Help from people also on booking.com

Hi team
I’ve been really struggling with bookings now that it’s autumn, and dropped my prices on both Airbnb and booking.com. Last night I got a new booking for TONIGHT via booking.com - yay! But not yay.

The guy called me to get the keysafe code and he was so weird I don’t know what to do. He was rambling, said it was the first time he’s used booking.com, and that he doesn’t actually want to sleep there, he just want to bring his Vietnamese girlfriend there from 12p until 7pm and then they will go out to a restaurant and he’ll go home. He said he lives nearby but can’t take his girlfriend to his house. There’s a street near our rental that’s known for prostitution, and I’m just scared that our lovingly put together place is going to be sordidly abused!! I don’t know what to do. I called booking.com and they said to ‘draw up a contract stating no drugs or prostitutes’ but that seems ineffective.

Any tips?

You gave him the code already? Go change it. When he messages you about it, say you’re sorry it must be malfunctioning and you’ll be right over to let him in. Maybe if he has to meet you he’ll just blow the whole thing off.

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Wow - Now I know for sure not to use booking.com Pretty crappy support.
The conclusion I am arriving at is that he just wants to use your place to have a shag fest then leave.

You may as well rent by the hour and install a condom vending machine like they have in bars !!!

Do you have a neighbor who informs you of how many guests are coming and going?

Did you already give the keycode?

Who processes payment for you…for example - do you require a guest credit card or are you doing cash upon arrival still? Or is booking.com handling the payments? If you require guest credit card then click on something that says “credit card invalid.” It still allows the guest to keep submitting new credit card. But just keep clicking it is “invalid.”

Do you think this is a pimp wanting to bring in a bunch of guests, or is it one person who wants to have a hookup with a prostitute?

No I haven’t given him the code yet, I put him off, saying I had to wait til this morning (it’s 9am here now) to use the office computer.

I’m using stripe to capture credit card charges. So you think I should mark it as invalid? I just don’t want him to keep calling me…

Yes, you get some very weird characters through from booking.com

My first one (back when I still took cash and went to let them in myself) was a guy who said he was staying with his girlfriend. When I turned up she was nowhere to be seen (he said she went to use the loo in a nearby bar). I had to go make him get an extra $50 off her (from the toilet?!?) but she still didn’t come back with him. When I went in to clean the next day, the bed had not been touched, nor the shower, but there was an empty bottle of whisky, a set of false eyelashes, and most disturbingly, a child’s sock. I switched to credit cards and key safes after that.

What reason did you give him that you needed to wait until morning? Booking.com is not your friend. Do not cancel this reservation as they may say you now have to pay the fee for this guy’s booking.

Yes, hit credit card invalid now. That should force him to enter a new one. I have not kept up with their recent practices so maybe someone else who uses them all the time can chime in if something has changed.

Have you googled his name yet to see if he is local too?

Are there local cheap motels nearby for him to take his “girlfriend” to?

to use the office computer[quote=“cabinhost, post:7, topic:14038”]
yet to see if he is local too?
[/quote]

yes after the tryst he is going home where he can’t take her

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I told him I couldn’t process his credit card from my phone so couldn’t give the code out until I do that. I’m running out of time now.
Yes I’ve googled him and can’t find him which is something of a relief as I googled a previous booking.com guest and found he was a convicted rapist who’d also done time for blackmailing a man he’d been hired to murder, and also for holding a sex worker hostage for 40 hours. That was also someone who ‘lived nearby’. I got rid of him by pretending that the guests that had just checked out had done so much damage to the apartment I couldn’t rent it to him, but he kept texting me wanting to stay different nights so that wasn’t ideal. I am ready to give up on this site, I wish it wasn’t instant book. :frowning:

Let us know what happens. You have had some interesting experiences.

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I asked him for a $500 security deposit and a photo of his drivers license and he replied and said he will just cancel it.

I’m entitled to charge him anyway but I’m not going to, I just want him to go away!

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Thank you all for your support. Makes me feel far less alone in all of this xxx

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Your instinct was apparently right. Good job.

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You did right for the security deposit and driver license.

Booking.com seems pretty risky to me, no support, no intervention with clients, not possible to put specific rules or vet people, no help for getting the security deposit…

I dunno I’ve got some future bookings on the platform but maybe I’m going to switch off my listing…

I list with booking.com and I have had many stays…I just don’t like the guests I get. They expect a hotel type experience. Also B.com does not allow you to write your own description, it is more a tick-a-box and they sort of link the amenities together.
B.com seriously push the free cancelation and they want it all their way. The biggest issue is if you cancel a booking - you are expected to find you guests same or better accom and pay for any difference in price.

Odd, we feel the exact same way. BDC guests are a very different breed from Airbnb guests, especially when it comes to communication and check in.

Not complaining though, when things are slow with Airbnb we’ve managed to keep our occupancy rate up with BDC guests. In fact, December was looking pretty poor until the BDC bookings started coming in and we ended up having a decent month.

JF

They do let you, but you have to go trough their service desk and send them the description you want.

They will do some checks (language, facts etc, and when needed translate it) and add it to your listing.

@Chris - what exactly do you mean go through the service desk? When I listed 5.5 years ago they were dead set on me being not being allowed to write description. Then again…a lot of changes have occurred since then.

You could tell the person assigned to write my description was not a native English speaker so they were inserting terms that they said were “universal” for all guests. EXCEPT, the fact that some of my competitors clearly had an American assigned to them and they used different terms, etc.

I went through sooo many reps. and I finally wrote my own description keeping to the min. max word count that I noticed on mine and my competitors’ sites. I even incorporated their SEO part where they will say about 3 times blah blah activity near blah blah city.

They even argued with me over listing drive times to certain places. I finally got a rep. who listened and did some updates based on me showing her that it’s not fair that my competitors can list Biltmore Estate is 1 hour drive, but I am not allowed to. However, she only changed some things and I felt so lucky to get her since everyone else just flat out said it was not possible.

But I’d love to try this again if things have changed and there is a service desk department. The only thing I recall long ago is that you could email a certain dept. that would review a change if “a fact” had changed. Example: a major attraction in your listing no longer exists, etc. But that was all they were willing to do.