I’m also pleased to report we’ve been extremely busy here, with the number of bookings processed up 50% from the same time last year. Long may it continue.
So, what’s new in 2016?
Responsive Forms Make For Easy Peasy Mobile
In January, we added a new set of responsive forms to the system. You can now publish these and have total confidence in your mobile friendly websites. Analysis suggests 50% of holiday bookings are now being made on mobile devices, so it’s more important than ever to make sure yours is fully compliant.
New Payment Methods
By popular demand, we have now added Stripe and ePDQ from Barclaycard to the supported payment methods. We now support cash, cheques, bank transfers, offline card payments, PayPal, Stripe, Secure Hosting, Cardsave, WorldPay, SagePay and ePDQ.
Holiday Pricing/One Off Pricing
We’ve always thought we had a good selection of pricing options which allowed us to replicate the vast majority of pricing models used by agents and holiday let owners. The one thing we lacked was a solution for holiday periods which don’t conform to the normal pricing models, such as when Christmas Day falls on a Saturday (which is often the standard changeover day).
I’m pleased to say we’ve now resolved this! We’ve introduced a new option called “Holiday Pricing”. These periods differ from the normal availability and pricing periods in that they are standalone periods with a fixed price. You simply enter the arrival and departure dates and then the price for this period. Simples as our little cute friends would say! Available in Pro and Agent accounts only.
Agent Account – Property Grouping
We’ve had a number of Agent requests to allow properties to be grouped. As we’re always keen to please, this has now been added. One now has the ability to add custom groups and then assign any number of properties to these groups. This might be by the number of bedrooms or even a particular location where you have a number of properties. You can then publish a search, or booking form purely for that group of properties. Agent version only.
Occupancy Dependent Pricing
What we’ve done here is to allow you to specify a base price for your holiday let and the number of people (adults or children) that this price includes. You can then add additional charges should more people wish to stay. Some owners prefer to advertise this way as it keeps the headline price down.
Occupancy Dependent Pricing is set up in the Property section of Bookalet and is avalable in the Pro and Agent accounts only.
That’s all for now folks.
Good luck with your businesses this coming season; we hope those calendars are filling up fast.
As always, if you have any suggestions on how we can improve things, please get in contact.
Best, Ross
So, what’s new in 2016?
Responsive Forms Make For Easy Peasy Mobile
In January, we added a new set of responsive forms to the system. You can now publish these and have total confidence in your mobile friendly websites. Analysis suggests 50% of holiday bookings are now being made on mobile devices, so it’s more important than ever to make sure yours is fully compliant.
New Payment Methods
By popular demand, we have now added Stripe and ePDQ from Barclaycard to the supported payment methods. We now support cash, cheques, bank transfers, offline card payments, PayPal, Stripe, Secure Hosting, Cardsave, WorldPay, SagePay and ePDQ.
Holiday Pricing/One Off Pricing
We’ve always thought we had a good selection of pricing options which allowed us to replicate the vast majority of pricing models used by agents and holiday let owners. The one thing we lacked was a solution for holiday periods which don’t conform to the normal pricing models, such as when Christmas Day falls on a Saturday (which is often the standard changeover day).
I’m pleased to say we’ve now resolved this! We’ve introduced a new option called “Holiday Pricing”. These periods differ from the normal availability and pricing periods in that they are standalone periods with a fixed price. You simply enter the arrival and departure dates and then the price for this period. Simples as our little cute friends would say! Available in Pro and Agent accounts only.
Agent Account – Property Grouping
We’ve had a number of Agent requests to allow properties to be grouped. As we’re always keen to please, this has now been added. One now has the ability to add custom groups and then assign any number of properties to these groups. This might be by the number of bedrooms or even a particular location where you have a number of properties. You can then publish a search, or booking form purely for that group of properties. Agent version only.
Occupancy Dependent Pricing
What we’ve done here is to allow you to specify a base price for your holiday let and the number of people (adults or children) that this price includes. You can then add additional charges should more people wish to stay. Some owners prefer to advertise this way as it keeps the headline price down.
Occupancy Dependent Pricing is set up in the Property section of Bookalet and is avalable in the Pro and Agent accounts only.
That’s all for now folks.
Good luck with your businesses this coming season; we hope those calendars are filling up fast.
As always, if you have any suggestions on how we can improve things, please get in contact.
Best, Ross
