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Hi Silvia,

Yes, that is very clear and I think that would be the plan, should this begin development. When the quote changes statuses (to EXPIRED or to PREEMPTED), the email would contain an explanation with several solutions for each of those statuses.

-Michelle

I have another question - not sure what the customer sees but when I am in the check method window I see -

If the check hasn't arrived "AFTER" 7 days, the booking will be auto-canceled, shouldn't this say "Within" or "before". It almost sounds to me like the check should arrive after 7 days else it will be cancelled..?? or am I misunderstanding it?

Also is there a legal reason we need to wait no less than 7 days prior to canceling the booking?

Most of my renters are within the USA and up to now they are able to get me the checks in 4 days, I would like the option to make that lower than 7 days, I understand people that are accepting international funds (Canada or people in other countries with USA checks) need more time but that's why they can modify that to as many days they want. I personally don't want to hold up my dates for a check that may never arrive. As just happened to me and lost a bookings waiting for this check, granted this had nothing to do with your system but until you are able to send a response to the preempted action(?)/email. I would like the option to shorten the window. On the other hand if the renter is legit and can't for some reason get me her check until after the 4 days - what is my option - does the system allow me to go and extend the date per booking or it's not possible and I have to let the system cancel the reservation and we need to start all over again? Does the system allow you to resurrect a quote and/or booking?

Silvia

Michelle, I would like that..since I do get people asking for dates the are mid week and then others may request dates that include part of those dates. If one books it then the other booking may be lost with the pre-empted notification but if you even mentioned that other dates may be open and pointed them to the website of the owners choosing - the vrbo/homeaway/own website - it could be part of a signature.

Silvia

Michelle,

Could an email,(/action on the website since not sure where they would see the above events/status's,) be sent for different events?
If the quote expired means the dates are still open just that the quote provided may no longer be valid - could something like:
Please contact the owner again your previous quote may have changed - why? special ended, etc whatever possible reasons that a quote would change.
If the quote is preempted and the renter tries to rent - maybe something like:
Please contact the owner because the dates you requested may no longer be available. Why? Waiting on a check from another renter, part of your dates have been booked, maybe owner has a similar rental that is available for your dates, etc.


Not sure if I made myself clear and not sure if that is possible either.
Silvia

"You're right about the alert to the owners - it would be very useful to see if someone else crashed into the PREEMPTED warning and had to go away. Likewise, sending them an alert with "your current quote was just preempted but the same dates are open at our other [x] cabin"."

Or... sending them an alert with "your current quote was just preempted please email the owner and see if those dates are still available or if we have availability to another townhouse."

They won't know what preempted/expired means, as it is. This will encourage people to notify us, after receiving that screen. It might have expired, but the dates might still be available, they just can't book online, because it is EXPIRED. I, personally, would think the dates are no longer available and move on.

Claudia

At the moment, bookings block out dates with no exceptions. There is no way to create quotes for the same dates or to give new inquirers any hope of getting them. You have to wait until the pending bookings expires and is auto-canceled (or you manually cancel/remove it yourself). I don't believe we could implement what you're referring to because of the complexity involved, but I'll definitely pass it along for more review.

You're right about the alert to the owners - it would be very useful to see if someone else crashed into the PREEMPTED warning and had to go away. Likewise, sending them an alert with "your current quote was just preempted but the same dates are open at our other [x] cabin".

-Michelle

PS. I think this is one of the reasons the vast majority of our uses require payment by credit card and don't even bother with checks. It creates too many waiting games and complexities. Nowadays, anyone with a checking account also has a debit/check card too.

I was wondering, what happens now when a check is checked off as the customer wanting to pay by check? Does the system now treat it as a BOOKED transacation, thus changing status' to PREEMPTED? If so, can there be a separate status instead, maybe Awaiting check?

Some times customers change their minds, without telling us, and we lose out on other bookings. I am trying to figure out which is the best way of not losing a second person inquiring for dates we are waiting for the check.

Ideally, it would be nice to have the system create a status for these scenerios. We can let the potential customer know that we are awaiting a check from a potential guest. But, what if they asked first, a second party BOOKS using a check, and the first customer comes back a couple of days later, ready to book? I guess it goes back to sending an ALERT to the owner, that someone tried to book. However, ALSO, letting the potential customer know that a check is being awaited and we will notify them if it opens up again.

Thus, under this new status (awaiting?) have the screen come up stating this fact. Instead of it just being PREEMPTED and the dates are closed and booked. The dates are not always closed and booked when a check is "being" sent.

You know what I mean?

Claudia

Yes, that is on the dev road. It has not yet been scheduled for design yet.

-Michelle

HI - Didn't see this discussed elsewhere.

Is there a plan to add 'optional charges' to the Charges tab. In other words, allowing a guest to select via check-box what options (e.g. a tour) they wanted to add to their reservation?

Pawel

Great. :)

Claudia

Hi Claudia,

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I like the idea of sending the owner an alert when the guest tries to view the quote but hits an expired or preempted roadblock.

-Michelle

Hi Michele,

Below is what happens when a person wants to book, after it has expired. Just like the Preempted status, can you please add more to what comes up...

"This quote expired and is no longer available.

What does this mean?

All quotes have an expiration date. If the quote is not accepted before the expiration date, the quote is no longer valid."

Many times, people will come back, after "expired" dates, and tell me they want to book, if it is still available. Someone that would want to do that and clicks on the link, they don't know that the dates may still be available. It appears that they aren't. Plus, I would not have any idea that they even tried to book.

Thus, can the wording be more along the lines of checking the calendar to see if the dates are still available? Or, "This quote expired and is no longer available - however, the dates may still be available. Please check with owner."

