How do I make sure I don't need to cancel a booking?
Unfortunately, cancellations are an inevitable part of vacation rentals. Maybe your property needs to undergo urgent maintenance or there is a problem with the booking which means you can no longer honour it.
Sometimes, things happen that are outside your control. But there are a few things you can do as a property manager to avoid the majority of cancellations.
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1. Keep your Calendar up to date
The number one reason for cancelled bookings is because there has been a Double Booking, caused by an out-of-date calendar. This is also the easiest thing to prevent.
Make sure you update your calendar with your availability regularly. If you receive a booking or block a date through Your.Rentals, we'll automatically add that to your calendar on every website we connect your listing to.
If you receive a booking or block a date on another website that isn't connected through Your.Rentals, you need to make sure you add that to your Your.Rentals calendar immediately.
Learn more about keeping your calendar up to date here.
You can do that manually if you like, but the easiest way to keep everything up to date is using Calendar Sync. This synchronises your Your.Rentals calendar with any other website you use, even if you aren't using Your.Rentals to publish your listing there. This means whenever you receive a booking or block a date on either website, it will be automatically added to the other.
Learn more about Calendar Sync here
2. Check your rates are correct
The second most common reason for cancelling a booking is because the price is incorrect. Usually, this is because the Property Manager hasn't set Seasonal Rates for the period that has been booked. Seasonal Rates are used for when you want to increase or decrease your prices for certain periods. If a date doesn't have a Seasonal Rate, we'll apply your Basic Rate.
Some channels allow guests to book as much as two years in the future, so it's really important that you add Seasonal Rates as far into the future as possible. Otherwise, your price may be incorrect for some dates.
Learn more about setting Seasonal Rates here.
If you're not sure what price you'll be charging in the future, you can automatically close your calendar after a certain date so you won't receive bookings.
Learn more about closing your calendar here.
3. Update your listing regularly
If you make changes to your property it's important to update your listing content.
This also means that if you change things like your Booking Rules, maximum guests or check-in information you should update this in Your.Rentals.
If there is a problem with your property or you don't want to receive bookings for a particular period, then you should close your calendar. You can set it to reopen on a future date if you like.