Everyone who at least once traveled outside their city or country for business or pleasure, faced the need to reserve a room in a hotel or holiday home. But few people know that there are several types of booking, each of which has its own characteristics, pros and cons.
What is a booking
Booking is a way of assigning a hotel or holiday home room to clients at their request. During the booking process, you will need to clearly define the length of stay, the number of people for which the room is reserved, the type of room and its price.
- The length of stay, regardless of the type of booking, is counted from the nights spent in the room.
- When taking into account the number of people for whom a place is reserved, it should be said whether there is a child among them, as sometimes they stay for free or they are given a solid discount.
- When choosing the type of room or room, you need to agree in advance on all the required amenities and the view from the window, which for some travelers is decisive, sohow they want to see only beautiful scenery.
- Separately, the price of a room should be clarified, which can be reduced by several percent due to a trip on a hot ticket or for any other reason.
Performing booking operations
Before we start figuring out how to apply for room reservations, let's figure out exactly who is responsible for performing such operations. So, there are three types of booking systems that allow tourists to secure a number:
- The central reservation system unites all the hotels in the region into one network, and the tourist can simply call a free phone number to find out about the availability of rooms in several hotels at once, and then choose the most suitable one.
- Inter-hotel agencies are also the link between several hotels and can easily connect a tourist or a travel agency with a suitable hotel.
- Booking at the hotel itself is the most common way to reserve rooms, as it does not involve an intermediary and makes it possible to directly place a reservation on the desired room.
How to book?
There are three main types of booking requests that will allow travelers to secure a hotel or holiday home:
- Reserving a room by phone is as easy as shelling pears. It will be enough to call, clarify all the necessary details and order yourselfroom. However, here you will not be able to get any confirmation that the place of residence is assigned to you, and besides, when booking a room in another country, misunderstandings may arise due to ignorance of the language.
- You can send a request to the desired hotel by e-mail, in which you will ask to reserve a certain room for yourself. However, in this case, it is possible that the hotel's response service may not work quickly enough and you simply will not have time to reserve a place before the right time.
- The online service on the site allows you to quickly find out about the availability of rooms in the hotel on a certain date, independently reserve a room for yourself and immediately pay for it with a bank card. True, all this happens automatically, so in such cases it will not be possible to clarify all the nuances you are interested in and there is a possibility of a technical failure in the system.
Main types of booking
There are three main types of number reservation, two of which are widespread in our country, and the third is only valid abroad.
- Guaranteed booking means that the hotel room will be kept free until the client arrives to check in. Thus, the tourist does not have strict time limits, and he can not rush to move in, so as not to be left without housing. True, if he has a force majeure, because of which he refuses the number, then he will have to reimburse the costs.
- Unguaranteedthe reservation assumes that the hotel room will be kept free only until 18.00, and if the client does not check in by that time, the reservation is automatically canceled.
- Double booking involves reserving an already previously booked room. That is, if a client wants to settle in a certain hotel, but there are no places there, he can still make a reservation in the hope that the one who previously booked the room will refuse it.
A type of guaranteed room reservation
In addition, there are several types of guaranteed reservations, each of which is widespread in our area:
- Prepayment bank transfer is carried out a certain time before the client's arrival at the hotel. It can vary from a few days to a couple of weeks depending on the policy of the hotel.
- Credit Card Guarantees include cancellation of pen alty for not arriving at the hotel by the appointed date without prior cancellation of the reservation. In this case, the hotel can issue an invoice to the tourist's credit card, and after a while the bank will withdraw this amount from the credit card and transfer it to the hotel's account.
- Making a deposit involves making a certain amount of money at the hotel cash desk. This amount can then be refunded to the customer if they cancel the booking, or rescheduled if the arrival date changes.
- Another type of booking involves guaranteeing the arrival of a tourist by a company, for which an agreement is concluded between the hotel and the travel agency sending thereyour tourist. In this case, all costs for the guest's no-show are borne by the agency.
- The use of a travel voucher implies full payment for the room and all services by the tourist to the travel agency. In this case, the price of the room will be higher for the tourist than if he directly booked a hotel room.
