Newbie Queries/Wish List

[colnrita]

Hello, I have been working on this setup for a day or so and although really impressed down here, have already run into some bugs/problems:

• There is no apostrophe in "extras" (booking confirmation page).
  The Paypal gateway will not open in the iframe widget which I was using - seems a bit pointless having it. If it is opened in a new window it just goes to Paypal home; doesn't open my Paypal window with the reference number, dollars etc already filled in.
  My test booking was confirmed by email even though I hadn't paid the mandatory deposit (calendar doesn't appear to have changed, though).

Also, I haven't been able to find some features that would be useful:

• If the iframe was made to work properly (ie by sending user to a new window for Paypal) it would be nice to be able to have a graphic page background for site integration purposes.
  It would be nice to be able to assign a value to checkboxes filled in for custom questions. "Do you agree to our booking conditions?" only returns a blank in the confirmatory email when it is checked.
  Here in the land of the long weekend (Oz) we need a simple means to extend minimum stay periods in respect of specific holiday weekends (eg Easter, Christmas, Anzac Day, Labour Day...the list goes on).
  Under the discount options I couldn't find a way to charge a lower nightly rate for stays longer than the minimum; this is a standard device for encouraging people to stay longer.
  Many B&B owners in this country also have offers like "stay four nights and get the fifth one free" - how could you do that?

Thanks for a generally terrific product.

[colnrita]

Okay, I found out where to fix the Paypal/iframe problem - works a treat now

I don't think there is a workaround to offer upsell items on a room basis (eg not much point selling firewood if someone has booked a room without a fireplace).

[colnrita]

Okay, I worked out how to allocate the upsell items on a room basis, and to apply the longer stay discounts. I guess you could pop in a free night by applying a 100% discount that night and a negative dollar discount at full tariff to the night after.

Sorry, I'll plug at it a bit longer - there are probably workarounds for the other matters that I'm yet to find.

This is a WOW! program.

[annettemorgenroth]

By default the system sets bookings that have been completed to "Request". You can change this in SETTINGS -> PROPERTIES -> DEPOSIT COLLECTION setting "Non Payment Booking Status" to "Cancel".

[colnrita]

By default the system sets bookings that have been completed to "Request". You can change this in SETTINGS -> PROPERTIES -> DEPOSIT COLLECTION setting "Non Payment Booking Status" to "Cancel".

Thanks, my unpaid requests are now blocked out in red when I set the Non-payment Booking Status back to "Request" and the On Request booking rule to "Block Out". HOWEVER, under the Booking Page settings I have the available dates are set to green, request dares set to orange, and confirmed booking dates set to red (I like traffic lights). There is no orange in sight (no help notes either ).

More importantly, I'm still looking for a way to group specific days together; for example, if someone tries to book a range including Good Friday, the Thursday, Saturday and Easter Sunday would be selected and added automatically, giving a minimum stay for Easter weekend ONLY of 4 nights (Easter Monday is a holiday here ).

Any ideas out there?

[markkinchin]

Thanks, my unpaid requests are now blocked out in red when I set the Non-payment Booking Status back to "Request" and the On Request booking rule to "Block Out". HOWEVER, under the Booking Page settings I have the available dates are set to green, request dares set to orange, and confirmed booking dates set to red (I like traffic lights). There is no orange in sight (no help notes either ).

The settings to change the booking colours are at SETTINGS >> ACCOUNT >> PREFERENCES, these affect the display on the Calendar and Booking views.

More importantly, I'm still looking for a way to group specific days together; for example, if someone tries to book a range including Good Friday, the Thursday, Saturday and Easter Sunday would be selected and added automatically, giving a minimum stay for Easter weekend ONLY of 4 nights (Easter Monday is a holiday here ).

You could setup a special rate for Easter. Split your normal rate by making a copy and set one to end on the last day before Easter and the other to start after Easter. Create a new Rate only for the Easter period and set the Minimum stay to cover the whole Easter period. In the Easter rate also disable check-in allowed on all days except the first day and disable check-out allowed on all days except the last day. This should disallow any booking that tries to check-in or check-out in the middle of Easter.

An slightly easier but not so thoughough way would be to leave your normal rate alone and make a new "Do Not Allow Lower Prices" rate for Easter with a minimum stay of 4 nights. (The min stay will be enforced as long as there are no higher prices) The only problem with this is the min stay is applied to the whole stay so if they arrived on the Tuesday before Easter they could checkout on the Saturday (4 night stay satisfied)


It sounds like you have solved the problems at the start of the thread, let me know if any are still unresolved.

[colnrita]

Thanks Mark. I will have a play with the colours and see what comes up. Not sure of the status difference between New, Request and Confirmed bookings though; when are these colours seen? Where are the colours I adjusted under Page Design?

While waiting for some help I found a solution of sorts to my problem with the holidays - just added a seperate rate for each holiday period, set to "do not allow rates to be undercut" but with all the $ rates unchecked. This seems to enforce the designated minimum stay without affecting the rate structure. I would have preferred to apply the undiscounted rate to the whole minimum stay period, but putting $ rates into the holiday rates seems to result in averaged tariffs for any booked days outside the holiday period, which results in odd totals which would be very confusing for your average user, I think.

Your offered solution may work and I might give it a try when I have some time, but with 10 designated public holidays a year here, many falling on different dates each year, it would be very cumbersome to set up. Would it not be possible to add a simple means of just stringing designated days together, so that for booking and tariff purposes they are treated as one day?

[colnrita]

Have now gone "live" with this; it looks great and seems to work - profuse thanks!

When I tried to install the Facebook app it loaded ok on to our page but when I opened it, only got the demo page and no prompt to enter my property ID. Is this a bug or did I do something wrong?

[annedawn]

It usually woks if you try setting it up again (unless Facebook has changed something). Can you send a link? If you prefer you can use the ticket system via SUPPORT in the top right menu.

[colnrita]

Hi Anne,

I tried again tonight and it worked - third time lucky I guess. Didn't think I did anything differently, though.

We have just started up and the booking sheet is looking like the front lawn - Facebook page is mumblesstays and we need all the friends we can get

Thanks.