Hello Community! I am having a hard time understanding the difference between optional and inquired reservations. If a potential guest decides to book an inquiry, how do I know that it has been booked? Should I send optional quotes instead? Should I follow up with guests I have sent an inquiry quote too? If guest confirm optional quotes, how do they show up in the reporting? Please Help! Thank you.
Solved
Inquired vs. Optional
Best answer by MatthiasH
Hi
Great question. The biggest difference between both is that with optional, availability is used for an optional booking (visible reservation). With inquired, no availability is blocked. You’re just sending an informative price.
Mews’ explaination can be found here, although it’s not entirely correct.
Both the inquired and optional reservations can be confirmed (or cancelled) by the guest, without the need to enter a credit card. There is also no notification if the reservation is confirmed by the guest. So, the only way to be sure is to follow up manually (create a task). In our opion, this makes the entire system of having optional reservations useless. Especially, because the guest can confirm a reservation without the need to enter a credit card…
I believe that Mews is well aware of this issue, although it’s not one of the higher priorities currently.
+3Hi
Great question. The biggest difference between both is that with optional, availability is used for an optional booking (visible reservation). With inquired, no availability is blocked. You’re just sending an informative price.
Mews’ explaination can be found here, although it’s not entirely correct.
Both the inquired and optional reservations can be confirmed (or cancelled) by the guest, without the need to enter a credit card. There is also no notification if the reservation is confirmed by the guest. So, the only way to be sure is to follow up manually (create a task). In our opion, this makes the entire system of having optional reservations useless. Especially, because the guest can confirm a reservation without the need to enter a credit card…
I believe that Mews is well aware of this issue, although it’s not one of the higher priorities currently.
+1- Mews Employee
Hello
thank you for opening up this discussion. ⚡
What
If I get any update on this, I will for sure let you know! 🙌🏽
+1- Mews Employee
Hello
I just wanted to update you, that I had a meeting with our product managers and I brought this one up.
We discussed it and agreed this is something we should implement, so they did write it down as a feature we should put on our roadmap.
This being said I don´t know at all when this might happen, but for sure we took one step closer 😉 🕺🏻
Thank you
I hope it is not overkill to note I 110% agree that the current concept that underpins the “Optional” reservation circumvents the entire concept behind “Confirmation”.
What I find more worrying is, how could such a major design flaw go this long without being addressed?
How can this be considered as a “Feature” and not a “Bug”?
Either way, thank you for advancing it!
Ethan
+3Thank you for the update
As
The feature request was created on March 26, 2021 and marked as to upvote on December 17, 2021.
This means that the product team was aware of this for more than 2 years without any action… I hope this is now a top priority and not something we’ll have the wait for 2 more years...
I'm still perplexed as to why this is considered a "Feature"; it seems more like a necessary, yet basic, procedure, don't you think?
+3This is the absolute basic of any PMS / Booking module.
- Mews Employee
Hi
I wanted to weigh in here and suggest a workaround in the meantime that will allow you to spot confirmed optional bookings immediately and reach out to the guest for payment.
When you create an optional reservation, use a rate that belongs to a rate group with the following options:
(1) automatically take payment upon confirmation.
(2) “create settlement task” if payment fails.
When the guest confirms your optional booking, Mews will try to take payment. If there is no card on file, the system will automatically create a settlement task on your dashboard - “please take payment for booking ABC”. You can then reach out to the guest for payment using the payment request feature in the guest profile. It’s not a solution but it gives you control over those optional bookings once they’re confirmed.
The feature 🎁 label simply means that it doesn’t exist yet, as opposed to a bug 🐛 which is something in the system that doesn’t work as intended. It in no way means it isn’t being prioritised, nor does the creation date on the feature request platform. Not only does it take time for those requests to gather steam after creation, but we also have no system for communicating progress through that platform once we start working on it. It’s part of the reason we created this community platform and still something we want to improve in the future for sure!
Hope this helps! 🕺🏼
+3Hi
I wanted to weigh in here and suggest a workaround in the meantime that will allow you to spot confirmed optional bookings immediately and reach out to the guest for payment.
When you create an optional reservation, use a rate that belongs to a rate group with the following options:
(1) automatically take payment upon confirmation.
(2) “create settlement task” if payment fails.
When the guest confirms your optional booking, Mews will try to take payment. If there is no card on file, the system will automatically create a settlement task on your dashboard - “please take payment for booking ABC”. You can then reach out to the guest for payment using the payment request feature in the guest profile. It’s not a solution but it gives you control over those optional bookings once they’re confirmed.
The feature 🎁 label simply means that it doesn’t exist yet, as opposed to a bug 🐛 which is something in the system that doesn’t work as intended. It in no way means it isn’t being prioritised, nor does the creation date on the feature request platform. Not only does it take time for those requests to gather steam after creation, but we also have no system for communicating progress through that platform once we start working on it. It’s part of the reason we created this community platform and still something we want to improve in the future for sure!
Hope this helps! 🕺🏼
Hi
Thank you for proposing this work-around.
However, this only works for non-refundable rates where the guest pays immediately. If a flexible rate is booked, where payment is not yet due, the reservation will be confirmed without any notification to the reservations team. We do hope that this is something which will be implemented soon!
Tech savvy hospitality enthusiast who is excited about the future of hospitality
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