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Hi @konacoconutz With booking.com you handle all of the collection of payments yourself, so the main danger is not being able to collect payment. Everything has been fine so far, but then we had one recent guest who wanted to pay “cash” So we said OK, if we can pre approve your credit card. But then a few days before arrival they blocked the credit card and cancelled the booking. So we were out of luck. But thatʻs only one bad person out of many many good folks, so oh well.
Since we get their credit card info there is no need to collect a deposit. They do ask guests to write reviews, but most donʻt. Now that we have more than 5 reviews itʻs better. People seem to know better what to expect.
We stopped sending out the confirmation email and it seems fine. There is a lot of cancelling going on, which is part of the Booking culture, but as long as it settles down 2 weeks before weʻre good. We do get most of our guests that way now and our calendar is pretty full except for this past week which was slow.
The booking fee is 15% straight off the top of the room rate (not the cleaning fees), but they also have a separate line for taxes, so it balances out. We charged a little more for cleaning fee and we come out a few dollars ahead of the other platforms. They invoice you monthly. So there is a little more administrative work, but you are probably keeping track of the stays for your records anyway. Handling the money is more work, I am lucky that my partner does that. HTH.
Hi @TSGardenC we have not noticed any monitoring by Booking. They are pretty hands off unless a guest complains to their customer service. That usually happens when they didnʻt realize there is a penalty for cancellation and they ask us to waive it. The answer is no, unless we can get a replacement booking. We charge about one week out so that the funds arrive in our account at about the same time as the guests. No complaints about that yet. I have also seen that there is an option on the payment setup to choose to collect payment once your penalty period kicks in. We tried that but it seemed to dampen the bookings so we took it off (but who knows, maybe it was just random)?
My partner set it up, but he said just follow the instructions on the website and donʻt get scared off by the technical sounding instructions :). You just set up the account and then you have the ability to charge credit card numbers with the CVC code and other info from the guest. They allow free preauthorizations and no fees for refunds. The charge is $0.30 per transaction plus 2.9%, the cheapest we could find.
thank you, that was what actually scare me, but i will give it a try. I think the best idea for booking.com is to get 100% payment 2 weeks before to make sure you get your money
Thank you so much for your reply. I am still waiting for a booking request from booking.com but I have organised my confirmation email ready to go explaining payment, cancellation and about the house! Fingers crossed!
Thanks again
Has anyone ever had issues with Stripe.com?
I got my first booking with booking.com over the weekend and I charged $1 to the credit card to check it was valid. I forgot to hit “refund” and now I have received an email from Stripe.com saying:
"Our systems recently identified charges that appear to be unauthorized by the cardholder, meaning that the owner of the credit or debit card did not consent to these payments. This unfortunately means that we will no longer be able to accept payments for www.booking.com.
We’re sorry that we won’t be able to offer you service going forward, but our restrictions here are firm. If you believe that we’ve made a mistake, we’d like to remedy the situation as quickly as possible. To help us effectively revisit your account, please complete the following form:
Once you’ve completed the verification, we’ll revisit your account and follow up with you."
This is really disappointing because I really counted on using Stripe for my reservations through booking.com. But for some reason things don’t seem to be going my way. I have emailed Stripe back and advised them nothing is unauthorised.
Hope someone has a solution otherwise I hope this works out.
Sorry to hear about that @TSGardenC. That has not happened to us yet, but it sounds like perhaps the card owner marked the transaction as fraud? I would hope Stripe.com could understand your explanation that it was a test charge only.
I am wondering though why you didnʻt just do a preauthorization? That is good for one week but it does check if the card is valid. And no refund involved. preauthorizations are free on Stripe.com
Yeah that’s what I did. When I tested it on my credit card it just sat as $1 pending and the after the week was up it released the $1. So not sure why I received that email.
I listed with booking.com for one year and it was afwull. I think booking.com is more suitable for hotels with many rooms. People book and their cards don’t go through 75% of the time. Then there is back charges. Hotels make their guests to feel out registration form for this purpose. So guest can’t deny that they stayed in hotel.
Also people don’t show up and then ask for refund. It was a lot of stress.
Hi Yana, I do recall reading some of your posts about your experience with booking.com in another discussion topic. so far I haven’t had any issues with them it was with Stripe. I have called a few times and they have been helpful so I am hoping it all goes well. But who knows what will happen. Fingers crossed I guess.
I find the company really nice and supportive, they ring you several times to try catch you and you can send them an instant email through your inbox.
What I am finding lately is that the guests are much more moaner, guests pick me because I am cheaper than a hotel listed on booking.com, they want the hotel facility but want to pay peanuts. I have a had a run of a feckers. Guests are allowed to leave a response anonymously and basically they can say anything they want but you can normally can figure out who it was.
I love when guests tell you how much you should charge, I have had a few tell me I should be charging €20 or €30 a night, like one night in my house and they can work out my costs, expenses, tax or fees. They are starting to bug me if I am honest.
I’m confused about this credit card stuff on booking.com!
I have enables “payments with booking.com” , don’t they get the full payment 7 days before client arrives?
Do I have to be doing something with the credit card? What?
With Booking.com, YOU have to process payments. Booking provides you with the guest’s credit card information, and you change the card. Booking does not collect payments at all.
That’s great! So to save time and have all your calendars in one place I use an app called GuestHug and also Guesty is another channel management software platform that is worth considering
