When guests make a reservation through different OTA channels, such as Airbnb, Booking.com, or VRBO, most channels cannot or do not share the complete guest or buyer details with you for use with external payment processors or for generating invoices.
For this reason, your Hostaway account allows you to request that guests complete their billing details through the Guest Portal when needed, if any details are missing.
The reservation-specific Guest Portal will show guests that some details are missing and allow them to complete them. Alternatively, guests can be asked to complete the required details through a direct link.
Once provided, these details are used to update your connected payment provider and any draft invoice for the guest's reservation.
The Buyer's Details Form
The guest buyer's details form will pre-populate fields with the details originally collected from the OTA channel. From there, the guest can provide their own details as the main buyer and, therefore, the person who should be invoiced.
If the guest is not the one paying for the reservation, but their company is, they can deselect the option "Use same details for billing" and provide the relevant company or other official details for the invoice.
Automate the request asking the guest to update the buyer's billing details
With the automated guest messaging system, you can automatically send a thank-you-for-booking message to the guest.
In the template, you can use the system’s quick links to automatically populate the link, redirecting the guest either to the Guest Portal in general or directly to the form:
- Add the quick field {{guest_portal_url}} to the template to redirect the guest to the main page.
- Or add the direct link with {{guest_portal_url}}/billing-details to direct the guest to the form directly.
FAQs
Why does it ask for identity ID numbers?
Government invoicing and e-invoicing regulations may require sellers to collect this information. At this time, we recommend collecting these two fields from the buyer.
When the guest provides these details, does it update their main guest details?
No, not at this time. Hostaway is currently reviewing this option. Since many OTAs may update the main guest details for a reservation on their end, there is a risk that these details could later be overwritten or removed. For this reason, the buyer’s details are collected separately.
What is the difference between this and the details collected through Check-in?
In most cases, the check-in form is only made available to guests a certain number of days before check-in. However, buyer details are often needed immediately after the booking is made, so we have decided to keep these requests separate for now.
What other benefits does it have besides invoice data?
In many cases, you can use a PSP, such as Stripe, to collect payments and upsells directly from guests. PSPs may also require the buyer’s billing name, address, ZIP code, country, and other details to validate payments. Asking guests to provide a complete set of details on time helps reduce failed payments and lowers the risk of losing dispute cases.