On-Line Bookings Through Rental Websites

We have always paid an annual fee to the rental websites to advertise our property.   The website companies are now trying to persuade us to have the facility of on-line bookings and payments but I prefer to deal with our customers directly and on a personal basis.  Can anyone who has taken up this method of bookings/payments give me their opinions of how it is working for them.  Is it better or worse.

Hello

We swopped to this some time ago and it saves you money as generally they take a 3 - 5% booking fee when someone makes a payment so if you don't get the booking it is costing you nothing. When they make an enquiry they text you to let you know and you still reply to them yourselves but it goes via the website. Once they have made a deposit payment then you get the guests email and phone number. The only disadvantage is that they don't pass the payment on to you until 2 days after the guest checks in. The sites are all slightly different but the principle is the same

Hope this helps

Jan

It's swings and roundabouts Yvette.

Yes it saves a lot of money. But there are 2 things that drive me mad.

1) If you reply from your own email (rather than going through your dashboard) and have an automatic signature set up that contains your phone and/or website address then it gets bounced by Holiday Lettings, as they do not want you to be able correspond with the potential guest direct. Very frustrating.

2) Not actually talking to the guest is a pain up the rear end. I find that a quick 5 minute chat with them means that any questions get addressed there and then. Because you don't get their number and you can't give them yours, I find that I end up emailing a lot by before I get the booking.

So far I've only had 2 bookings - but when on the pay site I used to get more. I suspect that not being able to talk to the potential guest is the issue.

Not actually been paid by them yet either as the bookings are for later im the year.

But so far the commission charges have only been about 1/5th of the annual fee. But I need more bookings!

This is a bit of an involved subject.

ABTA produced some warnings and advice last year which included 'pay by credit card' but did not include the advice to pay by credit card using a proper secure web site and DO NOT email somebody your credit card details...

There is a considerable amount of fraud involving bogus adverts and bogus holiday rental web sites, and adverisers being 'phished' for their logon details. Don't use the same  logon details for your property adverts, email, paypal, bank accounts etc. and beware of clicking linkd in emails, spoofed email addresses and bogus web addresses.

Advertising on a web site that takes secure card payments and paying a commission is now a better way than an upfront fee. Especially if, like me, you only get one booking through the site in a year and an awkward renter who works in the legal sector. I did disclose that I Google everyone that makes an enquiry to make sure there is nothing untoward. She did work with a couple of people I know through work.

The downside that has been mentioned is that you haave no conversation with the renter, something that I like to do, and I trust that the rental is not being paid for with compromised card details...

Mike.