Please rollout the new cancellation policies

[Debra300]

Recently, I had listed on another conversation some of the differences with listing with Airbnb vs. Booking.com.  One item I listed was that Booking had a cancellation policy that worked better for reservations booked several months in advance of the scheduled arrival date (bold text).  I just noticed that Airbnb has new cancellation policies for 30 and 60 days prior to arrival:  https://www.airbnb.com/home/cancellation_policies.  These policies don't seem to be available to all hosts yet, because they are not options that I can select for any of my listings.  The rollout of the new cancellation policies to all hosts (and Airbnb upholding all cancellation policies) would be a great help to hosts who cannot quickly rent spaces in short periods of time when there is a late notice cancellation.

The key items that I like vs. Airbnb: 

1. You can display all of your spaces on one listing page, but still make individual changes as necessary. 
2. The ability to control the total financial transaction.  This includes a payment deposit, and obtaining an actual security deposit or credit card information for incidental costs.   
3. The guest has to work with the host to resolve issues, and cannot make unsubstantiated claims and demand a refund.
4. They cannot deduct or refund your earnings.
5. The ability to cancel a reservation if the payment isn't authorized, and the host is not penalized.  
6. More options for cancellation periods.  This is really helpful for reservations made several months in advance of the scheduled arrival.  For example, our cancellation policy is the guest has until 30 days before arrival to receive a full refund.  The only similar policy at Airbnb would be the strict 48 hour cancellation window.

Things that are more work at Booking.com:

1. Booking.com charges 15% commission on all reservations.  This cost must be incorporated in the room rate.
2. All reservations are instant. There is no opportunity to communicate with the guest before booking, and no guest reviews to see past travel behavior.
3. The site's marketing motto that no credit card is needed results in several bookings made with invalid credit card details, because the guest is just window shopping (and blocking calendars).  It takes 24 hours after reporting an invalid card before the reservation is canceled, and the dates are re-opened on the calendar.
4. The host is required to obtain a credit card processing account and other online payment accounts, e.g., PayPal, Google Wallet.
5. The credit card and payment processing fees may be more than the 3% that Airbnb charges.
6. There is a $300USD limit for deposits that can be collected (this amount may be different for UK and the EU).  We don't actually collect a deposit, but keep the credit card details.
7. You are responsible for paying all of the appropriate taxes.
8. There is a learning curve to becoming acquainted with the site's functionality.  There are some items that only Booking.com can change, e.g., only they can assign individual cleaning fees to each room (otherwise it's one standard rate for the whole listing), or can change the tax rate.

[Inna22]

@Debra300 

let me try to summarize it.

1. They are located in Europe. Their response time is pretty slow plus time difference. English is not their first language. Depending on who you got to handle your ticket, it could take up to a week for an urgent matter such as dates blocked due to their glitch for this upcoming weekend to be unblocked. 

2. I had the same issues over and over again for months, it did not look like they were taking notice and improving

3. They were clearly not prepared for reverse functionality of Covid. Their system worked well to block calendars across multiple platforms and multiple listings when bookings came in, it was a total mess when it came to multiple cancellations that all over sudden fell upon us.
4. I found one of the founders to be curt and rude, very unpleasant experience when he was answering Tickets to point of where I asked him to no longer handle mine. While I’m not one of those people who needs to be babied and patted all day long, I do have my limits.

5. They do not work well with Homeaway. They kept saying it was Homeaway themselves, but I know other platforms have integration. Not sure where the truth lies.

i’m sure I will Also think of something else later. 

At the end of the day I found that I spent more time working out the problems than the system saved me by having it. 

currently I’m just using Airbnb multi calendar and will try another platform I found once I reopen more of my properties

[Debra300]

@Inna22,

I know that I digressed my own post.  Thank you for sharing your Smoobu experiences.  Lodgify is based in Barcelona, and have dedicated English speaking staff.  The Smoobu rep that I spoke with had a British accent, and said that they are looking to have more reps to provide support during afternoon and evening hours in the Americas.

The other problem that I am having with Lodgify is that I cannot access the payments section of my account to update my payment processing choices.  They have been somewhat responsive, and I have provided a couple of Loom videos of my desktop while I unsuccessfully try to sign on to the payments link, but it's been three weeks without any resolution.

[Inna22]

@Debra300 as many times as I have brought up the support issue they never told me they were going to increase staff. They were always very defensive about it. Marianne is the only person there that can truly take care of things or explain them in a way that they can be understood. The idea behind the company is great and they have a number of fantastic functions. The company I am considering now is iGMS

[Trevor243]

@Fred13Yes, getting Booking.com to handle payments is usually a major headache for new hosts .... even though we are experienced hosts with a very very good track record with Booking.com, they still refuse at first .... but we fight and eventually they give in ..... sometimes, like right now, we don't have the time or energy for the fight, so we have several listings "prepared" but not open for bookings yet ..... the fight can wait ....