Thoughts on Booking.com as a platform?

[Michael Rutkowski]

I'm listed on Booking.com, and I guess I misunderstood what it is that that company does... I got an email from them today about a booking next May. I read through the email, and immediately notice this phrase:

"Guest has booked without deposit and credit card info"

So naturally I have a heart attack and head on over to my Extranet inbox/Dashboard. It is beyond confusing in there, and hopefully someone from this company is reading this. I look through a section called Policies, and find *NEW* section there, with an option to allow guests to book with or without phone numbers, card info, or anything really...

I have a Stripe account I accept payment with from another business, so I am set up for credit cards, but it seems to me, that they just added this feature, and automatically had this setup to accept booking without CC info. I'm not a motel or hotel, where people just show up with cash. I am home, at times, and at other times, I am not. Stripe, as well as all other CC terminals is not cheap, and I have it rolled into the fees section on my pricing options. But Booking didn't even charge them that, or my cleaning fees, or taxes.

So I call their helpline. On hold for 35 minutes. The guy I talked with though, was very pleasant and helpful, so that was nice. I commend them for having capable people working for them. But he confirmed that I had this option setup the way I did. I told him that I had never seen this option before in my dashboard, and would have never agreed to this. Furthermore, it had a bright red *NEW* button next to it. He said, I should present the guest with an itemized bill with all the charges on it, and then run the card. BUT THE GUEST WAS QUOTED FOR JUST THE PRICE OF ONE NIGHT! Seems like a bait and switch to me... With all those fees, it is like 20% of the total price. I feel like they should let the guest know that in a more explicit way when they send them an email confirmation or something (if it's anything like I get in my email).

He then goes on to tell me that Booking.com does not even take any form of payments, and sends me a bill at the end of each month. Since we just signed up with them, and we have been booked solid for months in advance through other outlets, I haven't done business with them, ever, so I was unaware of this. Basically, it is completely up to me, to collect payments. I am OK with that, but I did not realize that they don't even charge taxes, fees, or CC fees to the guest. It is all up to me.

So now, I'm going to have to contact each guest and ask for payment within 1 week, or cancel their reservations, because, I just am not sure what is going on with the site. I have a lot of guests from far flung regions, and without a CC terminal (so I can minimize the fees that Stripe will charge my account), he mentioned you can only collect payment through a bank transfer. I don't really feel comfortable giving someone across the world my bank account number. So I'm stuck. I'm at the point of messaging each guest I have booked, and telling them to book through AirBnB or VRBO to make their reservation legitimate. 

I am willing to honor all reservation contracts I have, but I will be out CC transaction fees, cleaning fees, and taxes, which amounts to around $65 for each booking (2 nights each). For a total of around $500 for the summer.

The guy mentioned that they are strictly a "marketing company", and charge for "marketing" and that is all. I was really confused, since they have a short term rental site interface, complete with synced calendars, profiles for your places, and basically everything that other STR sites have in their owner dashboards, but in a much more confusing format. Then I look them up on the internet and see 1,700, 1 star reviews on the ConsumerAffairs site, from very disgruntled guests. I can believe that! The whole booking process with them seems very confusing, and for what they do, the fees are higher than a company like AirBnB, which actually handles payment as a form of escrow between the guest and owner. That's how it should be done!

Thoughts?