On your first payment, we will ask you to provide details of the bank account you wish to
have your money paid into, you will also inform us of what currency you’d like
to be paid in.
A statement will be generated on the first of the month showing all payments
that have been received into our bank account during that month on your behalf.
A transfer of the sum outlined in the monthly statement will then be made on
the tenth day of the month of the following month.
The terms offered by the various merchant accounts we use may well cause there
to be a delay between the guest paying, and the payment showing in our account.
For example, we currently use Barclaycard Merchant Services, who pay us 30 days
after they have received payment, whilst PayPal offer a much faster turn round.
We will obviously negotiate with credit providers to obtain the best possible deal and keep you fully apprised of the situation.
You can choose a couple of options:-
Either - Accept last minute bookings (in fact the system enables you to offer a discount for any one making a late booking as many of our owners prefer
to have a guest in there home paying a lower rate, than having the home empty. We're also just about to launch a site aimed at the last minute market called www.lastminutevillas.com). Even though you will not receive the money until the 10th October, you can rest assured that the money will be processed and you will actually receive it!
Or -
you can set a restriction, when you sign up, to state that you will not accept last minute bookings (You decide exactly how many days count as last minute).
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There will be no up front costs for registering, renewing or using our
services.
A commission of 5% will be deducted from all payments made to you for bookings
received after the ‘3 months free trial period’. Any profits will be used by us
to market the web site to prospective guests.
The terms and conditions you apply to guests regarding refunds due to
cancellations are totally up to you. However, due to the fact that we know it
is going to be very rare that you have to make refunds, we will refund our
commission payment at the same time as we credit the guest with your refund. Therefore we will not make any commission on guest cancellations.
The rent you earn for your accommodation will not be affected by the method of payment selected by the potential guest. However, we are currently paying approximately 5% to our credit card merchant account provider and to PayPal, therefore we will be passing this cost on to the guest.
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The visitor to our site will:-
- Complete the enquiry form (with dates required, number of bedrooms etc).
- A list of available homes with a picture and summary will then be displayed.
- The enquirer will be able to click on a link for more information about each
home.
- The enquirer will also be able to send a query directly through to the villa owner from the
site. This will come through to the e mail account you provided us with upon
registration, and a text message will be sent to your mobile to inform you of
the query. The speed with which you answer these queries will affect how highly
you rank for future enquiries.
- If the enquirer wishes to book your home they will be taken through to a
booking form, a copy of which will be sent to you upon its completion.
- If you are a Gold member, the guest will then be taken through to the payment
form, and the agreed deposit/ security bond will be taken and the booking will
be confirmed on your on-line calendar.
- If you are not a Gold member an e mail will be sent through to your e mail
address (and a text message will be sent to your mobile) requesting
confirmation from you that the dates are still available. As soon as you have
confirmed the availability, we will recontact the enquirer, and, if they’re
still interested, they’ll be taken through to the payment form.
This answer falls into two parts:-
Now
The enquiry form currently only has a field for dates that they are visiting
and number of bedrooms required. All homes that have availability showing on
their calendar will be displayed, priority will be given to ‘Gold members’, but
apart from this, homes will be ranked on a random basis, thereby giving
everyone a fair chance of being displayed high on the list.
Future
We have bought a database of zip codes, and mapping software (see Google Maps
for examples as to how they’ll work), so in the near future the enquiry form
will be adapted to allow people to select how they want to rank the villas
i.e., they can rank by price, or by distance from the various attractions e.g.
Disney. ‘Gold Members’ will still come top of the listing, but apart from this
the ranking will be based upon the enquirer’s requirements.
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No, there is no plan to charge for this service, nor will it be based upon how
much commission you’ve paid us, nor even how long you’ve been registered with
us (neither prioritising people who’ve been with us for a long time, nor those
who’ve just joined)
You need to fulfill the following requirements to become a ‘Gold Member’:-
- Keep your on-line calendar up to date.
- Respond promptly to enquirer’s e mails.
- Not require refunds due to cancellations/ or clashes in your diary.
In essence ‘Gold Members’ will be providing visitors to our site with the best
possible service and therefore we want to ensure they’re rewarded for their
loyalty.
