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Let´s force Booking.com to Change its discriminatory Policy!

Hostel Reviews, Booking Engines, and Directories

Diogo M. started this discussion 7 years 11 months ago

Dear hosts,

Booking.com has just changed its policy making it more difficult for home-owners to ask their clients to pre-pay a certain amount to secure their reservation.

As a private home owner, and not a hotelier, I have been using the pre-payment option with sucess, but now booking.com wants to limit this feature.

The pre-payment is very important for someone that rents a private apartment. If a guest does not show up at a big hotel where he has a reservation, no damage is done. If a guest does honour its reservation for a private apartment the owner loses real money. And it is no use having a cancellation policy if you cannot enforce it.

I understand that Booking.com is reluctant to allow new hosts charge pre-payment before creating a confidence track. But I have two other properties in the same town for more than 2 years and dozens of 5 star reviews. I have always used the pre-payment policy in these cases with no problem at all. This should count for something.

Booking.com argues that they want to visit the apartment before allowing a pre-payment policy to be implemented. Although this might work in Europe, where their offices are located, it will now work in more remote place, thus becoming a descriminatory policy. I ask them how soon, and with which regularity, are you planning to come to the islant of Santiago in Cape Verde where I happen to live? There was no answer but I guess not very soon, and not heat often, and that poses a problem for us.

Finally, Booking.com policy does not define a specific period after which the pre-payment will be allowed. It can be 2 weeks, it can be 2 years. This is particularly annoying and unfair, as the process of certification is not a transparent in any way.

LET'S CHANGE THEIR POLICY NOW! FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO [email protected] NOW:

Dear Booking.com,

As a private home owner, I ask you to change your policy and allow home-owners to implement a pre-payment option now.

The possibility to ask guests to pre-pay a certain amount of the reservation as a requirement to reserve your property is very important for someone that rents a private apartment. If a guest does not show at a big hotel with a 50/ occupancy rate, no damage is done. If a guest does not show up in for a private apartment the owner loses real money. And it is no use having a cancellation policy if you cannot enforce it.

You say say that your collaborators need to visit the apartment before allowing a pre-payment policy to be implemented. That might work in European cities, but what about more remote locations? This requirement actively discriminates these group of home-owners.

Finally, your policy does not define a specific period after which the pre-payment will be allowed to ask for pre-payment and does not take into consideration previously built reputation of home-owners. This is particularly annoying and unfair.

Based on these points I kindly ask you to review these aspects of you policy and allow home-owners to implement a pre-payment policy now.

Best regards,

Comments

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Rucksack Brian

7 years

Booking began listing private homes and apartments in an effort to compete with AirBnB. But this brought about new challenges with the legitimacy of the properties on their site. It used to be that all accommodation providers had to provide documents to prove they were legitimate businesses before being listed at all. Now anyone can list anything. Without local government verifications, authorization, or standards for homeowners operating in the black, it is very easy for unscrupulous individuals to create false listings. There is a very serious risk that a pre-payment could be collected, but then the guest could turn up at an accommodation that does not actually exist. I would imagine that this is the reasoning behind their decision, probably based on repeated instances of pre-payments for fraudulent accommodation.

In addition to registering with local authorities, meeting minimum standards for health and safety, and paying appropriate taxes on their income, professional accommodation providers such as legal hostels and hotels have significant costs and obligations that a private homeowner does not have. Not least of all is the entire staff who receive their salaries from the hotel’s revenue. The idea that no damage is done when a guest no-shows in a hostel or hotel, or that the financial loss is any less “real” for us than for a private homeowner is flawed in my opinion.

It is perfectly fair to press your manager at Booking to provide you with more information about this policy change, especially because you have been working with them for quite some time. If they are going to insist that you meet certain requirements, then they do need to let you know what those requirements are and how/when they will be verified. The best bet for your properties in particular will probably be to call them until you finally get someone on the phone who can give you those answers. If they can’t, then keep climbing up the chain of management until you get someone who has the authority to click the button that lets you pre-charge your guests.

I wish you luck! Booking is generally not known for their desire to help accommodation providers with much of anything.

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mdietr

7 years

If you have other properties with booking.com and they have been listed for some time, ensure all of your properties are organized in a group on booking.com (meaning they are all listed under one extranet login). Then, inform customer service that you are a trusted hotel client with a proven history and trust relationship with them and ask that the no prepayment policy be removed immediately. We have to do this each time we have added a new property to our group. Its a pain but I has worked for us.

If you are truely a new booking.com property, you are stuck waiting it out for a while I'm affraid. In such a case I would authorize each credit card for the full amount about 6 days prior to the check-in and then claim the funds on check-in day. If the authorization fails at least you know you must to cancel the reservation. You are allowed to authorize, not charge and if they have violated the no-show or late cancellation policy, you are allowed to charge.

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SilverSeagull

7 years

Agree with mdietr, if you are working legally, there is no problem to use pre-authorization in order to penalize the guest for late cancellation or no show. If you are not, so it's your own problem.

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dioogoo

7 years

Thank you all for your comments.

It is indeed common sense that if you permit advance payment on two properties, you should also permit it on the new property that is owned by the same person. After all it is the owner/manager that has to build a track record of confidence (as I did) and not the property itself.

Unfortunately I am still trying that booking.com acknowledges this situation. Communication with booking.com has been rather difficult. The person with whom you speak too changes all the time and employees are reluctant to take any responsibility, behaving a little bit like robots.

At the same time I have tried to work with STRIPE to start accepting credit cards. But when I told them how booking.com releases the credit cards details through the intranet they cancelled my account, as this procedure is not PCI compliant. Any ideas on how to solve this problem and actually start to accept credit cards from booking.com clients?

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NickInTofino

7 years

I have said this before and I have done this.... dump them... they need you more then you need them.

Ultimately we need an alternative, I had hope Open travel exchange would take off.....

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dioogoo

7 years

I agree, alternatives are always welcome and should be encouraged. It is very easy for established companies to unilateraly change the terms of the contract and we, partners, are powerless unless there are alternatives.

But today, finally, I have received some good news. Booking.com allowed me to collect pre-payment. It took a lot of time and energy to get booking.com to behave in a rational and compreensive way. Thanks for all the support.

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NickInTofino

7 years

Well you have loosened the noose around your neck... you may breath better but you are still going to be hung.

for your information, I cancelled HW, then when they bought hostel bookers, I cancelled that, when Booking.com said they are not liable for credit card information or the payment from their guests (read your contract) I cancelled them too....

I am a free man, enjoying the sweet smell of air and hope to never be in a postion of tha rope around my neck

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