Payment difficulty

[Hells Bells]

I have just received a booking for 11 nights at the end of Feb from a French family. They were happy (or so I thought) to pay online, but I have now received an email from them asking to pay a deposit now then the balance when they arrive. I am not in a position to do this, not on site, and our manager will not accept money from guests, except in exceptional circumstances, e.g. l very l ast minute. I don;t want to lose the booking though, 2 peak French half term weeks.

[Mountain Goat]

Why can't they pay direct to your bank? Our French customers have been exceptionally good at doing this.

Depending on the size of your deposit, stick to your guns? Thre are plenty of other French 1/2 term punters out there.

Here in our resort, the hotel owners are suffering severe last-minute cancellations due to the snow situation. Would renters get the same idea? Or hopefully you're OK with the snow?

MG

[Hells Bells]

I have already given them my bank details, but as they were attached to the invoice they may not have noticed them. I will send them again I think. The payment terms are clearly stated, so they should have read them when booking, but not sure on their standard of English, although their email was fairly fluent. Snow not too bad, not great but OK.

[debk]

stick to your guns

[la vache!]

Helen,
it is normal policy in France to pay 25% deposit with the balance payable + cheque de caution on arrival. It may even be the law, not 100% sure, but it is certainly the policy adopted by G de F. All my French guests pay in this way, I never take all the money up front as I do with UK customers.
However, I'm sure if you explain the situation about you being in a different country they will understand and respect your policy.

[Hells Bells]

Ok, I have done. I suspect they may not have a Paypal account and the amount for two weeks may be too much to be accepted without a verified account. I had already provided the bank details but not sure why they wanted to pay on arrival. I think that is fairly common with French owned gites though. Hopefully the compromise will be acceptable. I would have to make some alterations to the booking system to produce separate invoices only 4 weeks before.

[Mountain Goat]

Slight thread creep here, but how, in France, with the late final balance payment, do you cope with last-minute cancellations? Just curious. I guess there're threads dissecting this.

MG

[Hells Bells]

Goat, grin and bear it? Perhaps this is why they were wanting to pay on arrival. I had French guests last year who were all willing to accept the payment terms.

[Bellywobble]

Helen,
please can you clarify what you mean when you say the amout may be too much without a verified account? We have just lost a booking because the guy tried to pay for 2 weeks with paypal, but said they wouldn't accept the amount. I'm wondering if you know about something that I don't?
Thanks.

[Mountain Goat]

Grin and bear it? Good grief. I guess the French thread is full of this, and I haven't paid attention. Trouble is the only LMHer I know who's mastered the search engine is GG. Are you around GG?

MG

[Hells Bells]

Kayley, just checking this out with my hubby's email,ad he is not a Paypal account holder. I'll post results in Paypal comments thread.

[Big Sis..]

but how, in France, with the late final balance payment, do you cope with last-minute cancellations?

Thats what I was wondering MG...isnt it a worry...especially now with the snow situation......

[la vache!]

Slight thread creep here, but how, in France, with the late final balance payment, do you cope with last-minute cancellations? Just curious. I guess there're threads dissecting this.

MG

I've never had a cancellation from any of my guests. They tend to book a lot later than UK guests, rarely more than 2 or 3 months before the rental start date, often no more than a month before or even several days, so cancellation is less of a problem than guests who book several months or years in advance.
My Ts and Cs (which are the same as G de F) state that if the rental is cancelled by the guests less than 30 days before the rental start date, the owner keeps the deposit and can also ask for the balance to be paid. (How successful this would be I have no idea).

[Giddy Goat]

Trouble is the only LMHer I know who's mastered the search engine is GG. Are you around GG?
MG

Yep - around, but as for having mastered the search facility, not really MG - it's tough when you get 382 results or similar; I then just glance at the first page or so of topic titles and hazard a guess at which ones might be best to take a more in depth look at. But as far as my (dubious) my memory goes, I haven't seen any reference to this on the French section. I have only had one lot of French guests: the person booking was a Brit, married to a Frenchman and living in France - so there was no quibble about paying the balance 8 weeks before. Payment on arrival being standard practice with Gites de France is total news to me, and I will start a fresh topic forthwith!

[Hells Bells]

No reply to my email last night offering my bank details for them to pay by bank transfer. As they obviously got as far as the payment page on Paypal, the dates are now blocked off on my calendar. If I don't hear from them today, they will be unblocked. I will of course email them to notify them, and give them a chance to pay.