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| 8. |
Booking Requests |
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When a guest sees your availability calendar, they will see:-
(a) Sold Days: Days you've marked sold, or where your allotment has been purchased/held.
(b) Available Days: all non-sold days.
When a guest submits a booking, the system checks to see if you've alloted enough units on all days requested.
If you haven't made enough units available, you are sent a Booking Request.
Keep the AusGo Supplier Hompage open in the background, and an alert sound will play when a Booking Requests arrives.
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8.1 |
Responding |
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There are 3 types of response to a booking request. Refer to this screenshot.
- Available : All days are available, so check 'available' for all days.
- Unavailable : Simply click 'sold' for all the day(s) that aren't available, don't worry about setting available days.
This assumes you can't or don't want to offer any alternative accommodation (see 3 below). These rooms will be set to 'sold' on your calendar.
- Alternative Offer : This only applies if you have more than one room type.
Imagine you receive a booking request from a guest who wants 7 nights in a 'Standard' room.
A Standard Room is available for 6 nights, but on the 7th night, it's booked out. Rather than lose this client, you can make an 'Alternative' offer for the 7th night.
The guest is emailed with a counter-proposal, for example 6 nights in the Standard Room, and 1 night in a 'Deluxe Room, perhaps at a reduced rate.
The guest might not mind shifting rooms for 1 night if it means they get to stay at their preferred accommodation, and you don't lose a prospective customer for the
sake of the Standard room being sold out on 1 night out of 7, when another is available.
The process of offering alternative accommodation involves checking 'available' for all the accommodation that you can provide.
Then check 'sold' for the rooms you can't provide, and select an alternative room type using the drop-down, and its rate will appear.
If you're suggesting a more expensive alternative room type, you could perhaps make it cheaper to entice the guest to stay.
The guest will be informed of the full price in your reply, so they will know they're getting a good deal.
If you agree to offer the requested or alternative accommodation, you must also specify the following:-
Hold Period : How long you're willing to hold these room units for. The guest will be informed of their window of opportunity to pay for and secure the accommodation. You must mark them as 'sold' on all other calendars until the hold period expires.
Make Available to Public : Following an offer of accommodation, you will receive a system message when either:-
(a) the accommodation is purchased, or
(b) the hold period expires.
If (b) occurs and you've selected the 'make available to public' option, the room status will change from held to allotted. Anyone can then buy these rooms, which you pay just 5% commission on.
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8.2 |
Contractual Agreement |
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As written in the Terms of Use, agreeing to 'Hold' accommodation requires you to reserve the requested rooms for the guest until the hold period you specify has expired.
The status of these rooms on other sites must be set to 'sold'. If you sell these rooms to another party before the hold period expires, it will damage the reputation of your business and ours.
Its therefore essential that rooms you agree to hold are not sold elsewhere until the hold period expires.
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