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MyAllocator directly to your website?

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Sofie started this discussion 9 years 2 months ago

Im thinking about getting MyAllocator since i have worked with it a bit before.

Is it really so that you can use them as a booking engine directly onto my hotels website?
I mean so that it just dosent send my guest to a site like booking.com or someplace where comission is taken.

Anything bad about MyAllocator that I dont know of more that that it sometimes can be a bit slow to update?

Best regards

Sofie

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Rucksack Brian

9 years

MyAllocator offers a Book Now app that you can put on your own website. It’s free for any hostel using their channel manager. The app allows your guests to book directly with you rather than sending them off to a 3rd party site like Booking or HW. They don't take any commissions, and you can even set different prices for different booking channels to ensure that the best deal is always on your website.

Book Now works quite well, but there are some negatives.

It is limited in its appearance. It’s a blue rectangle, and there are no other options or ability to customize.
It will only let you sell your beds, because there is no option for additional services or products like tours or paid breakfast.

If you want those additional options, they also have a different booking engine that you can pay for. I don’t think that is something that you can get as a stand-alone service though. The last time I talked to them about it I think it was only available in conjunction with their Cloudbeds Property Management System.

I use the Book Now app on my hostel’s website, and I have been really happy with it and with MyAllocator in general.

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mdietr

9 years

One other thing I might add is that you must set up a SSL certificate for the page you want to host the Book Now App. This ensures an encrypted connection for all of the sensitive credit card information that the app collects. It's not a huge deal, but the extra (roughly) $50 per year for the certificate is a consideration and you really shouldn't use the app on your site without it.

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Rucksack Brian

9 years

Hmmm, that’s the first I heard about that. I was under the impression that the app itself is encrypted, and since the information is entered directly into it, the page where the app is embedded doesn’t need extra security.

Would the same thing apply for every booking engine that could be used on a hostel's website?

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John Moriarty

9 years

The app itself is encrypted and does go through https but unfortunately it not is displayed in such a way.

The only issue I see is the lack of trust on the consumer end. Many people including myself would not put credit card details in to a site that does not display https on the address bar so maybe this could increase direct bookings as well but the app itself is secure for taking credit card details.

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Rucksack Brian

9 years

I have had complaints from a small handful of guests who said they didn’t want to make a booking on my site because they weren’t sure it was safe. I was assured by the MyAllocator team that it is, but that won’t change a guest’s perception, especially before they even book.

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John Moriarty

9 years

I put one of these on my page

IMAGE(http://dunloeviewhostel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Screen-Shot-2015-01-07-at-23.40.13.png)

Not sure it helps but it is that extra bit of confidence maybe.

I have thought about getting the HTTPS certificate and maybe it would be a help as well.

One issue with myallocator is it seems it only checks if a credit card number looks genuine so it can be conned .

I guess they would have to take some money out to verify the card.

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Peter K.

9 years

To add a more technical view on the different levels of security:

The myallocator booking engine (which you integrate into your website) connects only to the webserver of myallocator.com and does so in a secure, meaning encrypted way, so there is practically no need for extra security efforts. Myallocator sends the collected information by email to you.
The most simple setup would be to not take any payment at all in advance with the booking, so there would be no sensitive information at all transferred. you can set this choice up with your myallocator account.
If you choose to take credit card information within the booking engine you can add an advice to the customers above or below on the webpage where the engine is included, that all information is processed in a secure way.
Or, as was mentioned above, you can make your own website secured with https encryption, but this takes a little bit more effort than only getting a SSL certificate. You might ask your webhoster for details.

P.S.
I have also added a post with suggestions regarding basic features of myallocator here
http://www.hostelmanagement.com/forums/new-myallocator-pricing-coming-so...

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mdietr

9 years

As I suspected you do need SSL for the hosted site, but It appears that you have the option to link directly to myallocator (basically myallocator is hosting the book now app for you) which would be secure. This means that the user will leave your site and go to a myallocator owned site to book the stay. For the record, I have never found where you can obtain this link. Maybe it is something you have to ask for? But the point is, if you are hosting the app on your own site (ie: you copied the HTML from myallocator and pasted it into your own website) you must get SSL for that page. This makes sense since you are simply hosting a rich web form written as a script. You can't just leave it naked.

Here is the response I got from the folks at myallocator to the following question: Do I need SSL for the page hosting the app?

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us and I'm happy to help answer this question.

Please review the article below regarding BookNow security - this should help answer your questions. In short yes, you will need a SSL Certificate on your site for the app to be secure.

If you have any other questions at all, please reply and I'll be glad to help.

Is the BookNow app secure? Why is there no padlock icon?

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Peter K.

9 years

Hello mdietr,
after having a look at your website it seems that you are getting two different things getting mixed up.
Your book now button leads to a subpage of the cloudbeds server, where there is a minipage setup about your hostel like on hostelworld or others. Obviously you are using cloudbeds as a PMS, which is delivered by the same company that owns myallocator and therefor has some very close integration.
The book now button directly from myallocator is completely different. Technically it is an iframe embedded on your page, meaning it is not visible to the user that it is coming from another server than the containing website and also invisible whether it is secured or not.

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mdietr

9 years

I am not confused. I have three hostels and the one you viewed as using the full cloud beds PMS suite. In this thread we are only talking about myallocator and book now.

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