Non-guaranteed room reservation
Separately, we should mention this type of room reservation as non-guaranteed, because it has a certain advantage over guaranteed reservation. Indeed, for this type, you do not need to make any confirmation of your reservation - make an advance payment, name a credit card number, give any other personal data. It will be enough just to book a room in a certain name and indicate the date of the reservation, and then calmly check in before 12.00 on that day. If you do not have time to arrive at the hotel by this time, then the reservation automatically flies, and the hotel has the right to transfer the room to another client. But if there are no other clients, and then you arrive at the hotel, you can easily check into the selected room.
Documentary proof of booking
When booking rooms by a tourist or travel company, the hotel enters into a special agreement with them. There are several types of booking contracts:
- a hotel lease agreement allows the travel agency to decide for a certain rent how to accommodate their tourists there and play the role of a hotelier for them;
- commitment agreement makes it possiblea travel agency to accommodate tourists in hotel rooms, trying to fill 30-80% of the rooms with them, because of which the price of a room for a tourist can be reduced;
- Elotment agreement does not oblige the travel agency to fill the hotel with its guests, which is not beneficial for the hotel, which means that the price of a room for a tourist will be the same as if he booked a hotel room on his own;
- an irrevocable booking agreement forces the travel agent to ensure that the hotel is fully booked with full payment for the redeemed places, which is why there is a possibility of huge discounts on hotel reservations for tourists;
- The current booking agreement assumes the usual booking of a room and its payment in case of availability.
Payment for booking
After choosing the type and method of booking and receiving a confirmation of the reservation, you can begin to select the type of payment for the booked room. You can do this with:
- cash, which is paid at the bank, the hotel itself or at the office of the reservation system, where you will be given a receipt confirming payment for the room you have chosen;
- transfer funds from your current account to the account of the hotel or office that handles the booking;
- of the bank card from which you transfer your funds to the hotel account via the Internet service;
- electronic payment systems that will allow you to transfer money from the "WebMoney" or "Yandex. Money" service through a special program or terminal.
Group room bookings
Special mention should be made of this type of booking of rooms in a hotel, as a group, when several rooms are reserved at once for a tourist group or participants in a conference or meeting. Most often, in this case, the travel agency and the conference organizer handle the reservation of the rooms, so that the tourists will not need to do anything. It will be enough to pay the money to the organizer of the event and to arrive at the meeting place on time. And the one responsible for the rest or conference will have to establish close business relationships with the hotel service, so that customers are allocated comfortable rooms, meals and transfers. They also resolve any issues that arise and can cancel a booking if a person cancels a trip or the hotel is unable to fulfill all the conditions of the event organizers.
Cancellation Types
However, sometimes it turns out that the trip is canceled or there is a better accommodation option than the booked room. In this case, the tourist has the right to refuse the reservation, and there are several options for such cancellation of the reserved room at once.
- Cancellation of a non-guaranteed reservation involves the usual cancellation of a reservation by phone and does not imply any consequences for the tourist.
- Canceling a booking with a deposit implies that the traveler will then be able to collect the deposited money or part of it if they cancel the reservation in advance.
- Canceling a booking that was guaranteed by a credit card implies that the traveler will then be charged a certain amount in the event of cancellationarmor.
Refused settlement
Regardless of the technology and type of booking you have chosen, it may happen that upon arrival at the reserved hotel there may not be available rooms.
This may be caused by some force majeure or a failure in the system, and then in the case of a guaranteed booking made by a tourist, the hotel is obliged to place customers in another hotel of equal quality, pay him for the night spent in this hotel, and also give the opportunity to make a phone call so that the traveler can announce his new place of residence. Moreover, if the client should be relocated to another hotel, then the head of the hotel reception service must come to him, apologize and tell him about the reason for the relocation. But if the tourist does not want to stay in another hotel for more than a day, after that he must be transported free of charge to the originally reserved hotel.
In the case of a non-guaranteed or double booking, the hotel refuses to check in, all the risks are borne by the tourist, who will simply have to look for a new hotel.
