Cup and Pillow--The Bed & Breakfast List.com

[readspear]

Hi Everyone,
I saw your postings here and thought I'd get in and clear things up for you. Cup & Pillow is my company. I have a partner named Robert Seiling. We are not running a scam, we are doing business the way it should be done. The reason why we required credit card verification was because we want to keep your temporary listings as locked down as possible until such time as you register and update your listing. This prevents the kind of abuse we fear could happen otherwise (kids logging on and claiming to be the property owner when they are not, posting unwanted edits, etc.). Most people were just fine with the credit card process, but a few people were suspicious so we changed our verification process. We now simply log email and IP addresses and monitor content.
What's the free listing and why are we doing it? We offer two levels of membership, one which is free of charge and which we call a Courtesy Membership, the other is a Preferred Membership and it allows you to post your website address, a link to your email (using a form submission to protect you from spam crawlers), and the ability to take real-time bookings (or not) and use our Bid-A-Bed feature which allows you to set a reserve price and acquire last-minute reservations. You can read about all of our features on the site. The reason why we offer a free listing is because with a large number of members, whether they ultimately upgrade or not, everyone benefits. You don't need me to tell you about B&B occupancy rates. The only way you can compete with the big players in the hospitality industry is by establishing your corner of the internet where finding a B&B is just as easy as finding a hotel, so absolute numbers mean a lot. Though some folks here sound skeptical because we are new, we are adding members quickly.

Cheers,
Read Spear Founding Partner
CupandPillow.com.

Hi Read!
My inn was listed a couple of days ago and now it's gone. I got the postcard so it must have been listed for the postcard to be sent. Any ideas what might have happened?
.

Hi Bree,
I think I know what happened (this is usually an entry error with the state abbreviation, so the listing may have "moved" to the wrong state), but to be sure I will need a little more information: what is the name of your inn? If you don't want to post this information you may contact me directly at [email protected]. Thanks!
Read
.

Hi Bree,
I think I know what happened (this is usually an entry error with the state abbreviation, so the listing may have "moved" to the wrong state), but to be sure I will need a little more information: what is the name of your inn? If you don't want to post this information you may contact me directly at [email protected]. Thanks!
Read

Hi Read!
OK, just tried to create an account 3 separate times and got 3 separate 'Security Code Incorrect' messages. Any ides on that?
.

Bree,
A couple of things are happening: 1) you already have an account. Your listing is here: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/detail/inn/innId/9665
2) You can see that the city has been accidentally omitted from your listing. You should enter that and that should add Port Clyde to the searchable cities in ME.
3) The "Security Code Incorrect" message means that the CAPTCHA code was entered incorrectly--that's the code in the box. It is not case sensitive, but it can sometimes be difficult to tell the i's, L's and 1's apart. *But you already have an account, so no need to create another.*
Finally, we have discovered a bug in Google's mapping, which is where we get the maps, and we have our tech department working on it. My head tech is on vacation through this week, though (he deserves it after a solid year of development!) and I will see that this remains on his list of priorities as soon as he returns to work Monday.
THANK YOU for these comments; it is exactly what we need to hear while we are in beta.
If you would like, I will put you in touch with my tech department directly.
Sincerely,
Read
.

That's not me...close (sort of) but no cigar. I know about the Captcha thing and I DID try it 3 times...
.

Bree,
OK, sorry about that, got my lines crossed with Seaside. Please contact me directly ([email protected]).
Read
.

OK, I got an account id. But then I couldn't log on. Have the tech person look at glitches with Firefox. I do allow cookies, from any and all. I could set up the account (today) doing nothing differently than yesterday. However, I could not then go in and use the supplied password. Worked fine on IE. As Swirt said elsewhere, it may have to do with my having ads blocked on Firefox so that's something to consider.
OK, onto the actual inputting of info. Very nice! I like the layout. It was very intuitive what to do. Didn't like that I can't enter a range of prices. My assumption is that has to do with the booking engine more than anything else, correct? You'll have to keep in mind, tho, that most lodging places have seasonal rates, so that needs to be taken into account. I could add the prices to the text, but I chose not to at this point.
The map. Why are there 2 points on the map? One shows what I am guessing is the 'center of town' and one shows where I'm located, sort of. It's off by a little bit, not much. However, as a guest I am assuming there are 2 locations for this one place or what? How do I know where I'm supposed to go?
It's a nice app. Thanks for all the work you did and for allowing the 'beta' folks to get into most of the features for free.
.

