Booking.com Host Guide for Beginners
You listed your vacation rental property on Airbnb, but are not sure whether it is worth creating a listing on Booking.com?
We’ve written this article to help you make an informed decision. Read on to learn why you should consider Booking.com, how this platform differs from Airbnb, and how to list your property there. We’ll provide answers to the most common questions below.
Why You Should Consider Booking.com
Today, Booking.com is one of the largest travel marketplaces, offering more than 28 million listings in over 220 countries and territories worldwide, including over 6.6 million homes, apartments, and other unique places to stay. It’s very popular with travelers, and more than 1.5 million nights are booked there every day.
Booking.com is available in 43+ languages and has become the most-visited travel site in the world because it offers everything a traveler needs for their upcoming vacation. Not only do they provide a wide selection of vacation rentals, but they also offer hotels, flights, transportation options, attractions, and experiences.
As you can see, Booking.com is a great option to get your vacation rental in front of a significantly larger audience than any of the other platforms. And it offers you more flexibility—as a property owner or host, you get to set your prices and your policies.
That’s why you should definitely consider adding your property to Booking.com. Many Airbnb hosts have already set up their listings on the platform, which has allowed them to increase their revenue and occupancy.
Listing your property on multiple channels can help you reach more travelers, attract more bookings, and set your business for success. It’s no secret that one of the most time-consuming aspects of running a short-term rental is communication with guests, so it makes sense to streamline this process using short-term rental software like Hospitable.
Our STR super app allows you to automate guest messaging from initial inquiry to reviews and reply faster to common guest questions using pre-programmed answers. You’ll also be able to take advantage of AI tools in your Inbox when you message guests manually.
Use Suggest with AI and Improve with AI to draft and correct detailed, personalized responses to guest messages. Upload guidebooks to our Knowledge Hub to educate our AI about your properties, and even turn Auto Reply on to let the AI send messages without you.
How Does Booking.com Work and What Are Your Benefits?
Setting up an account on Booking.com is rather easy, especially if you are an experienced Airbnb host. Here are some of the benefits you’ll enjoy.
You can list any type of property for free.
It’s possible to import many of the details from your existing listings on other travel websites so that you can save some time.
You can set your own house rules for guests, and they must agree to them before they make a booking.
You can access guest travel history insights.
The platform offers 24/7 support that is available in 43+ languages.
You can protect your property by setting a damage deposit, which will help you feel more secure.
You receive protection against liability claims from guests and neighbors up to US$1,000,000 for every reservation.
Guests can contact you using the Booking.com messaging system before they book.
You may vet your guests by setting specific criteria they must meet to book your house or apartment, for example, having a verified phone number and address.
If you had a poor guest experience, you can report guest misconduct to their team and block problematic guests from your property.
All hosts have access to Extranet, the administrative dashboard for their property.
You can use Pulse, the mobile app for managing your property on Booking.com on the go. It allows you to manage reservations, check your calendar, and respond to guest messages.
You can connect your Booking.com account to your channel manager or a property management system.
Booking.com partners with various connectivity providers and offers a Connectivity Partner Program that ranks channel managers and PMS providers into Standard, Advanced, and Premier tiers. Hospitable is a Booking.com Premier Partner, which means that we offer a high-quality connection, the most advanced systems, and the broadest range of products and services.
Booking.com recommends Hospitable as a channel manager and property management software. If you’re looking for ways to run your STR business more efficiently, Hospitable can help you streamline operations and enhance guest experience.
In this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know about adding your property to this platform. But if you want to learn more about how Booking.com works, there is an online Help Center in the Partner Hub with step-by-step guides, tips on best practices, and other things to consider.
How to Join Booking.com
Make sure your property is optimized for short-term rentals. This is essential for listing on any platform. Check our guide to make sure you’re ready. It will save you from costly mistakes.
First, you need to create a Booking.com partner account, which is different from a guest account. Register on the platform using your email address. Configure your Extranet login and a secure password.
Before you start registering your property, make sure you have the following ready:
Details about your property, such as a correct and complete address, a list of facilities and amenities, types of rooms, and availability
At least one high-quality photo, but it’s better to add as many pictures as possible
Payment details.
Then you have to create your listing and wait for approval. The Booking.com team will review it to ensure you have provided all the information required to activate your account.
When you receive a confirmation email, you’ll be able to access the Extranet and update the availability calendar. You can also set the prices and add any required details about the property (including photos). When you finish, you can set your property to live on Booking.com by clicking Open for bookings. Then your listing will become visible in search results, and you can start getting bookings.
