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I just received my first booking from booking.com. A few of you have mentioned you use stripe etc. to process credit cards.
I called and spoke to the young woman who booked our home for her family of four. She sounded wonderful and I explained that this was my first booking on the website and I prefer she e-transfer or use paypal as I was not yet comfortable with processing credit cards myself. (stripe and square were not helpful for me in Canada when I tried to inquire.
My question… right now I require cvc with credit card information. But if I use paypal then really it shouldn’t matter. I don’t know if I’m losing out on bookings because people don’t want to give that info. Do you think I should remove that I require the CVC on credit cards if I have no intention of processing them and prefer other methods of payment?
I’ve only had two inquiries from booking.com
The first guy’s phone number didn’t work so I told the company to cancel his booking right away.
Now with this booking everything seems to have gone well.
My question…… If I don’t feel comfortable with a future guest after I call them, can I just say credit card invalid and cancel their booking? I’m thinking this would be an easy solution to the problem of booking.com not verifying guests i.d. and also whether credit cards are valid. Plus I’m strict on wanting to know who is booking my home and for what purpose so no instant book for me. If they agree to use Paypal and pay me within 24 hours of booking then it should be good as I’d still welcome the guest into my house show them around and give them a key.
I’m just not sure how the damage deposit works and how booking.com gets payment? Do they take it from the guests credit card or do they invoice me and I have to pay them?
Any help would be appreciated. Love the fact that Airbnb takes care of payment. However if I can process payment through paypal or bank e transfer it seems to be an easy booking alternative.
Any advise is appreciated for me going forward with booking.com. I only allowed them a one month window but have now opened my calendar up for their customers for the whole year.
Do you have prepayment said on your listing and payment needs to be done in 24h with paypal?
You need to collect the damage deposit and refund the client at the end of stay.
You can also use the invalid card to take away a client that you don’t want.
Regarding CVC , what will you do if you have a last minute booking and you don’t have card information? (Will you call booking.com if you can’t reach the client?)
Hi Sylvain,
Would I put the information regarding payment required within 24 hours by PayPal or e transfer right into the description? or does booking.com have an option for me to checkmark for payment being processed within 24 hours of booking?
I think if it was a last minute booking then I would just go ahead and collect payment when the guest arrives. Tell them they have to pay cash or pay me by bank transfer or paypal before I give them the key and let them in.
Good to know about using the credit card invalid to decline unsavoury bookings. My biggest fear is that many people want to use my house as a base for wedding parties. So far people have been honest about wanting to host an event and I just decline. With booking.com it might not be so easy.
This time around I did not collect any damage deposit because it didn’t show up on the payment amount listed. I’ll have to go back and check if I can enter that on any settings on booking.com or call and ask them about how to do that.
You need to change the payment politic to 100% prepayment. (only possible if you are not a new host). Yes you can call them so they can change the option for it.
The problem of last minute is more often to have no show if you don’t collect credit card and CVC details. (the client doesn’t need to know that you will not use it)
Thanks for your help. I just found the tab that let me request prepayment of 50% upon booking and then full payment required 60days before arrival. I’m glad that booking.com works so well for you sylvain. I get 80% bookings through air and the rest with VRBO. I am willing to give booking.com a try now as I just noticed a bunch of new, cheap listings go up in my area with Airbnb (all full houses similar to mine).
I also noticed a PDF form for me to fill out with banking information so people can have the option to pay directly into my account. Do you enable that option Sylvain?
I use chargeAutomation .com in combination with bookingautomation .com which charges the credit card of all booking .com bookings automatically. I have 11 units right now and doing it manually was starting to take a lot of my time especially if the charge fails and having to retry again and again every time the guest updates their credit card on booking .com
