That’s a pity, its very handy, guests have to provide their home address and telephone number as well.
How does booking.com handle cancellations when they take payment? For example, if your cancellation policy is the guest loses 50%, will Booking.com pay you that 50% in the case that the credit card is invalid?
The reason I prefer to take the payment directly is because I’ve had quite a few guests not understand the policies such as thinking they can rent the whole house and invite however many friends over. So, in those cases I just politely ask them to cancel right away and I will waive any cancellation fees. I just want them to reopen my calendar and move on.
So curious how Booking.com handles it?
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That’s flat-out discrimination and racism, even if you think you’re justified and being practical.
I am also using Booking.com to fill up my calendar in the months Airbnb can not.
I have learned my lessons with Booking.com.
Booking.com is not bad at all, but you have to know what you are doing.
Never ever accept a booking without having charged a credit card up front. And hold on to that credit card information after they have checked out.
I have had my share of prostitutes trying to rent my apartments, some under false name, some with an unvalid credit card etc. I turned them all away.
Prostitution is legal in Norway, where I live, but buying sex is not. The customer will face fines up to 2000 USD if caught by the police. (Same in Sweden?)
And if you are housing prostitutes, you migh be charged with the newly made pimp paragraph. Even more severe penalties here, if you only suspected the girls you were hosting were prostitutes.
99,99 % of Romanian women staying in Scandinavia are beggars, prostitutes or related with some kind of criminal activity.
These women often have male pimps, which might get you into a lot of problems if you start hosting them.
To sum up:
-Do never accept guests paying cash! Not even hotels do accept guests without swiping a valid credit card. They may pay cash, but the hotel always demand a credit card when checking in. (Atleast here.)
-Think twice about accepting local guests, or guests from the district. Most of them are in town to party.
Good luck!
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Yes, I ignored… Cheers Mate!
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THAT! There is an ongoing issue with Romani/Gypsies/ whatever PC term you want to use in Scandinavia.
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I have strict cancellation, , you can have any cancellation terms you want but can also set up policies as well. With strict cancellation, the guest may cancel but you will still get your payment…
They charge the host a fee for processing payment on your behalf , I had a guest who’s card was declined and the reservation was automatically cancelled.She just was waiting for her wages to come in, so she came and paid cash in hand. This was the only experience I have had so far.
Unlike airbnb or trip, details are not blocked out in messages so the guests get all my details immediately and can make private arrangements.
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Normally I have cash payments only on booking, but in July there was one guest who paid with his credit card through a paypal request. Got a chargeback on that as guest disputed the charge. Paypal sided with the crook and said services are not covered under their seller guarantee and that was the end of that. How I can protect against that other stuckung to cash only?
Sorry, I see you said that the booking.com cancelled the reservation immediately for the card being declined.
So do they not allow the guest 24 hours to submit a new one when they are the processor?
A friend of mine, when she was a new host, accepted a cash booking from a guest she’d booked through Airbnb several weeks earlier. When the guest contacted her about booking a second time, she gave my friend a story about why she couldn’t use her credit card and would she accept cash. My friend agreed. When she got home from work, the day the guest/con artist checked in, her front door was wide open. All her electronics had been stolen, but worse than that, the notebook my friend keeps by her computer containing her passwords was also taken. Then the “guest” disappeared and used the passwords to divert my friend’s Airbnb payments into another account. Needless to say, it took several weeks for it to be straightened out. My friend’s material losses were covered by insurance, but she had to change all her passwords and lost some money. Airbnb couldn’t help because the booking was handled off the books. Beware!
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There seems to be some confusion here between people from Romania (the country), and Romanis (the ethnic group). Which do you mean?
The Romanis do seem to have a bad time of it. As you can easily check on the net, European govts have passed anti-Roma legislation in recent years.
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Many people do not distinguish between the two. If you can bear it, look at the UK Daily Mail and Daily Express. The history of the Romanis (Gypsies) is both fascinating and incredibly sad. One of the most interesting things is the lack of accurate documentation because of their nomadic lifestyle and persecution and their oral tradition.
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With booking.com you can pay in cash or credit card, it does not mean they do anything wrong.
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Hi @azreala,
Certainly, I was aware there was no confusion at your end. But @BandB’s use of the term Romanian did create a little confusion in my mind. Did he mean Romanis? I think he probably did.
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@faheem I believe he did… giving the ongoing issue Scandinavia is having with Romani and other types of gypsies
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I’m already somewhat familiar with the history of the Romanis. As you are probably aware, they are of Indian origin. There seems to be a concensus about this, but I’m not sure how scholars know this. But links such as https://gnxp.nofe.me/2012/12/09/the-origins-of-the-romani-determined-definitively/ suggest genetic analysis, perhaps with some linguistic analysis as well.
And they’ve been getting it in the neck for many years. In particular, the Nazis murdered many of them during the Second World War.
Anyway, I was just trying to clarify a point of terminology here.
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I’m not aware of those issues. Do you have a link, or should I just search?
@faheem I would have to look, there was a big issue a few years back when Sweden made a registry of all the Romani. I think they may be called Swedish/ Norwegian travelers not Romani, even though they are descendants. Let me ask DH and report back…
They have camps on the outskirts of the cities and pan handle on the streets and are involved in other petty crime rings.
Hi @azreala,
Thank you for your offer to check, but please don’t go to a lot of trouble. I’m aware that Italy in particular has passed quite drastic anti-Romani legislation, but was not aware that Sweden had done so.
For some reason, when Romanis are mentioned, I always think of the scene in which they appear, unjustly accused of theft, in Hergé’s “The Castafiore Emerald”. Published in 1961/1962, but little has changed.