**NEW POLICY** - Deposits required for Peak Period & advance bookings
12/02/2016 13:40
To all our valued clients:
Unfortunately we have had to introduce a deposit requirement for peak period bookings and bookings made over 6 months in advance.
We had a LOT of people simply not show up for Christmas/NYE in 2015 (10 owners with 12 dogs for Christmas alone), and the preceding Easter and Christmas as well. All of these people are also existing customers (we don't take new customers over peak periods, no matter how lucrative the booking is) who know how busy we get and whom we thought would be more considerate of us and each other. We have always had a few no-shows, but prior to us adopting a deposit policy it was becoming quite a problem. There was an increase in the number of advance bookings (over 3 months) not showing up and not cancelling as well.
We also found that for Christmas 2017 (the second year of the deposits policy) a lot of people who booked early only did so to make sure they had a spot here IF they decided to go away, and the small booking fee we charged at the time seemed like permission to not contact us and not a lot of money to lose. We noted as well that people often booked early in the year for 4 to 6 weeks and then changed their booking very late in the year to 7 to 10 days, just to make sure they had covered the dates when they MIGHT need to use our services.
Because of this we have decided that no Christmas or Easter bookings, and nothing more than 3 months in advance, will be accepted until we receive a booking fee, which will be fully refunded if we get at least 2 weeks’ notice of cancellation (to provide an incentive to remember), the exception being the booking fee for Christmas bookings made before September 1st, and Easter bookings made before February 1st, will be 50% of the booking total and is NOT refundable.
The booking fee for Christmas bookings made AFTER September 1st and Easter bookings made after February 1st will be around $60 per dog and is refundable in the event of plans changing. In all cases the entire booking period will be invoiced even if the booking is shortened. This not an attempt to gouge anyone (if I wanted to make more money for peak periods I would increase my charges for these periods), we just want people to actually have plans in place to go away rather than taking us for granted and shutting out our other customers by booking places that they don’t end up using. I hope you understand. This also applies for any booking more than 3 months in advance.