After opening for bookings, you’ll get a confirmation email with your Accommodation Agreement. You may be asked to complete some final verifications before your property can go live. If Booking.com needs anything from you, you’ll see the banner with instructions on the Home page of your Extranet.
Note: Hospitable users can create and publish Booking.com listings directly from their Hospitable accounts without needing to set up everything in Booking.com's Extranet manually. You just need to have an existing Airbnb listing connected to Hospitable and a Booking.com account.
Select the property you want to list on Booking.com, click "Continue" next to "List on Booking.com," and follow the setup flow. You can find more guidance and step-by-step instructions in our help article.
Booking.com Extranet
Extranet gives you access to all information displayed on your property page, including policies, payment options, photos, descriptions, rooms, rates, and reviews. Besides, here you’ll find a record of your past and future reservations, along with analytics to give you a better idea of how your property performs. You’ll also have an opportunity to set up deals and much more.
Booking.com Fees
You can add your property to Booking.com for free, and then you pay a commission for each booking. You’ll see the commission percentage at the Agreement step of the registration process. The commission percentage of Booking.com host fees varies in different countries.
The commission percentage can vary depending on your property type or location, ranging from 10% to 25%. Their global commission rate average is 15%, with no hidden costs.
Booking.com doesn’t automatically take a commission from your bookings. They’ll send you an invoice via email with the commission amount you have to pay during the first week of each month. You can also find invoices in the Extranet—they are available in PDF format. You’ll find them in the Finance tab under Invoices. The payment date is due within 14 days of the invoice date. And if your current payment method is by Direct Debit, the commission will be taken out of your account automatically.
You will pay commission on confirmed stays after the guest has checked out and paid. But what if a guest doesn’t arrive for their booking? Then you won’t need to pay a commission if you choose to waive the fee. You should also make sure you mark the reservation as a no-show either in the Extranet or on the Pulse app.
But keep in mind that the commission will be charged on non-refundable bookings, no matter whether the guests stayed at your property or not.
Booking.com fees can significantly affect your earnings as a host, but you can minimize their impact by optimizing your pricing strategy and encouraging repeat direct bookings. The easiest way to get your pricing right and maximize income from every stay is to use a dynamic pricing tool that will automatically adjust your rates based on real-time market conditions.
The good news is that if you opt for Hospitable, you’ll be able to take advantage of our built-in Dynamic Pricing. This feature is included in the Host, Professional, and Mogul pricing plans at no extra cost, saving you money on third-party pricing tools. If you enable this feature for your property, Hospitable’s pricing engine will automatically adjust your rates based on demand, competition, and seasonality to maximize revenue and occupancy.
How Can I Handle Guest Payments?
Perhaps it’s the most critical question to ask when listing your property. Unlike Airbnb, Booking.com doesn’t always charge your guests, so you may have to do it yourself. You can choose your policies and payment options. If you don’t accept credit cards, your guests will pay on arrival or departure in your local currency.
And if you accept credit cards, you can either charge your guests before arrival or at check-in/checkout, depending on the policy they booked under. Besides, you can charge a prepayment on the card the guest booked with by setting up prepayment in the Policies section of the Property tab in the Extranet. You can also set up a payment processor, such as Stripe or Square.
It’s possible to charge a prepayment deposit even if you don’t accept credit cards. You’ll need to decide on the payment deadline and contact your guest to arrange the payment.
Now, Booking.com can also handle guest payments for you for a small fee. But this secure payment service is not yet available everywhere. By choosing to use Payments by Booking.com, you’re guaranteed payouts by virtual credit card or bank transfer according to your policy, and you won’t have to deal with fraudulent online bookings.
If you’re eligible for Payments by Booking.com, you can give your guests access to a variety of trusted local and global payment methods as well as the ability to choose when and in which currency they want to pay. To activate this feature, click the Finance icon on Extranet, click on Payments by Booking.com, and then click Sign up.
You can set up cleaning fees and damage deposits in the Policies section by navigating to Additional fees & charges. Remember that Booking.com gives you more flexibility when adding additional fees than Airbnb.
What Happens if a Guest Damages My Property?
As a property owner, you can request damage deposits from your guests. Deposits can help cover any potential damage that guests might cause, so you can be sure that your property will be treated respectfully. And if anything does go wrong, you can report it to the Booking.com team through the platform’s misconduct reporting feature.
