Website for holiday lets, with direct bookings and nobody taking a cut
The cottage was full for nineteen weeks last year and you handed over a slice of every one of those weeks to somebody who has never seen the place, never changed a bed in it and never once answered a question about where the key is. The guests who came back a second time would happily have booked with you directly, if there had been anywhere to do it.
The site runs on your own domain, with SSL, hosting and nightly backups in every plan. From £49 to £199 a month, excluding VAT.
How a letting year actually goes
The cleaning and the linen and the log basket are the parts you signed up for. These are the three that were not in the plan.
The week you were paid for twice, and kept once
A family books the last week of July, stays, leaves the place immaculate and says they will be back next summer. Between their card and your bank account somebody has taken a cut of the whole week for having shown them a page of photographs.
And when they do come back next summer, they go through the same page again and the same cut goes out again, because there was never anywhere else to send them. You are renting the same cottage to the same people and paying a finder's fee for it every time.
Two price lists, and one of them is wrong
High season, low season, the fortnight either side of the school holidays, the bank holiday weekends, the three-night minimum from May to September. You worked all of that out in January.
Then you changed the August rate in one place in March and forgot the other, and by the time somebody points it out you are honouring a rate you stopped charging two seasons ago. Every price that lives in two places will eventually disagree with itself.
Where is the key, and can we park two cars
It arrives at nine on a Friday night while the guest is somewhere on the A road with two tired children in the back. Where is the key safe, what is the code, is there room for the second car, are the beds made up, is there a cot.
Every single one of those questions has the same answer every single time, and you have typed all of them out by hand at least a hundred times, usually while cooking.
Four things that make a direct booking work
A direct booking is the same week at a better price for the guest and more of it kept by you. What it needs is a calendar that cannot be double booked, and everything after the booking happening on its own.
Nights on your own calendar, with your own rules
The guest picks the dates and sees what is actually available: changeover days, minimum stays, the fortnight you keep back for your own family in October. High season and low season rates live on the calendar itself, so the price shown is the price for those nights.
When the listing sites take a week, you block it here and it stops being bookable. One calendar, not two arrangements you have to keep in step.
The arrival details go out without you
The confirmation leaves the moment the booking is made and carries the dates, what was paid and the address. Then a second message before arrival, with the key safe, the code, the parking, the bin day and the number to ring if the boiler does something unexpected.
By e-mail this is part of the plan. If you would rather it landed as a text message on the road, SMS is available as a prepaid add-on.
The guest moves the dates themselves
Every booking gets its own link. If the week has to shift, or a party of six turns into a party of four, they deal with it there instead of ringing you on a Tuesday morning.
The nights they release go back on the calendar in the same moment, which means somebody searching that evening can take them, rather than the week sitting as booked until you get around to changing it.
Something to do about the empty shoulder weeks
May and late September are the weeks that do not sell themselves, and a code sent to everyone who stayed last year is the cheapest way there is to fill them. Discount codes, a rate for a midweek three nights, an add-on for the dog or the cot at the point of booking.
The returning guest booking directly is the best week you will let all year, and this is the part that asks them to.
How the letting can be priced on the page
You set the rates and the season dates. The structure is what is worth looking at: what is a fixed price for a stay, what starts from a figure, and what is an extra on top.
The extras sit as add-ons at the moment of booking, which is the only moment anybody is willing to think about whether they want the logs delivered.
What owners ask before they set one up
Not at all, and most owners do not. They keep the listings for people who have never heard of the place and take the returning guests directly, blocking out the dates the platforms sell so that one calendar stays correct.
Your calendar is the one that decides. Dates taken elsewhere are blocked here by hand and stop being offered, and a night that is booked on this site cannot be booked again by anybody, at any hour.
Payment on a booking runs through your own Stripe account, so it comes to you rather than being held by somebody else and released later. What you charge as a deposit and what you charge on arrival is your decision.
Season rates are set once against the dates they apply to, and the calendar quotes from them. When you change August you change it in one place, and that is the figure the guest sees the same minute.
It can be imported, so the photographs and the descriptions come across instead of being uploaded again one at a time. Then the calendar and the enquiry handling are added around what is already there.
From £49 to £199 a month plus VAT. Every plan gives you the site on your own domain with SSL, hosting, nightly backups and support in English. Confirmations by e-mail are part of it, and SMS is a prepaid add-on.
More trades
- Event and function venuesViewings booked against the room's own calendar.
- BuildersQuotes with cost lines, approved online.
- PlumbersThe emergency line, unburdened by prices and an FAQ.
- ElectriciansFixed prices for small jobs, quotes for the rest.
- Painters and decoratorsQuoted per room and surface, sold on photos.
- Flooring fittersPriced per floor type and square metre.
- All trades
Take the next booking yourself
Describe the cottage, how many it sleeps and what the seasons look like where you are, or point at the page you have now. The builder sets up a first version with your rates, your changeover day and a calendar guests can book against directly.
The site runs on your own domain, with SSL, hosting and nightly backups in every plan. From £49 to £199 a month, excluding VAT.