Lay My Hat

I reckon we are pretty flexible with our arrival times, 2pm - 8pm. With booking.com there is an area for special requests so I would have thought that if someone wanted to arrive outside those hours they would make a request, but no, "Approximate arrival time between 2100 and 2200" without asking if that's OK.
Am I being unreasonable?!

sorry I have to laugh - French I presume?? At least they have told you, so you know. In the old days never had a clue, even if they said they would arrive before 8pm (our normal check in time is between 3 & 8pm - we will wait tiill midnight if we know they are going to be late)I like bdotcom as they give me mobile numbers so I start to text guests (esp Parisians who will usually head off after work, stopping to eat en route) about ETA from around 3pm. Over the years have had guests arrive any time they like with no method of contacting them, texting has made things easier & yes unless you really object they will just arrive when they want...I draw the line around 1am...... getting them to leave esp after wedding w/ends is a whole other issue.....welcome to the woonderful world of B&Bing in France. It helps if you are serving an evening meal I understand - they are more likely to arrive at a reasonable hour, traffic dependent of course - we stopped tdh as guests arrival times were so erratic.

Given that guests are supposed to just eat with you at your table do they think that we and the other guests should wait until they arrive before we dish up?!
Hopefully if they are going to be that late they will have eaten on the way.
Oh, and another who state they will be arriving between 1300 and 1400, again no request for early check in, doesn't give much time to turn the rooms around!

We have been lucky so far; one (French) guest phoned apologetically to say so sorry but they wouldn't be here till 19.15 instead of 19.00!
They usually phone from the village centre to ask where we are, because although it's very clearly marked on the map on bdot.com, they put "Le Bourg" into the satnav, which covers 10 streets.

keep checking your GPS co-ordinates on bdotcom, every time they update the website it is one of things that goes AWOL

Thanks, will do.

My check in times are between 15.00 (3pm) & 19.00( 7pm) & i am also on b.com . So if a guest puts a redicilous time ie midnight i have the option to leave a key in the key box or reply tackfully saying we do not operate a 24hr reception & come to an arangement & on the other side for the early arrivals depending on if and when the last guests checked out( normally before 11am ) i always say they can arrive park the car ,leave luggage etc if the room is not ready & explore the village or give them the key & they return later near the original check in time

We are a Chambres d'hote (B & B) so we live here, so not really an option!

Tournesol wrote:We are a Chambres d'hote (B & B) so we live here, so not really an option!

You can be firm on arrival times - you need your time off as well and if your guests want a 24h service, they should have booked a hotel. Having said that, I find this the hardest part of running a cdh (we live in, too)... last Saturday's guests, a group of 7 phoned to ask if it was okay to arrive late, between 10 and 11pm (yes, but phone us at 11pm to find out where we've hidden the key), then didn't bother to phone, turned up at 11.30 and proceeded to clatter noisily up and down the stairs shouting loudly, despite us telling them that all the other guests were asleep!

We flew into a Basil and Sybil routine recently when guests arrived late. No phone call of course. Ironically they had booked through ABB and had e-mailed a week or so before arrival to ask check-in time. I replied that we had sent our confirmation and directions both stating check-in times and was worried now they had not received so sent them again. Got another reply - oh yes we did get them but got you muddled with another B&B!!. The warning signs were there. Of course we are very welcoming to our guests but when they arrive with no apologies and a could not care less attitude it did turn us into a replay of Fawlty Towers. Especially when the wife says, sorry I thought you were a hotel with many rooms. (I won't got into the "make" of this guest otherwise I will kick off another debate but you probably can guesss. She said, I did read the arrival time as 4.30 to 7.00 pm (yes, so why are you late then). I did point out that she must have known from the info and photos that we were not an Hotel. Fully understand that due to many reasons not all guests can meet the arrival time, but everyone has a phone stuck to their hands now, and out of respect just a phone call, otherwise we do not know if they are even going to arrive .... or when we can eat our dinner!!!!!

French lady - you are not alone......silly season is upon us!! We now start texting guests at around 4pm is we do not know ETA...useful tool & usually get a response, so at least we have a rough idea as to the actual ETA on the day.

Yes, silly season is definitely upon us. I too email guests a week before arrival asking for their travel arrangements and approx. time of arrival. Next weeks guests all assumed they could arrive earlier than I mention in my T&Cs

Last year I offered early access (when it was physically possible to get the changeover done), but none arrived at the early time they'ed asked for. This leaves me wondering why we should even try to be flexible as it invariably involves us working darn hard in 35 degree temps.

We run gites so I take my hat off to you wonderful B&B owners. Late arriving, inconsiderate noisy guests would drive me crazy:(

We had two lots booked in for Saturday. We'd been out and bought a cot and all new bedding for the lots in the family room, then we had an e-mail from B.com 4 hours before expected arrival time to ask whether we would waive the cancellation fee (50% in the 7 days previous). No communication from the guest and no reason given. Eventually got hold of someone at B.com who got hold of the guest and apparently their car had broken down. We compromised on a reduced fee just to cover the bedding and a discount of another booking. Does that seem reasonable?

The other, after having requested a check-in time of 8 - 9 phoned us mid afternoon to say he was near, could he come now? Managed to get the room done in time and when he arrived he asked for a key because he was going to a wedding and wouldn't be in till between 2 and 4 a.m.! It all turned out alright ( he didn't drink!) but he thought he was coming to a hotel rather than private house. Not clear from our listing i guess.

Well, we're learning, hopefully will be better at it by next season!

One should run the business how you feel fit to do so.
It is your way of earning a living.
If you keep getting what you think are knock backs from guests, then change something. If you get praise then reinforce that.
If your are getting less complementary remarks or less reservations than the other accommodation on said website then reappraise what you is perhaps damaging the business.

On the point of Booking. Remember any reservation fee you return makes them look good not your accommodation. They will take all the credit.
Next time this happens suggest that the guests contact you outside of the private messaging system. That will not happen but in the old days we could and we could agree a more satisfactory agreement with the guests. We do not want booking to get involved as a third party. It is none of their business.
One more question; A car breakdown is not covered by holiday insurance for loss of reservations?

farley wrote:This leaves me wondering why we should even try to be flexible as it invariably involves us working darn hard in 35 degree temps.(

Holiday cottage here not b&b but at our caretaker / cleaner's request we stopped offering earlier checkin times because you couldn't forecast what time previous guests would leave (by 11am but sometimes they're "slow to go" despite persuasion) and you couldn't forecast how much work would need to be done over and above the usual clean through.

Plus if people wanted to arrive a few hours earlier you could pretty much guarantee they would arrive a few hours earlier than that and tell lie to our cleaner saying that we (the owners) had said they could check in at midday or on one occasion at 10am. So now we don't offer early check in and just say no one is available at the property before 4pm. We're more flexible on arrival time though at any time before 10pm. In our arrival info* we say in highlighted text that if they think they will be later then a) phone and b) they may need to prepare for alternative accommodation for the night.

We're firm on this because we are about 1.5 hours from the Caen car ferry and the afternoon ferry from the uk arrives at about 21.30 meaning that by the time they've disembarked and got their bearings it will be after 11pm before they arrive and midnight before our caretakers have settled them in - that's not acceptable in our circumstances.

* I should add this is on our website and in our terms & conditions so any guests are aware in advance and can make ferry bookings as necessary