I don't want to lose those people. Or... sending an alert to the owner that someone tired to book and the deal expired. At least, owners could send them a note stating that another quote will be sent (or we change the expirationg date for them to book).

You know what I mean?

Claudia

Hi Claudia,

We don't currently support that, or have any immediate solution to making it work that way, so I wanted to leave it in the Feature Requests forum as something users (at least one!) wanted for the dev team to look at later.

I've already noted down that the wording should be changed to include asking the owner for different dates.

Thanks for the suggestion.

-Michelle

Did you see this one?

Claudia

Once something changes to preempted, due to someone else bookings, can you include our calendar on the page that comes up stating

This quote was preempted and is no longer available. --- Please look at our calendar at.... http://www.xxxxx.com and see if another dates works for you. Thank you. ** Or ** --- Please notify the owner and see if other dates work.

Sometimes, the requested date may be July 19 - July 21. Yet, July 20 - July 22 is booked. The guest that comes back looking for the original dates may be able to shift there date to make it work to leave on July 20. Then the owner gets the extra booking.

Thank you. Eventually, it would be better to come in the SEND TO, so the extra step doesn't need to be done. :)

Claudia

Yes, that does the trick. I understand what you mean. I'll ask that the email address be added to the quote header information (the block of stuff above the line items in the body).

-Michelle

Hi Michele,

When I send a quote, a similar letter comes as my copy. A day or two later, I send a Followup Letter. I would hit REPLY (REPLY TO ALL) and then copy and paste my generic letter. However, only MY email comes up. The potential guests email does not come up in the SEND TO(preferable!). But neither does it show up anywhere in the body of the letter. Thus, I have to go back to the original inquiry to copy and paste the email address.

Not sure if I explained it better. Did I?

Claudia

Hi Claudia,

Can you be a bit more specific about the email you're sending? Are you ending it from the inquiry area or quote area? I don't follow what you mean.

If I had to guess, it sounds like you're looking for the body of the quote email to show the guest's email address so that it's easy for you to copy/paste from for offline purposes.

-Michelle

Hi,

Can you please include the potential customers email address to the REPLY letter (after quote has been sent)? Right now, I have to go back to the original inquiry and look for the email address. Then I have to copy and paste it to the REPLY letter, when I want to send a Followup letter. I like to send the follow up letter, against the original quote, so that they can see what the original quote was.

Due to not having the Followup Letter capability, at this moment, it has become difficult to go through these steps. Not so bad for a couple of letters. However, you have 5 - 10 Followup letters to write, it is very time consuming. At this moment, their email address doesn't even appear anywhere on the letter.

Please provide the email address so that a simple REPLY (after the QUOTE letter to us) can go directly to the guest, as well as us.

Thank you,
Claudia

Yes, that and other changes. The security deposit area needs a bit of love.

-Michelle

Is it in the works to allow this? I know that when I go in the security deposit page, it only allows the options to enter the credit card information. Will there be an option to enter the check amount, instead? I know it isn't there now, but for the future.

Claudia

Yes and no.

The activity stream will definitely show both the reserve and release (and any amount held).

However, our security deposit area does not yet support check security deposits. I believe we discussed this once before; maybe not. We only do security deposits by credit card.

You can get around that by recording it as a regular payment by check and then doing a refund if you want. But the security deposit specific tab only works with credit cards. Click on it and you'll see what I mean.

-Michelle

I see the stream. Ok. Since it has not arrived for the refund yet, will it state how much was released - in the event something had to be held?

I assume it will state that the Security Deposit was via Check and then Released?

Claudia

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll forward it along. Not sure how well that would fit graphically, but I can understand why you'd want it.

If it helps, notice that you can see a stream of all the billing activity on the same page at the bottom. Scroll down and look under the calendar strip. That will show if/when the security deposit has been reserved and/or released.

-Michelle

Can we add a line to include Security Deposit Received and Security Deposit Refunded, under the Booking - OVERVIEW page?

Total Charged: $ 515.00
Total Paid: $ 515.00
Total Refunded: $ 0.00

Total Security Deposit Receive: $ 250.00
Total Security Deposit Refunded: $ 0.00

Claudia

That is great - a new release! Those are always nice to see and exciting. :)

I don't know what would be a way to show this. Just would be nice to see who actually was interested and ready to book, but wasn't able to. They can check another timeframe on their own, but at times it helps to give them a little encouragement, if we knew they were ready and missed it.

Claudia

Right now, no, there's no way of knowing that, but we're considering adding "event notifications" that will send you an alert when the guest opens/reads their quote. I'm not sure if that would cover this.

We're also working on upgrading the statuses on quotes and inquiries to be more dynamic in terms of telling you when they flip. Maybe have a quick-click email you can send to them, asking if they want different dates.

Release going out tomorrow or Friday, by the way!

-Michelle

Is there a way to know when a guests tried to reserve dates but wasn't allowed, due to it being already booked (preempted)? I would be curious to know that they tried. Perhaps, I could move them to another date.

Someone tried to book the dates and she sent me an email stating she couldn't. I wouldn't have known that she was interested, if she didn't send me the email.

Thanks,
Claudia

Yes, the comments you're referred to are on the inquiry, not the quote. There isn't any good way of seeing the inquiry details (like the comments) from the quote but that's something we're thinking about.

On bookings now, you can see a link to the quote and inquiry that it came from on the overview page. We'll be adding at least the same thing on quotes.

We'll also be adding a Tracking tab on quotes and bookings that will help here, though that is for a different purpose.

-Michelle