Lay My Hat

Phew, well done you! Houdini would be proud of that escape! I definitely think that calls for a glass of something.

Oh man!

Pop up on trying to cancel:

Cancel Reservation
Our system indicates that you have received a payment for this reservation. This payment will not be refunded automatically when cancelling. If necessary, we recommend refunding this payment before cancelling.

Payment details on my account:

Payment schedule
Payment 1 of 2
Guest Paid : 02/12/15 - A*** - MasterCard
Your rental agreement was accepted on 02/12/15 at 14:35 by A***
Payment will be disbursed on 21/07/16 (it may take 5-7 business days for funds to be deposited into your account)
£360.00

Payment 2 of 2
Guest Paid : 16/05/16 - A*** - MasterCard
Payment will be disbursed on 21/07/16 (it may take 5-7 business days for funds to be deposited into your account)
£1,080.00

Oh! I get it! I've got to manually select the refund in 'actions'


Learning curve! 〰🔃➰〰

All done, refunded and cancelled😇😂

Well done Sam! What a huge relief.

And just a positive thought. Ben got me thinking worst case scenarios. It might have been worse - yes really - they might have just turned up!

Interestingly, last night I checked my email address registered to my OD account, primary address was/is my 'business' holiday@... email with our personal Hotmail address email as an second/alternative email. I deleted our hotmail address from the account.

The emails I have received this evening confirming the payment refunds are all addressed to our hotmail. I logged into my HA account to check that too and it's only got our holiday@... email registered on the account.

So what's going on? Is there a massive delay until it's updated or if asked would they reply 'oh we can only send email to the address you originally registered...'

Oh Sam I am so pleased for you. We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief. Top marks to the guest too for being rational, calm and happy to compromise!

As for the OD email fiasco, I'd be throwing that right back at them. A back up email should be just that, not a primary email. See if they can offer any explanation of why the emails weren't sent to your primary address. I doubt they can, like most things OD related.

kevsboredagain wrote: I was not critical of PIMs but in the last thread about making a booking error, I was also shot down for daring to suggest the error could have been prevented by using a different procedure. There was a strong implication that the handling of the error was far more important and it was clear that any discussion about how to avoid a similar error in the future was not welcome.

I therefore don’t see much point in a separate thread and I'll say nothing more.

In a thread like this, the handling of the error was far more important with emotional consequences for the owner and also potentially the guest than discussing the why. Maybe that's just some of us having empathy with the situation and a less clinical view on the why and how to prevent.

However, I genuinely think a separate thread, where no one individual is involved would be a great idea for us to throw in some ideas, pitfalls and so on into the arena. This would enable us to work out, moving forward, how to try and avoid double bookings as the systems around us get ever more complicated and try and remove us more and more from our own booking process.

Tell you what - I'll start it. Here it is: viewtopic.php?t=26499

Fantastic news Sam! So pleased for you...couldn't have gone any better!

Phew!

Mousie
x

A great big thank you to all of you who have supported me through this tense but thankfully brief owners nightmare!

It's times like this that LMH can be so invaluable!

I'm now going to move on to the other side; Nemo's post!

Nemo wrote: Maybe that's just some of us having empathy with the situation and a less clinical view on the why and how to prevent.

I'm a software engineer which is why I simply look at every problem as one of logic

kevsboredagain wrote:

Nemo wrote: Maybe that's just some of us having empathy with the situation and a less clinical view on the why and how to prevent.

I'm a software engineer which is why I simply look at every problem as one of logic

My guess then is you also have pointy ears? 🖖🏻

Oh phew - you must be breathing a sigh of relief every minute, Sam. I'm so glad you've come out of the other end of the nightmare in what sounds actually to be quite a positive way. Respect to those guests for taking it well.

Good result!
When working in a service environment we knew that no matter what you do to prevent it, occasionally shit happens. When it did happen, our Customers would judge us on how we put it right.
You earned your 10/10 from Mr AP!

Sam V wrote:

kevsboredagain wrote:

Nemo wrote: Maybe that's just some of us having empathy with the situation and a less clinical view on the why and how to prevent.

I'm a software engineer which is why I simply look at every problem as one of logic

My guess then is you also have pointy ears? 🖖🏻

I knew that was coming lol

Glad you sorted the problem out.

Really pleased for you Sam, that everything has worked out okay.

Maybe I've got it the wrong way round, but I still read it that the first guests who booked got bumped, and the second guests got the holiday, mostly because the first guests were uncommunicative (and you didn't read the OD e-mail) and the second bookers had lots of contact with you. That would not sit rightly with me.

Amongst my OD guests this summer, I've had two already who gave absolutely no feedback to my e-mails, welcome letters etc. They both booked through Homeaway (because my OD advert now appears there), happily paid up through their website and I received the confirmation that they'd paid. I didn't hear anything else from them until they day they arrived. I don't like the system at all, but I had an e-mail from OD that they'd paid and that's that. If they don't want to talk to me before they arrive, I hate it, but that's life.

I guess that all I'm saying is that some guests booking on the new OD/Homeaway/Expedia platform don't need the hand-holding, owner direct experience which most of us yearn for, and that we should expect less direct contact.

And PS: Nothing beats the huge spreadsheet pinned to the kitchen wall!