Important updates to the Owners Direct Booking Platform

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
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apexblue
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Post by apexblue »

Dear Property Manager,
You have recently declined a significant number of booking requests. To provide the best experience for travellers booking on our platform, and help prevent a negative impact on your performance and ranking, we’ve temporarily hidden your property from being displayed in search results.
Once you’re available and ready to accept bookings, you can easily unhide your property. Visit your dashboard, go to the Listing Details page, and change the setting to 'unhide'. Please review our HomeAway Marketplace Standards to make sure you are operating in compliance with our guidelines. Failure to comply with these Marketplace Standards will be a breach of our Terms and Conditions.

Cannot get to site. Can you?
It is better to remain quiet and have one think you are stupid, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt....

The biggest mistake we make in life is thinking we have time.
COYS
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Post by COYS »

apexblue wrote:Dear Property Manager,
You have recently declined a significant number of booking requests. To provide the best experience for travellers booking on our platform, and help prevent a negative impact on your performance and ranking, we’ve temporarily hidden your property from being displayed in search results.
Once you’re available and ready to accept bookings, you can easily unhide your property. Visit your dashboard, go to the Listing Details page, and change the setting to 'unhide'. Please review our HomeAway Marketplace Standards to make sure you are operating in compliance with our guidelines. Failure to comply with these Marketplace Standards will be a breach of our Terms and Conditions.

Cannot get to site. Can you?
And therein lies the problem apexblue. Because no matter how many hoops you jump through it will never be enough.
Marketplace Standards? Is that what they're dressing it up as now?
This time next year Rodney, we'll be millionaires.
newtimber
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Post by newtimber »

COYS wrote:
And therein lies the problem apexblue. Because no matter how many hoops you jump through it will never be enough.
Marketplace Standards? Is that what they're dressing it up as now?
apexblue wrote: That's us stuffed as we leave calenders open so we can direct to other rentals if booked.
I think this is going to be the breach of marketplace standards...
angi
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Post by angi »

Is there anything that the enquirer can do to 'extend' the time?

When you press accept - what happens. Is is an automatic booking or does the guest have to do something i.e . Is there another step?

Unfortunately there is no other step in the process and no way of slowing the clock which counts down on your dashboard like a time bomb lol.Once you press accept then OD take payment as they already have all the card details. The only way then for us to stop things would be to receive payment and cancel direct with the guest. Not a very professional way of going about it.
Currently potential guests can still send an enquiry if they have questions they need to ask before booking without entering card details etc. It's not clear if this will still stand when the changes come into force.
We are pretty booked up until the end of the season all through OD and only 2 of those enquired first so people seem to like instant booking and use it then send any questions.
Having said that we haven't renewed our subscription yet because we have been unhappy with the level of control they try to take and the recent email is a step too far! Also the quality of the guests so far has been disappointing compared to other years when we have had a chance to suss them out and get to know them more. We have already had more damage than our other 2 years put together and there is still a long way to go....but that's a whole other debate I think. Or maybe we've just been lucky in the past.. who knows :?
Sam V
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Post by Sam V »

I've just this morning received an OD enquiry for a June 2018 booking. I'm on subscription and am no longer privileged to see the enquirer's email or phone number until a booking is confirmed, so I can no longer give them the option of booking direct. So this new policy now affects us all. So what happens if they book and I then see it's a group of 18-21y olds on a hen/stag weekend?

I'm now considering charging a tad more on my listing to cover the fees Yapstone will charge me for the privilege of them holding my payment for a year until they transfer it to me.

Also have to think about going over to commission when my renewal is up next year. I guess I have plenty of time to monitor enquiries-bookings and which option is financially the better.
TA lurkers walk among us; the LMH Walking Dead

dont mess in the affairs of cats for they are subtle and will p on your computer.

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Hells Bells
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Post by Hells Bells »

Sam, I am still on subscription (although with HA not OD), and I get paid on booking. I've had only a couple of bookings in the last year, so not sure what to do when renewal comes along.
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roxytoo
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Post by roxytoo »

sam do you have online booking enabled?
lasourcetranquille
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Post by lasourcetranquille »

Well that's us stuffed then. I am tied to Gites de France for ten years after they subsidised the creation of our gite, so all bookings have to go through them. So I can't accept online payments. That's AirBnB out, and now HomeAway. HL/TA dried up for me about a year ago - so what's left? Seems the only place I get enquiries now is Gites.nl...
Hells Bells
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Post by Hells Bells »

What about some of the smaller French-based sites, Pour les vacances, France-Voyage etc. ?
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Mouse
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Post by Mouse »

Sam I think that's because you had OB enabled. I recall you used to give guests the choice of paying you or OD.

I'm on subs with no OB and can still see my guests details.

Mouse
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Marks
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Post by Marks »

Mouse wrote:Sam I think that's because you had OB enabled. I recall you used to give guests the choice of paying you or OD.

I'm on subs with no OB and can still see my guests details.

Mouse
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Me too.
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Giraffe
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Post by Giraffe »

Many thanks you to all who responded to my questions of 10 July. With all the other recent discussion on LMH I've decided to cancel my OD subscription when it runs out in February and go to commission. I'm really nervous about I can handle all the intricacies of their booking system, but I hope you lovely Hatters can help me if I get into difficulties.

And of course I'm expanding into other marketing options. At my age I'm a "Luddite" with regards to social media, but my mid-year resolution is to change this. Thanks to all of you who have shared their marketing knowledge on LMH - it's been extremely helpful.

Giraffe x
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Sam V
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Post by Sam V »

roxytoo wrote:sam do you have online booking enabled?
Yes I do.
TA lurkers walk among us; the LMH Walking Dead

dont mess in the affairs of cats for they are subtle and will p on your computer.

www.algarvevillatrinity.co.uk
www.facebook.com/villatrinity
www.gardenerscottage.promotemyplace.com
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