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Online rebooking

29/10/2022

The customers can rebook their bookings online without having to contact me, thus making the process quicker and more efficient. They can choose a different date and time for the same activity, or opt to rebook for one of my other offerings.

Is online rebooking right for you?

We highly recommend this time-saving feature if:

  • You manually reschedule customers multiple times per day or week
  • You have limited staff and want to reduce back-and-forth communication with your customers
  • You want to give your customers more self-service options after they book

Keep the following scenarios in mind, when determining the suitability of this feature for your business:

  • You receive a large percentage of affiliate bookings. Bookings made by an affiliate aren't eligible for online rebooking, but your direct and online bookings are.
  • You mostly take cash or other custom payment types. Online rebooking will only be an option for customers who have paid in full with a credit card.
  • You have deposits and/or payment links enabled. To ensure the best experience for your customers, right now we only support online rebooking for bookings with complete payments. This means you won't be able to have deposits or payment links enabled at the same time. If you feel that online rebooking better fits your business needs, reach out to FareHarbor Support so we can help disable certain features to make this work for you.

Prerequisites

The rules in your cancellation policy also apply to online rebooking. For example, if cancellation is allowed up to 24 hours before the availability start time, online rebooking will also be allowed up to 24 hours before the availability start time.

  • The default cancellation/rebooking window allows changes up to 48 hours before the availability start time.
  • You can edit your default cancellation policy or add a new one if you want to apply different policies to different items.
  • Your cancellation policy must be applied to the correct item(s).
  • If an item doesn't have a designated cancellation policy, it will use the Dashboard's default cancellation policy.

How it work

In order for a customer to rebook online, you'll need to take the following steps:

  1. Open the confirmation email you received after making the original booking.

  2. Click the Change booking link:

  3. Browse for a different availability for the same item (as shown below), or search for another activity.

  4. Choose the new availability, number of tickets, and any other requirements, and select Complete your booking.

Accounting for price differences

If the price of the new booking is the same as the original price (for example, when just rebooking for another availability for the same item), the customer will receive a new booking confirmation email and no further action is required.

If the price of the new booking is less than the original price, the refund amount is prorated and automatically refunded, provided there are sufficient funds in your Refund Reserve to cover the refund amount. The customer will see the following message and receive an email confirming the amount of the refund:

Note: Booking fees from the original booking are not refunded or prorated, as this is not a complete cancellation or complete refund.

If the price of the new booking is more than the original price, the customer pays the additional amount, plus the booking fee on the difference.

For example, let's say the original booking was 100€, plus a booking fee of 6.00€, for a total of 106€. If the new booking's subtotal is 150€, the customer pays 50€ plus the booking fee on the 50€, for a total of 53.00€ due.

Can a customer rebook to a different item?

Yes, they can click on the Home button which will take them to your default booking flow, where they can choose a different item.

How does online rebooking work with price schedules?

If you have price schedules that apply different pricing depending on the season or time of the week, FareHarbor will always honor the "effective online price sheet" of the new availability. This means that any price schedule relevant to the new availability will be applied.

How does transportation work with rebooking?

For the same routes and same items, transportation choices will also be applied to the rebooking. In case of different routes or different availabilities, customers will need to select transportation options again.