiving guests by not being transparent with the terms and conditions!

Thank you for your time.