HA - I think they mean my guest wants to pay an instalment

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Sam V
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HA - I think they mean my guest wants to pay an instalment

Post by Sam V »

Had an HA email which I’ve read a couple of times and think I get it now.

‘We have been contacted by your traveller Mr AF for property 123456. Traveller would like to make a payment for the final payment for installment. You will need to set up a new final payment for the traveller to pay installment.

We need your attention to this. Please get in touch with your traveller as soon as possible.’


Ok, so if he wants to pay an instalment why do I have to do it when HA handle all the payments? Ive no idea how i do that! The booking is for April 2020
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Cymraes
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Post by Cymraes »

Are you sure that is genuine?

It's very badly worded.
Sam V
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Post by Sam V »

Cymraes wrote:Are you sure that is genuine?

It's very badly worded.
I wondered, but it's from this address:

support-cs@homeaway.co.uk

I'm waiting to see if I receive anything further. The guest has my direct contact too.
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Post by newtimber »

Sam V wrote: I wondered, but it's from this address:

support-cs@homeaway.co.uk
The from address can be spoofed to be anything. Have you looked at the raw email headers to see whether it actually came from that domain.
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Post by Sam V »

It is genuine, I've just received this from guest:

'I have tried to email you but for some reason it keeps bouncing back?
I spoke to home away yesterday as I was hoping to make a partial payment towards the outstanding balance however I’m not sure they understood what I was trying to do.

Apparently you need to generate an invoice, is this something you can do or if it’s more hassle than it’s worth let me know and I’ll just put the money aside until the final balance is due.

Thanks '
-----

I'm not sure how I would generate a partial payment invoice, anyone know how, or why HA can't do it.
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Post by AndrewH »

Do HomeAway demand the total payment immediately these days?
If not, it looks like this traveller (as they call him) has paid just the deposit and the service fee to HA, while the balance is not due for a while yet, seeing the booking is for April next year. It's good of him to want to make early stage payments of the balance, but the thought of having to negotiate amounts and write intermediate invoices would put me off. I would let him put his money aside and save up the total balance in time for the date it falls due and payable to HA.
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Re: HA - I think they mean my guest wants to pay an instalme

Post by e-richard »

Sam V wrote:Ok, so if he wants to pay an instalment why do I have to do it when HA handle all the payments? Ive no idea how i do that! The booking is for April 2020
I'm totally with you on that one.

What the heck do HA do for their whopping great "[non] Service Fee" ?
In other words tell the guest (and HA) to sort it out with HomeAway.
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Post by vacancesthezan »

No particular lover of HA but in this case you have defined your payment terms. Maybe 25% upfront then the balance 60 days before arrival.

You can manually change this for any particular reservation - we suspect that this is what HA want you to do!

If you go into your inbox and then down to where the quote is detailled there is an option for payment terms. This is (we thnk) editable.

This will then allow the renter to pay the instalment he (or she) wishes.

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Post by Sunbeam »

We edited the payment system to add a cost to the booking that we had agreed with the guest.

But be warned, the system then reset the balance payment date to 2 weeks before the holiday (we had selected 65 days before the holiday when we set up the prices). Despite the balance being nothing to do with the edit.

Tried nicely to ask HA why this had happened and the person on the phone shouted at me when I expressed (still politely) my frustration that they were not answering my question. I then had to should back but hung up and called back and suggested they use the call for training purposes.

Eventually found out that it's a glitch in the system and the owner is responsible for changing it back to 65 days - but received no apology, no assurance that the glitch would be reported and not even an admission that it was a glitch. It was for a 2 week summer holiday at our peak prices and fortunately it went ahead.

They may have fixed it. So my advice is that if you edit the booking terms or prices, double check that everything it as it should be including payment dates.
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Post by AndrewH »

Reading Sunbeam's post and the others as well, I am so glad that I was not persuaded to switch my listing to HA, when OD was closed down. Even in the days of chairman, Brian Sharples (remember him?), it was bliss by comparison.
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Post by Yorkshire Lass »

I've had the same experience as Sunbeam and it's extremely annoying. Be aware that if you edit a quote for instance to add a charge for a dog or something like that the payment terms default to the balance being due 2 weeks before the holiday instead of what you may have set up and you have to remember to amend them yourself at the same time as you're editing to add the charge/change the quote etc
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Post by Nemo »

Yes just to confirm all of the above. You can edit the payment terms and send them a new invoice that allows them to pay early.

The ‘glitch’ in their system has existed since last year now I do believe so it’s not going away anytime soon. Edit a quote and it will default to collect the final payment just two weeks before the holiday, rather than whatever your terms are. I had several conversations with customer service before getting to the bottom of it. I remember talking to one US rep (the Indian reps seems to read from scripts and have very little understanding of the system in my limited experience) and it was really quite poignant. She agreed that the glitch was dreadful and that if only the tech team sorted it they’d get hundreds less complaints and make everyone’s life so much easier.

I’ve always found the HA system to be by far the worse out of all the big sites. At least once you understand the ‘glitch’ you can work round it.
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Re: HA - I think they mean my guest wants to pay an instalme

Post by Nemo »

e-richard wrote:
Sam V wrote:Ok, so if he wants to pay an instalment why do I have to do it when HA handle all the payments? Ive no idea how i do that! The booking is for April 2020
I'm totally with you on that one.

What the heck do HA do for their whopping great "[non] Service Fee" ?
In other words tell the guest (and HA) to sort it out with HomeAway.
If only that were possible! Sadly as we set our payment terms within the HA parameters, it’s down to us to change them. It’s done by going into the inbox, finding their booking and scrolling down to edit the payment terms/generate a new invoice or whatever wording they use. It’s relatively straight forward to do but beware the glitch as mentioned.

Recently, I got a call from the US; HA customer services. A balance was due and the guest hadn’t paid it. I had contacted him telling him his holiday would be cancelled if he didn’t pay up to HA. He’d had no reminders from HA to pay. Turns out he’d entered his email incorrectly when he originally enquired. I realised and changed it within my system but of course I can’t change what he put into HA. The rep rang me asking me to change his email even though it’s their system and not possible! I had to tell her that she must change it but if she needs my permission to do so then she had it. Madness. Anyway guest then paid and all was well again for his peak week booking.
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