HB charging 20% for some bookings!!

I hope this is not an omen for the future.

I just received this mail:

"I would like to introduce two new booking channels for you to increase your bookings through HostelBookers. Our ‘Agency Rates’ model covers two channels - Groups bookings and our Travel Trade affiliate bookings. I have given information below on both channels and attached a pdf brochure with information on FIT/Affiliate scheme. Please remember that these channels are in addition to your standard HostelBookers bookings and are ways for you to increase your bookings.

Group Bookings

All group bookings are on a request basis, our staff will call or email you for availability and never just take availability from your back office availability.

‘Groups’ are considered to be anything from 10 people and up

Process
* You upload your rates in to the HostelBookers.com as usual.
* Our groups team call you for availability and take 20% from the back office rate for group bookings so you don’t need to give us any prices on the phone.
* These bookings are made on request so you will need to update your availability in the back office.
* We will pay you in advance of the group arriving

Terms
* We take 20% from the rate that you load in to the back office.
* All bookings are on a request basis – Our groups department will call you for availability, therefore we are not asking for any allocation.
* 28 day cancellation policy – Any cancellations within this period incur a 100% cancellation fee.
* Payment is made to you 7 – 14 days prior to client’s arrival

FIT/Affiliate

FIT/Affiliate bookings are bookings that are made via our network of affiliate travel partners (including anytrip.com and travel agents & tour operators) and will bring additional bookings from new markets.

Your property and rates will be distributed to our affiliates meaning that you will receive bookings directly from their websites but via HostelBookers.

Process
* You upload your availability and prices to the HostelBookers.com back office as usual.
* These rates are used in two ways – on HostelBookers.com and through our affiliate network.
* Any bookings will be taken from your availability so you only have to update one set of rates and availability.
* You will receive an email confirming the booking as usual indicating that it is a full payment booking and to not ask the guest for any payment.
* We will make payment once a month for all departed bookings during the previous month.

Terms·
We will take 20% from that rate that you load in to your back office, this is split with our affiliates (10% each).

Bookings are taken from the availability you load in the back office (so you only have to load availability and rates once).

Individual/FIT cancellation is 48 hours (inside this you will receive payment for the entire booking).

Payment will be made on the 15th of every month for any bookings arriving in the preceding month.

Both models are fantastic ways for you to receive additional bookings so if you are interested in receiving extra bookings, please reply to this email and I will send you a contract to complete.