Hi Bree,
We have identified the problem, and the permanent fix is in place. There should be no more CAPTCHA or Login issues.
Thanks again, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Read

 

[Morticia]

Hi Everyone,
I saw your postings here and thought I'd get in and clear things up for you. Cup & Pillow is my company. I have a partner named Robert Seiling. We are not running a scam, we are doing business the way it should be done. The reason why we required credit card verification was because we want to keep your temporary listings as locked down as possible until such time as you register and update your listing. This prevents the kind of abuse we fear could happen otherwise (kids logging on and claiming to be the property owner when they are not, posting unwanted edits, etc.). Most people were just fine with the credit card process, but a few people were suspicious so we changed our verification process. We now simply log email and IP addresses and monitor content.
What's the free listing and why are we doing it? We offer two levels of membership, one which is free of charge and which we call a Courtesy Membership, the other is a Preferred Membership and it allows you to post your website address, a link to your email (using a form submission to protect you from spam crawlers), and the ability to take real-time bookings (or not) and use our Bid-A-Bed feature which allows you to set a reserve price and acquire last-minute reservations. You can read about all of our features on the site. The reason why we offer a free listing is because with a large number of members, whether they ultimately upgrade or not, everyone benefits. You don't need me to tell you about B&B occupancy rates. The only way you can compete with the big players in the hospitality industry is by establishing your corner of the internet where finding a B&B is just as easy as finding a hotel, so absolute numbers mean a lot. Though some folks here sound skeptical because we are new, we are adding members quickly.

Cheers,
Read Spear Founding Partner
CupandPillow.com.

Hi Read!
My inn was listed a couple of days ago and now it's gone. I got the postcard so it must have been listed for the postcard to be sent. Any ideas what might have happened?
.

Hi Bree,
I think I know what happened (this is usually an entry error with the state abbreviation, so the listing may have "moved" to the wrong state), but to be sure I will need a little more information: what is the name of your inn? If you don't want to post this information you may contact me directly at [email protected]. Thanks!
Read
.

Hi Bree,
I think I know what happened (this is usually an entry error with the state abbreviation, so the listing may have "moved" to the wrong state), but to be sure I will need a little more information: what is the name of your inn? If you don't want to post this information you may contact me directly at [email protected]. Thanks!
Read

Hi Read!
OK, just tried to create an account 3 separate times and got 3 separate 'Security Code Incorrect' messages. Any ides on that?
.

Bree,
A couple of things are happening: 1) you already have an account. Your listing is here: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/detail/inn/innId/9665
2) You can see that the city has been accidentally omitted from your listing. You should enter that and that should add Port Clyde to the searchable cities in ME.
3) The "Security Code Incorrect" message means that the CAPTCHA code was entered incorrectly--that's the code in the box. It is not case sensitive, but it can sometimes be difficult to tell the i's, L's and 1's apart. *But you already have an account, so no need to create another.*
Finally, we have discovered a bug in Google's mapping, which is where we get the maps, and we have our tech department working on it. My head tech is on vacation through this week, though (he deserves it after a solid year of development!) and I will see that this remains on his list of priorities as soon as he returns to work Monday.
THANK YOU for these comments; it is exactly what we need to hear while we are in beta.
If you would like, I will put you in touch with my tech department directly.
Sincerely,
Read
.

That's not me...close (sort of) but no cigar. I know about the Captcha thing and I DID try it 3 times...
.

Bree,
OK, sorry about that, got my lines crossed with Seaside. Please contact me directly ([email protected]).
Read
.

OK, I got an account id. But then I couldn't log on. Have the tech person look at glitches with Firefox. I do allow cookies, from any and all. I could set up the account (today) doing nothing differently than yesterday. However, I could not then go in and use the supplied password. Worked fine on IE. As Swirt said elsewhere, it may have to do with my having ads blocked on Firefox so that's something to consider.
OK, onto the actual inputting of info. Very nice! I like the layout. It was very intuitive what to do. Didn't like that I can't enter a range of prices. My assumption is that has to do with the booking engine more than anything else, correct? You'll have to keep in mind, tho, that most lodging places have seasonal rates, so that needs to be taken into account. I could add the prices to the text, but I chose not to at this point.
The map. Why are there 2 points on the map? One shows what I am guessing is the 'center of town' and one shows where I'm located, sort of. It's off by a little bit, not much. However, as a guest I am assuming there are 2 locations for this one place or what? How do I know where I'm supposed to go?
It's a nice app. Thanks for all the work you did and for allowing the 'beta' folks to get into most of the features for free.
.

