Australian hotels and motels are still open, though only for the accommodation aspect of the business – and many smaller operators are keen for guests to pay them directly, rather than through big offshore OTAs. It all helps.
Australians should immediately reconsider all non-essential domestic travel, Prime Minister Scott Morrison says.
Still, some people are still travelling, because they have to. Some OTAs want clients to pre-pay them. All operators are being hit hard by coronavirus slowdowns and lockdowns.
Booking.com recently changed the activation date of all the outstanding and future Virtual Credit Cards that it issues partner hoteliers. It is declaring Force Majeure in some circumstances. It sent properties the following:
Dear Partner,
As a result of the unprecedented levels of disruption caused by the Coronavirus, many guests are unable to travel to or stay at accommodations located in multiple areas in the world. We can also expect that in the coming weeks and months there are going to be more locations impacted to a similar extent, though it is impossible for anyone to predict exactly where or when.
At Booking.com, the safety of our customers, partners and employees is our highest priority, and we continue to closely monitor all global developments. As a result of official travel advice about the Coronavirus, we will declare Force Majeure according to our General Delivery Terms (GDTs) for impacted countries or areas.
Payments by Booking
In this situation, for payments facilitated by Booking.com, we refund guests who cancel their reservations. In turn, you are required to refund the money to the virtual credit card payout you receive from us.
The ongoing and unusual circumstances create many uncertainties for customers, resulting in high volumes of cancellations. We appreciate that managing these cancellations and refunds – very often within a short time frame – can create a high operational workload on your side. It could also lead to a situation where you charge virtual credit cards in situations where Force Majeure may apply.
That is why we have decided to change the activation date of all outstanding and future Virtual Credit Cards (VCC) to one day after check-in, with immediate effect.
How does this change impact me?
For reservations that are NOT subject to Force Majeure, the following applies.
- If guests honour the reservation and stay at your property, you can charge the virtual credit card one day after check-in date.
- Should guests cancel their reservation after the deadline or do not show up, you are also able to charge the virtual credit card one day after the original check-in date.
- For reservations that are subject to Force Majeure, guests will be allowed to cancel for free. In that case you will not charge the virtual credit card.
- For all virtual credit cards with reservations made in the past, we will collectively change the activation date into ‘the day after check-in’.
Today and tomorrow, you may experience some temporary disruptions when charging your virtual credit cards, which is related to the change we are implementing, as outlined above.
We will continuously monitor global developments and provide you with information in case of changes. We know that these are very unusual times for all of us and we hope we can count on your understanding.
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why anyone would prepay a foreign ‘booking agent ‘ when you only have to give the accommodation place your same card which wont be used until arrival beats me .. These companies ‘take’ BILLIONS of dollars in commission and with the current total wipeout of bookings -just how long can they last ???? Do accommodation ‘partners ‘ have any protection in the case of prepayment other than a virtual credit card which may or may not be funded on the day . Like all other tourist reliant businesses they are going to be decimated we need to look closely at the finances of these organisation in their tax free domains and their huge inflated payrolls
just Bookings.com alone in 2018 , the latest figure i can find , took [earned ] 14.5 BILLION YES BILLION – thats in US dollars – in commissions from the travel /accommodation industry – that is $40 million [US Dollars ] PER DAY – yes every day – and you have Expedia and air bnb on top of that wow !! Just saying these are huge amounts of money that are going into tax free areas