The key benefit (apart from being high on the list if people are searching for
homes on our site) is that visitors will be able to book and pay via their
credit/ debit card / PayPal account immediately, without you having to be
contacted to confirm your home is available for the required date.
This benefit will obviously not only maximise the potential of guests actually
booking your home, but will also reduce the amount of e mails you’ll need to
respond to before you obtain a booking, as people will just booking direct on
line.
We will need you to confirm on a weekly basis that the calendar is up to date.
But obviously, if the diary is not kept up to date then you will have clashes
(more than one booking at one time) which will require us to refund money to
the potential guest (this will incur a cost from our merchant account provider,
which will obviously be passed onto you!)
We’d ask that you normally respond at least within 24 hours. However, obviously
sometimes you’ll slip below this threshold and therefore we have built some
flexibility into the system. Also, if you are away on holiday without access to
the internet, you will be able to inform us that you’re away, and the system
will not penalise you for not responding.
No, we will not remove your ‘Gold membership’ if one guest cancels a booking
and requires a refund. However, we reserve the right to cancel your ‘Gold
membership’ if you have more than one cancellation within a reasonable period.
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Absolutely, you can either:-
- Just blank out the dates you’ve booked. This is ideal if you’re using the home
for your own personal stay, but can also be used for any bookings you’ve taken
from other sources. This option will ensure no other bookings are made for
these specific dates on our site, but it will not enable you utilise our
payment or reminder system.
- Take a booking via the site, this will then enable you to use our booking,
payment and reminder systems, thereby reducing your administration, although we
will charge our normal commission rate on these bookings.
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Yes, if you have a web site, but don’t currently have a database driven enquiry
form on the site, we can provide you with a small piece of script, that can
simply be cut and paste into the html code on your site. This will then allow
visitors to your site to check whether your home is available for the dates
they’re looking to visit, and then to book on line using our booking and
payment system.
And, if you have more than one home, you can have the form check the
availability for each of your homes, and none of the others on our web site.
This is obviously of great use if you’re a Management Company with a number of
homes that you are endeavouring to rent.
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You! The guest is booking your home with you, through us, and therefore any
terms and conditions you wish to apply i.e. payment terms, security deposit
etc, will be the ones that apply. We are only acting as your agents to
facilitate the process.
Therefore you remain in total control of your home, if you feel uncomfortable
with a booking you retain the right to cancel it, if you wish to leave us, you
take the bookings with you etc etc.
The terms and conditions that apply to your home are totally your choice,
therefore you can decide what ‘security bond’ should be paid by a guest, when
it should be paid, and when it should be refunded (or not refunded if that is
the case!)
We will collect the ‘security bond’ at the same time as we collect other money
from the guest, however, you will be responsible for refunding it to the guest
at the end of the rental.
As mentioned before, the terms and conditions used for your bookings are
totally up to you, therefore you can take as much of a deposit as you require
etc etc. However, as home owners ourselves we take a 25% deposit on booking,
with a £200 security bond, and the remainder of the money becomes due 8 weeks
prior to the commencement of the booking.
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Guests booking your villa on-line need to have some sort of security that the
home actually belongs to you before they’re going to feel comfortable paying
any money. Also, our credit card provider needs to have this level of proof
before they’re willing to accept money on your behalf.
You will need to provide us with an original utility bill, closing document
etc, when you first register each home on our web site. We will start marketing your home as soon as you register with us, but we will not forward any money to you until you have provided us with the relevant 'proof of ownership'. And, then every 12
months you will need to send us an up to date 'proof of ownership'.
If we allowed people to fax the documents to us it is possible that people
would doctor the paperwork and this was impossible to identify from faxed
copies. Therefore we require originals, in the hope that we can stamp out any
fraud that may undermine the confidence of potential guests, to say nothing of
our credit card provider!
We will:-
- Check the documentation for authenticity.
- Scan the paperwork.
- Load it onto the relevant part of your advertisement after obscuring your
personal details.
- Return it to you. This can be by Registered post if you require, however, you
will need to pay any costs incurred.
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