VBRO - Guest staying in my villa without having paid in full

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
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cleanforum
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VBRO - Guest staying in my villa without having paid in full

Post by cleanforum »

Its been a while since I posted in here.

Just a warning to VRBO hosts that I have discovered the hard way that guests can show up and stay at your property without having paid in full. I only discovered this by accident when checking the payment made to me by VBRO at my bank after the second day of our guests stay. I had to dig into the guests booking and payments schedule to discover that the balance payment was overdue..VBRO aparently do not feel the need to communicate to us, the owners, when they have not received the second payment from the guest.

So now I have guests well into their stay at our villa and have only payed 25% (minus VRBO upfront processing fees etc).

I eventually got through to a chat with VBRO (some guy in texas I presume) who thinks we can just turn guests out onto the street here in Spain....

...the next post is a transcript of our short conversation...
Last edited by cleanforum on Mon Jul 19, 2021 1:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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cleanforum
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Post by cleanforum »

Have decided not to include my conversation with VRBO.
Last edited by cleanforum on Tue Jul 27, 2021 6:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
Marks
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Post by Marks »

Surely VRBO email you notification that a guest has paid?

I don't use VRBO but certainly TA do and also email a cancellation if guests don't pay.
Some guests just need a sympathetic pat. On the head. With a hammer.
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cleanforum
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Post by cleanforum »

Not in my case. I just got an email notifying of the reservation. In fact I have payment restrictions set on VRBO as 25% and then full payment 30 days before arrival. This booking was made three weeks ago hence that should have been paid in full. Now that VRBO are in charge we may be seeing failures that did not exist before. Just to be precise this booking arrived at VRBO via the ABRITEL(french site) route I believe. This could have been avoided with the most basic of comms from VBRO..I just can' t believe it myself.
FelicityA
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Post by FelicityA »

I'm stunned at the incompetence, Cleanforum Quite astounding. I have had VRBO overcharge people, undercharge people, get all their sums wrong in fact. I shouldn't really stay with them but I tend to get really nice people booking and a booking is a booking......

I rather hope that your guests just innocently overlooked the payment and get onto this right away. Perhaps pay you directly - then you would get a lot more! I don't quite how you would work that one but you might be able to come up with a half way house between you so they paid less and you got more. Actually I see that you are now well into the stay so that probably is a no go.

What did happen in the end?
Sunbeam
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Post by Sunbeam »

I wonder if the guest expected to pay the balance on arrival? It seems to be common amongst the Spanish to do so - "perhaps" not understanding the online booking process.

It's unbelievable that this was not picked up by VRBO - I'd assumed that an unpaid balance would trigger a cancellation and opening up of the calendar dates.

Interested to know how this was resolved ....
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cleanforum
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Post by cleanforum »

This was solved amicably and the guest paid later the next day as they were out and about the day all this happened. They maintain that they received no reminder from VRBO in spite of VRBO claiming to have sent two reminders. Since we were aparently out of the loop I saw no reminders or non payment emails nor did I receive any contact from VRBO. I only discovered by accident while checking in my UK bank account and saw a credit from an address in Houston,TX (I think) for a stange sum that was around 20% of what I was expecting from VRBO, on about the forth day of the rental. To make thinks easy for the clients I generated a reminder email for them from reservation details in VRBO. They paid by card and I recieved payment from VRBO a couple of days later.

All my communication with the client had to be in(my not too good under pressure) french and was not helped by the VRBO agent telling me I should kick them out..

I think they had nice stay and hoping that I will not get a bad review etc, but still furious with VRBO.

I have changed my conditions for 100% payment at time of booking by the way, hopefully that will stop this happening in the future.
FelicityA
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Post by FelicityA »

Thank you for updating, Cleanforum. Glad it was all sorted. I am permanently furious with VRBO but they do get me the longer bookings so I have to contain my outrage that they make so many mistakes (one person actually cancelled because of their messing up) and take 20% of the booking between the two commissions and the processing costs.
Last edited by FelicityA on Fri Jul 30, 2021 12:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

Not a great experience and glad it was resolved.
However, I do question one thing. In these times where travelling conditions change so quickly having full payment at the time of booking would that perhaps not put perspective clients off making a reservation?
What are the T&Cs for returning that money if the travel is curtailed?
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
Sunbeam
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Post by Sunbeam »

CSE wrote:Not a great experience and glad it was resolved.
However, I do question one thing. In these times where travelling conditions change so quickly having full payment at the time of booking would that perhaps not put perspective clients off making a reservation?
What are the T&Cs for returning that money if the travel is curtailed?
Guests can get travel insurance now to cover for a variety of covid-related cancellations. Owners renting one villa (rather than several rooms in B&B type accommodation) can't operate on the basis of last minute cancellation meaning all money returned.

UK guests are used to taking out travel insurance - and it is available in Frnace - but it's not that common in Spain.
volcano
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Post by volcano »

Guests can get travel insurance now to cover for a variety of covid-related cancellations. Owners renting one villa (rather than several rooms in B&B type accommodation) can't operate on the basis of last minute cancellation meaning all money returned.

yes I agree with you. Guests should be aware of the scope of a booking and we shouldn't let us do everything!
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