TripAdvisor taking liberties, sick of them!

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
Codliveroil
Posts: 156
Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2015 3:10 pm
Location: Algarve
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TripAdvisor taking liberties, sick of them!

Post by Codliveroil »

Today I received notification from TripAdvisor:

We’re making a change to your listing(s)

We’re getting in touch about a change we’ll be making to your guest payment options on January 7.

Our analysis* shows that vacation rentals receive on average a significant increase in bookings when travellers can pay a small deposit, rather than the total cost upfront.

With that in mind, we’re updating your listing(s) so guests only pay a 20% deposit at the point of booking and then the balance 40 days before check-in. We’re making this change to get you as many bookings as possible at the busiest time of year.
What else do I need to know?
• This change will happen automatically on January 7 – you don’t need to do anything.
• It will not affect when you receive your payments.
• If a guest cancels, your cancellation policy applies as normal. If they cancel before paying their balance, you’ll still receive their booking deposit (less the guest booking fee and your commission) as normal, but at the new lower amount.


I have responded thus:

> "I have just received a notification that you are making changes to guest payment options. This is not acceptable. I cannot afford to have a guest cancel 2 weeks in August and lose 7000 Euro! I do NOT ask for the total UPFRONT. 40 days notice is not sufficient time to resell those weeks because all flights to Algarve are fully booked by then. 20% deposit is ridiculous after you take your commission leaves me with a pittance. I am not a hotel with 100 rooms, I have a villa and can only sell 1 week once. A cancellation of this kind is devastating, we rely on the income from our villa it is our only pension. Either my listing stays the same or I will cancel it." <

Before this change I was asking 50% and balance at 90 days super strict policy.

The other thing I notice is that they now say: (less the guest booking fee and your commission) whereas on my payment policies page it states:

If a guest cancels after this cooling-off period, we’ll:

Deduct your processing fee
Pay you one working day after their planned check-in date
If they haven’t paid in full, you’ll receive their booking deposit instead.

That seems very different to me!
Last edited by Codliveroil on Fri Jan 18, 2019 6:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Codliveroil
Posts: 156
Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2015 3:10 pm
Location: Algarve
Contact:

Update

Post by Codliveroil »

This is the reply that I received to the above complaint followed by my reply to that then finally their agreement to exclude me from the test (there was no mention that this was going to be a test)

Thank you for your email regarding our change of your booking deposit. I understand your frustration about it and I am here to try to clarify the reasons of our test.

I can see that you used to ask 50% at time of the booking and the remaining amount was charged 90 days before the booking dates. So, I understand that our test is a lot of change for you. This is a temporary test that we are doing for approximately a month and if we don't see any conclusive results, the change won't be made permanent.
We are doing this test as we want to encourage and help our owners receiving more bookings as our travelers are more willing to book a property when the booking deposit is 20% of the full amount. Then, we also know that cancellations from guests are not common and most of the time, if they have to cancel, it is for medical reasons for example and they could be willing to book at other dates if there are availabilities.

Thank you for your understanding and I hope this email will reply to your concerns and you will keep working with us. If you need further information, feel free to reply to this email and we will be happy to help you


Then my reply:

1. This change will NOT bring more booking to me. I fill all my weeks from mid March until end of November each year. I get bookings from my own website site, VRBO, Homeaway, OwnersDirect, ClickStay, One Off Places, Tui and several smaller listing sites. All request 50% deposit and 90 days for the balance because it is safe and suits me. I have never considered or been asked to reduce either of these criteria, nor will I.

2. As I explained this change is of no benefit to me in any way. By reducing the deposit to 20% it will be seriously detrimental in the event of a cancellation, there is a huge difference between me receiving the balance of 50% less your booking fee and commission to receiving 20% less your booking fee and commission, do the math!

