Newbie seeking some opinions please

[Kate24]

Hi

We are hopefully just a month or two away from letting out our city centre apartment. We are anticipating most of our customers will be short stays of 2-7 nights, year round, and are positioning ourselves as a family friendly place to stay.

I would be very grateful for any advice on the following:

Booking engine and deposit taking. Any booking engines/sites recommended? Or should we DIY? TripAdvisor seems to book most of the other accommodation in our city, seeing as we are offering short stays some of our custom may be last minute - I thought something fairly instant (availability and booking) would be important rather than backwards and forwards "do you have availability" etc. Also would you take a deposit for a short stay of a couple of nights and if so how could we go about doing this?

What type of duvets and pillows would be best to get? Natural or synthetic? I was not sure if allergies would be a problem if you only have natural feather/down.

Key safe - anyone ever have problems with guests changing the code and locking you out of your own key safe?!

I am slightly worried with it being an apartment that noise from other apartments might impact our guests. They are usually very quiet (we used to live there) but obviously we have no control over the other 4 apartments in the block. Anyone with apartments/flats have any problems with neighbours/guests?

Many thanks in advance, Kate

[Mouse]

Hi Kate...and welcome. Hope you'll stick around.

Best advice is to set aside an hour or two, make yourself a cuppa and start searching the site; you'll find threads on all the questions you are asking about.

Good luck

Mousie
x

[rammy100]

Hi Kate

Mouse is right in that the answers are here although I will respond with the noise issue as I have an apartment.

If you have good, quiet neighbours who don't keep your guests awake bouncing around upstairs or with late night parties that pound through the walls then I wouldn't worry about the guests.

However, your neighbours might be the ones who have issues with your guests and ultimately you. Remember, guests are on holiday so likely to keep later hours than your neighbours who have to get up for work. Maybe they've been out to the pub or a club (I don't know where you are or your guest demographic) and come back merry and noisy at 3am.

I would put something strongly worded in your terms and conditions that talks about noise and consideration for neighbours.

[Casscat]

However, your neighbours might be the ones who have issues with your guests and ultimately you. Remember, guests are on holiday so likely to keep later hours than your neighbours who have to get up for work. Maybe they've been out to the pub or a club (I don't know where you are or your guest demographic) and come back merry and noisy at 3am.

I would put something strongly worded in your terms and conditions that talks about noise and consideration for neighbours.

Also check your lease for any prohibition on renting it out to holidaymakers.

Regarding pillows/duvets, I have feather & down pillows (no duvets as in Spain so it's sheets most of the year with blankets in the winter) but have hollowfibre pillows in the wardrobes for people to swap to if they have allergies.

[Joanna]

Welcome!
We've had key safes for over 10 years and no one has ever re-set it. They have, however, locked the keys in the house a few times so we have a second backup key safe tucked away out of sight. When guests call us in a panic we tell them where it is and what the code is.

We have synthetic pillows and duvets because there's not much space to store alternatives and I'm allergic to feathers (We mention that all our bedding is hypoallergenic on our web site as a positive feature).

Our main worry about noise is from guests disturbing our neighbours not the other way around. We check with our neighbours regularly and if they report excessive noise then those guests won't be welcomed back. We also have a section in the terms and conditions on keeping noise in reasonable levels and a note in the house book about it being a residential area and respecting our neighbours.

Hope that helps

[Joanna]

If you're in the UK I recommend joining the English Association of Self-Catering Operators (EASCO). As a member you have the right to use the terms and conditions that they've had drawn up with advice from a lawyer.

[costa-brava]

I think your two main questions were "Should I take a deposit on last minute bookings? If so how?"
If you don't get them to commit to 10, 20 or 25% you are left not knowing for sure that they're coming.
Paypal are probably still the best and will cost you 2-3% of the amount paid. It's instant payment, just a matter of seconds and you get instant notification. You'll see a lot of bad stuff from some people in the internet but it has worked well for me for years.
You can put fixed amount buttons on your website or send each customer a money request. It's a doddle once your set up.
Bog standard bank transfer works well but you have to give out your bank details.
On your question about Tripadvisor, Paypal is one of the most popular ways to get your payments from them.
And then (especially for last minute) cash on arrival carries zero costs but you have to make it clear or they come with credit card.

[newtimber]

Key safe - anyone ever have problems with guests changing the code and locking you out of your own key safe?!

No - why would anyone do this? If the building (rather than the individual flat) has an outside lock, then residents might not be too happy about this key being given out to lots of people and I imagine you'd have to get permission to fix the key safe on the outside of the building