To set up the damage deposit feature, select “Policies” under the Property icon on the Extranet, and click Edit in the Damage policy option box. You’ll be redirected to another page, where you need to select Yes under Do your guests pay a damage deposit? Follow the instructions to set your damage deposit.
Hospitable users can opt in to set up a fully automated security deposit workflow, currently available on Airbnb, Booking.com, and direct booking websites.
How to Set Up Cancellation Policies
You have an opportunity to create your own cancellation policies on Booking.com. This way, you can let guests know what to expect if they cancel or change their booking. Moreover, you’ll be able to protect yourself from a potential loss of income.
Here is how you can create a new cancellation policy.
Click on the Property tab in the Extranet and choose Reservation policies.
Click Create a new cancellation policy.
Select whether you want to offer a free cancellation period, and if so, specify how long before arrival guests can cancel for free.
Specify how much you’ll charge guests if they no-show or cancel after the free cancellation period (or if there’s no free cancellation period).
When you are done, click Save.
If you like, you can set cancellation policies on Booking.com to be the same as the existing Airbnb options. Or you can make them even stricter; for example, you can set up a non-refundable policy. And you may offer a discount (e.g., 15%) on your prices to encourage guests to book reservations with non-refundable policies.
But remember that you need to connect your policy to your rate category. You can do this by going to the Rates and Availability tab, selecting Rate Plans, and then clicking on Edit under the rate you want to attach the new cancellation policy to.
Can I Cancel a Reservation?
Yes, you can. But you should keep in mind that although Booking.com makes it easy for guests to cancel, the platform only allows hosts to cancel a reservation in specific circumstances. Confirmed bookings are legal agreements, and hosts are required to avoid cancellations.
Still, hosts might be able to initiate a cancellation if one of the following issues arises:
No-show—if the guest didn’t arrive, you can mark the reservation as no-show in the Extranet.
Invalid credit card—if you’re unable to charge the guest’s credit card, you can mark the card invalid in the Extranet.
No deposit/prepayment received—If you accept credit cards but are unable to charge a guest’s card for prepayment, you can mark the credit card as invalid. If the guest doesn’t complete payment within 24 hours, you can cancel the booking yourself.
Guest requests cancellation—if a guest asks you to cancel a booking on their behalf, you can send a cancellation request using the Request to cancel reservation option.
It’s also important to remember that in case of double bookings/overbookings, you need to contact the Booking.com Customer Service team for help managing the situation.
What Happens if a Guest Cancels?
If a guest cancels a reservation and your property has a free cancellation policy, then the guest will pay nothing, and you won’t pay commission. But if your property doesn’t have a free cancellation policy, the guest will pay a fee, and you will earn a commission on the amount the guest pays you.
How to Avoid Double Bookings
It’s crucial to have accurate availabilities and rates on Booking.com because otherwise, you may get an overbooking. That happens when more than one guest confirms a reservation for the same room for the same date. Then it’s your responsibility to resolve this problem. So what should you do?
The easiest way is to accommodate your guest in another of your rooms. And if it’s not possible, you must find accommodation nearby that’s of a similar or better standard. You are also expected to provide private transport to the new accommodation, cover the cost of phone calls, and the cost difference between your property and the alternative one.
As you see, it may be expensive, so you should always keep an eye on your rates and availability. If you list your property on several platforms and receive a booking via another website, you need to close or adjust your availability on Booking.com. You can do it manually, and Booking.com recommends hosts who work with many other platforms use a channel manager like Hospitable to manage their calendars. With Hospitable, you can keep calendars, pricing, and availability synced across every connected channel and prevent double bookings.
What Are Smart Flex Reservations and How Do They Work?
Booking.com’s Smart Flex Reservation program was developed to give travelers more flexibility and help hosts generate bookings and reservations they might not get otherwise, and maximize their earnings with minimal risk.
The platform offers travelers extra-flexible cancellation options on your behalf, so your listing appears alongside other properties that offer free cancellation. If a guest books and then cancels, they’ll look for a replacement guest for you. If they can't find a replacement guest, they compensate you for these nights.
As partners of Booking.com, hosts are automatically enrolled in the Smart Flex Reservations program, unless their properties are in mainland France, French Guiana, Mayotte, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, or Réunion.
If the Smart Flex Reservation program doesn’t fit you, you can also opt out of it at any time. You just have to log in to the Booking.com Extranet, click on Boost performance, and then select the Smart Flex Reservations program. Select the Leave this program option and fill in the short survey.