3. By reducing the cancellation period from 90 days to 40 days reduces the number of days that I can possibly resell by over half, 56%. This is only part of the problem, most flights to the Algarve during the summer months are fully booked long before 40 days and if not the odd seats that may be still available are sold at a premium. The chances of finding say 6 seats for a family at a reasonable price are about zero and therefore the chances of me reselling cancelled weeks are therefore zero also. 2 weeks cancelled in August will cost me 5-6000 Euros, a risk I am not prepared to take.

4. It is extremely doubtful that reducing deposits will encourage bookings at all, it will certainly increase the risk of cancellations. Cancellations do not affect Holliday Lettings earnings because you still take your fees and commission on the other hand property owners will now have increased risk and could thus suffer loss of earnings. This raises the obvious question as to how you value your property owners welfare over profit.

5. You say that this is only a test, this is not mentioned, please test it on someone else, not me!

I am extremely annoyed that you are forcing this upon me. I signed up because I had the choice in booking policies, to take between 5-50% or even 100% deposit and choose when the balance has to be paid by. As I have previously stated, reducing the deposit will not affect how many bookings I get but it will affect the quality of client I get! As property owner I want to have the choice of my booking policy I will not have it dictated to me. If a potential guest is not prepared to pay a 50% deposit and pay the balance in 90 days then quite frankly I do not want them. If I were a new start up with a poor quality rental and desperate for bookings then this policy could well be useful, but I am none of these. If you want to go the way of AirBNB then that will be the last you see of me and many others no doubt.

I am very disappointed, it is up to you whether you value my business or not, I will only continue with the policies I currently have, if you cannot accommodate this then I will cancel my listing.

...and their response:

Thank you for contacting us regarding the lower deposit test we are running. I apologize for any frustration or inconvenience posed by this matter. I understand that you would like to opt out of the test, and I wanted to reach out and provide you with an update.

Our intention with this test was to generate more interest and bookings for our owners. Nevertheless, we understand that some of our owners may not be comfortable lowering the deposit the guest must pay to secure a booking. We have gone ahead and asked our technical team to remove you from the test group. Please note that it may take them 1 - 2 weeks to process your request to be removed.

We wanted to thank you for reaching out to share your feedback with us. As we test new features and work to improve our site, we value the suggestions and opinions of our customers. Feel free to reply to this email or call us at 1-877-354-7539 if you need any further assistance.


I will thank them but will also ask them confirm that my cancellation period reverts to 90 days as well.

[/i]
AndrewH
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Re: Update

Post by AndrewH »

Codliveroil wrote:...If a potential guest is not prepared to pay a 50% deposit and pay the balance in 90 days then quite frankly I do not want them...[/i]
You told TA what you thought in a most eloquent and reasoned way, and they sat up and took notice. At first the change was to be permanent with no opt out. Then the change was to be a temporary test, but still with no opt out. Now the change has become entirely optional, but the change-back is delayed by 1 to 2 weeks and there is no mention of reverting to a 90 days cancellation.

It seems there is some foolish person at TA making up rules on the hoof without consultation. Maybe their legal ability to do this is confirmed in their terms and condition - But is it?

The 7th. January start date has come and gone. If your listing now contains these new unacceptable "test" conditions, you could "hide" the TA listing for a couple of weeks, and rely just on your adverts with the other OTA's you mentioned.
AndrewH
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Re: Update

Post by AndrewH »

Codliveroil wrote:...If a potential guest is not prepared to pay a 50% deposit and pay the balance in 90 days then quite frankly I do not want them...[/i]
You told TA what you thought in a most eloquent and reasoned way, and they sat up and took notice. At first the change was to be permanent with no opt out. Then the change was to be a temporary test, but still with no opt out. Now the change has become entirely optional, but the change-back is delayed by 1 to 2 weeks and there is no mention of reverting to a 90 days cancellation.

It seems there is some foolish person at TA making up rules on the hoof without consultation. Maybe their legal ability to do this is confirmed in their terms and condition - But is it?

