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Automatically cancel the reservation when payment fails

Currently when payment fails for insufficient funds the booking goes into our calendar and blocks the dates preventing anyone else from booking. In VRBO it looks like a valid reservation. It isn't obvious to the guests or to us that there is a problem with payment so the conversation with the guest continues as usual and check in details are provided. Until I see a vague email from Hostfully saying that a payment failed. It doesn't identify the reservation. Just that a payment failed. If I hadn't been checking my email I wouldn't know. Quite often the email gets lost in my inbox. There needs to be a better system in which it actually denies the booking atlogether if the payment fails and that make it much more clear to the guest and host that their payment was declined. This has cost us several times with allowing guests who didn't pay. (I'm sure I can't be the only one.) There must be an improvement that can be made.

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  • Kelly commented  ·   ·  Report

    I just found a $500 reservation that went through and for whatever reason their payment went through on VRBO's end (so they got their service fee) but failed through Stripe. After calling VRBO, Stripe and Hostfully, I'm just screwed out of the money as the guest is no longer responding to messages.

    VRBO blamed Stripe and Hostfully, Stripe blamed Hostfully and Hostfuly said VRBO requested that Hostfully NOT decline VRBO reservation that the payment failed.

    I have triggers in place for the email notifications for reminders of payment due to myself and guests but that doesn't work for reservations that happen less than 24 hours prior to check-in.

    I'm so upset that these big companies can not help with this. They all get paid, I am out $500. :(

    Hostfully's response
    ---------------------------------------
    It is currently not possible to decline reservations upon failed payments. We used to decline the reservation when the payment failed, but (per Vrbo's recommendation) made this change to help increase your conversion rate.

    The unpaid Vrbo reservation will show in Hostfully and prevent other guests from booking the same dates. Just like reservations from Booking.com, direct reservations, and other channels in which your payment processor is used, it is your responsibility to recognize the unpaid reservation and request payment by viewing the booking in the pipeline or canceling the reservation if the guest does not want to continue.

    The beauty of our pipeline is that it makes it easy for you to track guests that are not fully paid, and follow up with them accordingly. Here is an article on monitoring outstanding balances with more information on how to recognize reservations with overdue payments:
    Good news, we have an existing request [Automatically cancel the reservation when payment fails] for this from our customer base and I've added your vote to it for our product team to see 👀. I've also subscribed you to the idea so you will receive future notifications on it.

    We encourage you to take a look around the Uservoice site and vote on other ideas you are interested in if you'd like to influence our road map.
    I hope this helps clarify! Is there anything else I can help you with right now? 😊

  • Carri Jo Thompson commented  ·   ·  Report

    I had a vrbo guest whose card was declined at the initial attempt of payment. Our company received no notification of the declined payment, and the reservation was still accepted. The guests have now come & gone, and we have no payment from them & cannot reach them. I want to have a way to prevent this from happening again.

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    25 votes on a post from 18 months ago. Come on Hostfully!

  • Daniel Elgrably commented  ·   ·  Report

    This is redicilous and got me the loss of so much money! Cancel this ASAP!

  • Wendy Hortis commented  ·   ·  Report

    We have had someone book last-minute reservations and their payment is declined. They stay before we can get the payment issues resolved and then we have to try and recover payment after the fact. If it just cancelled the reservation when payment is declined then they would not be able to stay and it would release the dates for other bookings.

  • Noel Alsbrook commented  ·   ·  Report

    We are seriously considering changing services over this.