FAQ: Agency.CapeHolidays Management Services
These FAQ’s are listed from the most popular as read by readers.
FAQ’s Instant Booking is one of the features hosts don’t really have an option with. Airbnb gives you another option where guests can first discuss a booking. But still, you cannot decline if you don’t have a very good reason. And guests don’t like being rejected when your calendar shows availability. And if we cancel the hosts will never keep their status as a SuperHost (see more). Instant book has two possible aspects: Let’s get to the details: Read Why Are You Not Keeping Us Informed On The Pipeline Of Bookings? What the above means is that everything works extremely well if the agent can ensure 100% calendar integrity. As agents or hosts, we cannot do our business best without instant booking. Here’s a typical email from a worried owner. Just one question. With instant booking, how do we vet the client? I would first like to find out who they are etc. I have heard nightmare stories of houses being let and then the owners not being able to get the short term tenants out again. Can I opt out of the Instant Booking option? Guests who can book instantly must: Guest Requirements If you turn on this requirement, you’ll be able to see guests’ profile photos after a booking is confirmed, but not before. It’s turned on. Require guests to submit government ID to Airbnb in order to Instant Book. If they don’t meet this requirement, they will send a request instead. You can decide to restrict guests with children from booking if there are features that are dangerous for children or there’s a risk of property damage. Learn more You can limit guests from bringing pets, but you must reasonably accommodate guests that might bring an assistant animal. Learn more Win Unhassles Airbnb eBook & Plus Advice Worth R10000 If the owner ensures the calendar is always correct there is no reasonable-justification, for the owner, to cancel; other than for extenuating circumstance (Acts of God). Therefore clause 3.3 in our T&CS should never be an issue. This clause, however, will ensure owners who may not have the best intentions stay honest. And is that not one reason for an agreement; to keep the bad guys honest? The quick answer is you can not cancel any booking. And not reporting unavailability to us for whatever reason has serious consequences. Here’s the long version: Risk. As you know all businesses have some risk. Even though these risks have an extremely low probability please take note. One of the risks is what’s called Instant Bookings. Instant bookings increase the chance for bookings. When guests meet set criteria they can instant-book. And we cannot cancel as we will face severe penalties. Not only is there a cost involved but we can easily lose our SuperHost status. When an owner agrees to our terms and conditions we share this risk and must limit it. We, therefore, must indicate to owners, who may not take this seriously, the risk and consequences. Let me quote the Terms and Conditions: 3.3 If the OWNER cancels or cannot host as agreed, a confirmed booking, a penalty of US$1500 will be paid by the OWNER to the AGENT and the OWNER will be kept liable for any additional losses incurred by the guest who made the booking and any losses occurred by the AGENT, excluding ‘Acts of God’. The loss, when the owner rejects a confirmed booking, is not measured only in monetary terms. No. The cost to lose our SuperHost status is not quantifiable. Booking.Com makes it more difficult. Booking.com says that if you cancel a confirmed booking, you must find alternative accommodation for the guests. If you cannot they will find similar accommodation, and if the rates are higher then you will be liable to pay the cost to relocate the guest. Therefore, we, explicitly, share with the owner the risks and consequences of rejecting a confirmed booking. How often does this happen? Well, infrequently, but we have had one or two peak only owners who have asked us to market and then remove their homes from the market, without notifying us when it happens. In these cases, we accidentally learned about it. Next time we may not be that lucky. The risks are low as long as owners inform us of changes well in advance. Win Unhassles Airbnb eBook & Plus Advice Worth R10000 A few owners only want occasional bookings and not interested in maximising income. Yes. We can assist you. Some Cape Town Accommodation owners only want to get one, two or three bookings during the year. And nothing more. We just need to agree to a different T&Cs (see it here) for your specific needs. These owners either; These owners keep the home for their own use or no use during the year and make certain dates exclusively available to CapeHolidays. Agency.CapeHolidays.info are 100% responsible for bookings during this time and the owner will honour all bookings during the agreed availability period. See the consequences and responsibilities for Instant Bookings. Owners who don’t live in their homes during the year may want the management of their accommodation while they are not here; our T&Cs do not provide for this function. And these owners will need to discuss their needs with us clearly to understand their needs and agree on the management fee to oversee the home during the empty time. Can You Assist if I only want occasional bookings? Read this FAQ. Today’s social media profiles make it difficult for most to crook the system. Airbnb, for example, allows guests and hosts to review each other. Not only do you get a rating, like our host rating of 4.9 out 5 stars – for many hundreds of happy guests, we review guests as well. We use Airbnb instant booking and can set various restrictions to ensure only good people book. For example, people with many positive reviews can instantly book. If they only have a few reviews, we can check these and ask the guest pertinent questions. For example; we may ask what is your group make up? You may not discriminate but if you have a potential booker with no reviews who do not answer our questions we may decline. Another way to stop funnies is not to do one night or two night stays. Because party animals only need a home for one night. Guest profiles: Airbnb also uses a system where every user of their platform has to verify their profile. And the more verification you have the higher the trust. All is not sunshine; the host may not always give honest reviews as they feel guilty to do it. This can be a problem for guests with relatively few reviews. Booking.com is pretty useless when it comes to guest verifications as they don’t do guest reviews by hosts. However, the guest can be asked to verify their address and phone number. TripAdvisor is similar to Booking.com. Our own website: The profile of the party is critical. Your best group is family. We have access to social profiles and Google if we need to qualify guests. General: Guests pay upfront; therefore they have money to afford your home. They have their own homes to go back to after their stay. Compare this to longterm renters who may not have their own home yet – this is another issue short term does not experience. And since 2009 we have had less than 0.1% issues with short term rental guests. Therefore the risk for issues is low. If not, we would not be here assisting you. Read more on risks. Exclusive Mandate: The Owner gives Agency.CapeHolidays.info authority to act on its behalf regarding the marketing and management of the Owner’s property for short term holiday rentals as per our T&CS. The main focus of the mandate is the availability calendar; as your agents, Management of the property: We cannot manage and get 5 out of 5 star reviews if unauthorised persons access the home without our knowledge. We have seen too many times where guests arrived at a prepared home to find another left stuff, used the toilet, or wrinkled a cushion by sitting on it. To keep up the standards across all homes we need homeowners to give us full authority. |
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