1. Terms & Conditions overview:
· Terms & Conditions for direct bookings are a set of rules and policies that guests must acknowledge and agree to before making a reservation through your booking engine. They outline the expectations, responsibilities, and policies of both the accommodation provider and the guest.
· Key features:
· Designed for the Booking Engine, allowing properties to tailor terms and conditions to their unique needs and policies, ensuring full flexibility and control over what guests are required to agree to before booking directly
· Protects the property against disputes related to cancellations, no-shows, damages, or non-compliance with property policies
· Ensures guest transparency, requiring guests to acknowledge all policies before confirming their reservation – minimizing; the likelihood of misunderstandings upon arrival
· Customisable to your property's needs, allowing accommodation providers to tailor their terms to reflect their specific cancellation policies, house rules, payment conditions, and other property-specific requirements
· Displayed at the point of booking, ensuring guests have full visibility of all conditions before completing their reservation rather than discovering them after the fact
· Included in the booking confirmation email, ensures guests have a record of the agreed terms and conditions to refer back to at any time prior to or during their stay
2. Step-by-step: Create your Terms & Conditions
· Creating your Terms & Conditions, ensuring this is available before your first booking is made and available for the customer
· Step 1 - Navigate to Property policies
· Login to extranet > Property Profile > Property policies > scroll down to ‘Terms & Conditions’
· Select display option – URL or Text
o URL: If you have a link that includes all your Terms & Conditions, commonly used by groups where the Terms & Conditions are the same across the all properties
o Text: Allows you to input your Terms & Conditions, and will be displayed in text format on the Booking engine and confirmation email
· SAVE
3. Step-by-step: Edit your Terms & Conditions
· Similar process to setup – except you edit your existing Terms & Conditions
· Step 1 - Navigate to Property policies
· Login to extranet > Property Profile > Property policies > scroll down to ‘Terms & Conditions’
· Make your required changes to Terms & Conditions
· SAVE
4. Booking Engine display
· The Terms & Conditions are presented as a simple hyperlink, located on the booking summary page directly by the confirm booking button.
· Positioned as the last item the guest sees before finalising their bookings, this gives them a final opportunity to review the property's policies – this keeps the booking process clear, transparent, and seamless.
· Guests can also view on the booking grid, accessible via a hyperlink located within the property details section
5. Confirmed booking display (Booking confirmation email)
· Once a booking is confirmed, the terms and conditions are also displayed within the confirmation email, located below the booking details in a dedicated Terms & Conditions section — giving guests a clear and accessible record of the agreed policies for future reference.
· Applies to both SwiftBook bookings and bookings made within Channel manager (CRS)