The 7th. January start date has come and gone. If your listing now contains these new unacceptable "test" conditions, you could "hide" the TA listing for a couple of weeks, and rely just on your adverts with the other OTA's you mentioned.
Codliveroil
Posts: 156
Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2015 3:10 pm
Location: Algarve
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Re: Update

Post by Codliveroil »

and there is no mention of reverting to a 90 days cancellation.
I am assuming that "being excluded from the test" means that my dashboard booking policies will be fully functional again so that I can choose deposit % and balance days. Lets see, I'll update when and what happens.
Dotty
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Post by Dotty »

I had the same email last week, and have sent them several messages rejecting the change (with well-founded reasons) and had the same experience. I took my listing off-line on Monday when they made the change having just repeated that it was happening several times. Following my message to them on Monday after going off-line I was also told it was a test and I could be opted out in 1-2 weeks. I'm leaving the listing off-line until (if/when) the booking conditions part of the dashboard comes under owner control again.
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Nemo
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Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2008 10:15 am
Location: Norfolk

Post by Nemo »

I had an email for one property informing me of a change to the booking policy. It wasn't clear whether I could opt out or change the setting, it simply said I didn't need to do anything.

I've logged in and out of four properties they have changed the policies on three of them. The one they haven't has a live booking next month; whether that has anything to do with it I don't know. I'm not on instant book so at least still have control to a limited extent.

I've messaged them asking to be removed from the test, using the cancel my listing sub section. I got an automated response; I'll probably find they take them all offline without a word or something equally out of order. I wait to hear back anyway.
Codliveroil
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Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2015 3:10 pm
Location: Algarve
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Post by Codliveroil »

using the cancel my listing sub section. I got an automated response; I'll probably find they take them all offline without a word or something equally out of order. I wait to hear back anyway.
That is how I started and eventually got the email address, see the end of my first post, just use that and short cut it, go for the jugular.......
mmg
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Post by mmg »

Thanks for this codliveroil. I have received no email but just checked my booking policy and the new terms have been applied. I have emailed to ask if I can opt out, and if not I would like to unlist my property. It won't make much difference to them, bookings via this platform are few and far between for me, but if enough owners express dissatisfaction they may take note.
kg1
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Post by kg1 »

I have received no email and at the moment my listing is unchanged, but that doesn’t stop me from being hopping mad about this. How b***y dare they, what a nerve! I am so glad you managed to get excluded. Fingers crossed if everyone who is affected complains this Test will hit the dust.
Codliveroil
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Location: Algarve
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Update

Post by Codliveroil »

They took me out of their so called test 3 days ago but has taken 72 hours to get my property listing back to normal, it takes 72 hours apparently for my reviews to show again. So I have been offline for 10 days. My Ical calendar also disappeared but I fixed that myself.

What idiotic selfish thing will they do next I wonder?
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Cymraes
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Location: North Wales

Post by Cymraes »

After going round in multiple circles and being fobbed off my listing has now returned to my own pre sets.

I am active again but I really don't think I want to be there for any reason other than for my reviews. I've therefore made my pricing so unattractive that any one who books via TA/HL really does have more money than sense!
Codliveroil
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Post by Codliveroil »

Cymraes wrote: for any reason other than for my reviews. I've therefore made my pricing so unattractive that any one who books via TA/HL really does have more money than sense!
I feel the same. I have 28 five star reviews that has taken 8 years to earn also a Certificate of Excellence for 2018, I plug these facts across all my advertising, so I will stay with them for those reasons only. I don't have 1 booking from them for the 2019 season but it is still early I suppose.
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

I just checked and after complaining, I too have been taken off this test. My booking policy has not been put back to what it was though so I need to check and manually change my listings.
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Pen
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Location: Brittany, France

Post by Pen »

TA emailed twice this week (before the take-overs) we were originally on both Flipkey and HL) to say they've now changed our terms to 20% deposit & 40 days balance payment, when I look at our listings there is no longer any option to amend those terms nor can I see anywhere on their site to contact them to complain about it other than the annoying bot who understands nothing!
Has anyone got a contact email that gets through to a person?
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