Hi everyone,
I have a holiday home in Queensland Australia, only recently listed in airbnb a month ago and its going well, especially weekend bookings…I am investigating whether to list with booking.com or not but I am getting conflicting advice as to whether I can use Stripe or not…could anyone from Australia confirm that for me or recommend a different payment gateway?
Thanks in Advance
We do have some Australian hosts here, perhaps they didn’t see your query or don’t use booking dot com? @Debthecat @Emily @Shanghai or others?
We are mostly by and for Airbnb hosts but some others are here as well.
Stripe is good and can be used in Australia. I use booking but i suggest you spend time learning before you go live. They send a letter in the post to ensure you are the owner of the address. As booking.com is instant, have a look at getting channel manager, if you cancel a reservation on a guest in booking you will be stuck with the cost. Give your guests 24 hours to pay or cancel. Way too much cancellations on booking and set a no refund cancellation policy
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My only no shows are from booking.com. The guests are looking for a hotel experience. They do some really dumb things like not let you see the guest phone number until 2 weeks before the booking. The commission is a sting, you have to up your prices to get the same return. The worst thing is that booking.com advertise that you don’t need a credit card to book and you can cancel almost at the last minute. When you ask for a non refundable deposit to secure the booking, don’t the guests get snotty about it.
The listing is also very generic as it is a tick the box type listing and they describe it from that and it takes the personal side out.
However - customer service is ok… damn near impossible to cancel a booking unless you have approval from the guest.
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Sorry @Bushandbeach I only rent my spare room so don’t list on travel sites designed more for B and bs and vacation rentals. Best of luck with your vacation spot! If you’re mostly getting weekenders you may wish to offer a discount for whole week bookings to encourage longer stays. Eg 20%, I fo find this attracts people to book longer