10 years
I think we should host a hang-out/webinar and talk in more detail on this topic. Anyone up for an informal fireside chat in the upcoming weeks?
Happy to share our perspective from a channel manager!
Booking.com - why aren't people upset about them?
Hostel Reviews, Booking Engines, and Directories
Everyone is all worked up about Hostelworld but how come I don't see people pushing back on booking.com. We signed up with them this past fall and they are really awful to work with...they insist on writing the content - which i'm convinced is being written by college interns - you can't get all the room designations right - they insist on listing one of our dorms as an 'quad room' which makes it sound like someone is booking entire room for $35 - and they are bullies, bullies, bullies on billing.
Now, they just enacted, in the USA at least, a new 'option' whereby a guest can make a last minute booking without a credit card. This 'option' automatically opted everyone IN. Supposedly they notified us on the back end...yeah... I found it but in the Contact Us section - who looks there for a message FROM booking.com? ...oh, and they only posted it for one of our cities, not all three - yet all three cities were opted in.
We only found out about this new feature because, yeah - a guest no showed and there was no credit card number on file.
They charge a minimum of 15% , don't take down reviews and are really high on their horse so to speak trying to tell us how to run our business..and you can't make a billing mistake at all - no money back if you are overcharged... why don't i see complaints about them?
BTW...in hostelworld's defense, yeah they raised the price for the first time in 10 years to 12%, but they raised the hotels to 15%....perhaps they should have communicated that to the hostels.
- Comments
10 years
@ Ria I am with you 100%!
@ sweepy Thank you for the words of advice. You have some very good points which I have already followed up.
@ Denis Moz I have tried implementing these policies however with so many other lodging options in my city, nobody wants to make a prepayment of 50% or have a 30 day cancellation policy when they can just go to the next property on the list and have the freedom to cancel when they want.
@ BBJGM Thanks for the tip.
I hate booking.com
I do however like your idea of collective bargaining and have in fact tried to consult other property owners in my city to see if we can set up an association of sorts. Sadly I have had little success mainly because I am in a country where Mafia rule and suppression, subordination and the strong-arm are an accepted part of life. Booking.com have certainly found their niche.
10 years
@ Ria I am with you 100%!
@ sweepy Thank you for the words of advice. You have some very good points which I have already followed up.
@ Denis Moz I have tried implementing these policies however with so many other lodging options in my city, nobody wants to make a prepayment of 50% or have a 30 day cancellation policy when they can just go to the next property on the list and have the freedom to cancel when they want.
@ BBJGM Thanks for the tip.
I hate booking.com
I do however like your idea of collective bargaining and have in fact tried to consult other property owners in my city to see if we can set up an association of sorts. Sadly I have had little success mainly because I am in a country where Mafia rule and suppression, subordination and the strong-arm are an accepted part of life. Booking.com have certainly found their niche.
10 years
@ Ria I am with you 100%!
@ sweepy Thank you for the words of advice. You have some very good points which I have already followed up.
@ Denis Moz I have tried implementing these policies however with so many other lodging options in my city, nobody wants to make a prepayment of 50% or have a 30 day cancellation policy when they can just go to the next property on the list and have the freedom to cancel when they want.
@ BBJGM Thanks for the tip.
I hate booking.com
I do however like your idea of collective bargaining and have in fact tried to consult other property owners in my city to see if we can set up an association of sorts. Sadly I have had little success mainly because I am in a country where Mafia rule and suppression, subordination and the strong-arm are an accepted part of life. Booking.com have certainly found their niche.
10 years
@ Ria I am with you 100%!
@ sweepy Thank you for the words of advice. You have some very good points which I have already followed up.
@ Denis Moz I have tried implementing these policies however with so many other lodging options in my city, nobody wants to make a prepayment of 50% or have a 30 day cancellation policy when they can just go to the next property on the list and have the freedom to cancel when they want.
@ BBJGM Thanks for the tip.
I hate booking.com
I do however like your idea of collective bargaining and have in fact tried to consult other property owners in my city to see if we can set up an association of sorts. Sadly I have had little success mainly because I am in a country where Mafia rule and suppression, subordination and the strong-arm are an accepted part of life. Booking.com have certainly found their niche.
10 years
For January, booking will cancel the Parity rate in his contract for all the EU area.
Its a consequence of the lawsuit against booking by French and Italian hotels and governments.
10 years
Do you have a source Jay.
My reading of it is that you have to still offer the same price on your website that you give booking.com but you can give a lower price to expedia or agoda so it really is not very good.
10 years
My source is a newspaper (serious one) in French.
I put the link.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/conso/2014/12/15/05007-20141215ARTFIG00380-le-sit...
10 years
The translation to English is not great . Reading from this article I got the following.
"Under the proposed change, the hotel would still be required to offer Booking.com the same or better rates than the hotel offers to consumers, but the hotel would be free to offer Expedia, Hotels.com, Venere, Lastmintute.com, Ebookers or other Booking.com competitors better rates."
"But as a practical matter, it wouldn’t necessarily be in hotels’ best interest to offer Booking.com’s competitors lower rates on an ongoing basis than hotels offer Booking.com because that would mean the hotels would offer Expedia or Lastminute.com lower rates than the hotel offers consumers on its own websites."
So my reading is that it really doesn't amount to much unless we can offer cheaper prices on our own websites.
10 years
what I understand
We can not offer better rate on our website (or directly) but we can offer better rate on partner website (like expedia )
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