Unconfirmed bookings blocking dates on my Calendar?

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Unconfirmed bookings blocking dates on my Calendar?
December 8, 2014, by Steve Sasman

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Hi, I'm using manager centric mode and am testing inquiries and it's blocking out dates that haven't even paid yet... How can this be switched? I only want dates to be blocked that are actually paid through BV (or "confirmed" from another listing site). Thanks!!

7 Responses:

John Amato, December 8, 2014:

When entering bookings on the Master Calendar, choose "Booking Request" instead of "Booking". Booking Requests do not block dates on the calendar.

If sending quotes, send them from the Booking Request. Then, the Confirm Quote process will walk the guest through confirming, which will automatically convert it into a booking (block dates), and then collect any pre-payments due at the same time. (Confirming the quote is what triggers the 20-minute countdown payment to be completed.)

(Does this help?)

Steve Sasman, December 8, 2014:

So if I understand, the confirm Quote process does block the dates during that 20 minute countdown, but before they have paid? Preferably, I would rather not have a 20 min count down at all, (what if they need more time to consult others) and not have the calendar show booked until payment is made. Then you could have 4 people with an open inquiry and who ever pays first gets it. What happens if someone else is looking during those 20 minutes and falsely thinks you are booked and the original person never pays? Thx for the quick replies!

John Amato, December 8, 2014:

It's a chicken-or-the-egg problem. The idea here is that once you've clicked a button/link that states that they are confirming the purchase, we have to block the dates, and give them some time to complete the payment process.

If we don't block the dates, but instead go tell them to remit the payment, and they do that, and then we wait until the payment confirmation arrives before blocking the dates - then another booker (or you, the manager) may have blocked those dates before they completed the payment process. Now there's a payment hanging out there, but the guest is out of luck because the dates are no longer available.

Bookerville's way mimics how sports/music concerts work: you choose your seats, confirm you want them, and they hold it for just enough time for you to remit payment. If you take too long to do that, the "hold" on those seats expires.

In practice, this has been really quite successful.

John Amato, December 8, 2014:

Also - if their booking "expires", they are notified (and you are too), and the email encourages them to remit payment by clicking the link to go pay. If they complete payment beyond the 20-min. window, then Bookerville will try to block the dates again, and if they're available, it will go ahead and confirm (re-block dates). If the dates are not available, you'll get an email letting you know that a payment arrived for an expired booking, but the dates were no longer available.

I'm not sure that scenario has ever happened in our 6+ year history, but if it has it's a pretty rare event.

Steve Sasman, December 8, 2014:

I see your point, but the difference with a VR vs a concert or a hotel, is that they typically have lots of inventory (until the very last seat). We only have a VR that is either booked or not, so if it's shown as booked when not paid for that's bad for biz. Personally, I'd rather tell the rare person that sorry, someone else actually paid before you did than lose a real booking to a non payer. I get lots of web traffic to my site so it could happen fairly often. I've had instances where I've had 5 or 10 open quotes out for the same dates...whoever actually paid first gets it and it's very cut and dry. Had a few where I had to refund the # 2 person, but they understood that's how it goes. The problem with the 20 minutes, is we will never even know about the ones that we lost, they will just move on to the next listing.

John Amato, December 10, 2014:

I think it will still work, even if you have 5-10 open quotes for the same (or overlapping) dates. Whoever confirms it first is going to have the opportunity to block them first. Remember, it only blocks the dates when they click to confirm. That immediately starts the 20-minute window for them to pay (and they are made aware of this very clearly). Most will pay well within that window (less than 5 mins.)

So what are the odds of someone coming to confirm the same (or overlapping) dates in that window? I would think pretty small, but even if they do, they'll just get the notice that the dates are no longer available.

John Amato, December 10, 2014:

I guess another way of asking it is this: how many people are going to confirm a quote, and then not pay the pre-payment?

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