Hi Bree,
Glad to hear that you felt it was intuitive--we spent a year developing and trying for just that!
Regarding the range of prices, we do three things: 1) The app will present a range when you enter your room rates. For example, if you enter the details of your "Blue Room" and the rate is $100/n and then enter your "Red Room" and the rate is $125/n the app will present a range from $100 to $125 on your Inn Detail page. 2) You can add different rates for different dates--so that addresses seasonality. 3) You can also enter a "Reserve Rate". This is very useful for slow seasons. What we did there is allow you to "auction" off your excess inventory (Preferred Listing feature). The rules for this from the guests' perspective are: bids accepted only with 10 days of stay, one bid a day per IP address within 20 miles of destination (second bid allowed, but you have to move 20 miles from first bid). These rules prevent incremental bidding and allow you to keep your reserve rate your secret (protects your rack rate and market position). Of course, you don't have to use this feature.
Map problem: the geocoding is all from Google and we have found a bug there. We expect to have those issues resolved soon.
Login/CAPTCHA issues: my tech dept. is working on it today. This is affecting about 4 people at this time and should also have that resolved by this afternoon. IE is usually the problem as the site is developed in Firefox and then cross tested, but I will pass that information along.
Thank you so much for all of your attention and comments--really very helpful!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Read
.

Hi Bree,
Regarding the range of prices, we do three things: 1) The app will present a range when you enter your room rates. For example, if you enter the details of your "Blue Room" and the rate is $100/n and then enter your "Red Room" and the rate is $125/n the app will present a range from $100 to $125 on your Inn Detail page. 2) You can add different rates for different dates--so that addresses seasonality.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Read

If I enter ONE rate for the Blue room and another for the Red room to get the RANGE to show on my 'home page' THEN when the guest clicks to look at the room, they will see only the one price. Which may not be valid on any given date. The different rates for different dates is one of the paid listing features? I didn't see it on my side.

 

[JunieBJones (JBJ)]

Hi Everyone,
I saw your postings here and thought I'd get in and clear things up for you. Cup & Pillow is my company. I have a partner named Robert Seiling. We are not running a scam, we are doing business the way it should be done. The reason why we required credit card verification was because we want to keep your temporary listings as locked down as possible until such time as you register and update your listing. This prevents the kind of abuse we fear could happen otherwise (kids logging on and claiming to be the property owner when they are not, posting unwanted edits, etc.). Most people were just fine with the credit card process, but a few people were suspicious so we changed our verification process. We now simply log email and IP addresses and monitor content.
What's the free listing and why are we doing it? We offer two levels of membership, one which is free of charge and which we call a Courtesy Membership, the other is a Preferred Membership and it allows you to post your website address, a link to your email (using a form submission to protect you from spam crawlers), and the ability to take real-time bookings (or not) and use our Bid-A-Bed feature which allows you to set a reserve price and acquire last-minute reservations. You can read about all of our features on the site. The reason why we offer a free listing is because with a large number of members, whether they ultimately upgrade or not, everyone benefits. You don't need me to tell you about B&B occupancy rates. The only way you can compete with the big players in the hospitality industry is by establishing your corner of the internet where finding a B&B is just as easy as finding a hotel, so absolute numbers mean a lot. Though some folks here sound skeptical because we are new, we are adding members quickly.

Cheers,
Read Spear Founding Partner
CupandPillow.com.

Hi Read!
My inn was listed a couple of days ago and now it's gone. I got the postcard so it must have been listed for the postcard to be sent. Any ideas what might have happened?
.

Hi Bree,
I think I know what happened (this is usually an entry error with the state abbreviation, so the listing may have "moved" to the wrong state), but to be sure I will need a little more information: what is the name of your inn? If you don't want to post this information you may contact me directly at [email protected]. Thanks!
Read
.

Hi Bree,
I think I know what happened (this is usually an entry error with the state abbreviation, so the listing may have "moved" to the wrong state), but to be sure I will need a little more information: what is the name of your inn? If you don't want to post this information you may contact me directly at [email protected]. Thanks!
Read

Hi Read!
OK, just tried to create an account 3 separate times and got 3 separate 'Security Code Incorrect' messages. Any ides on that?
.

Bree,
A couple of things are happening: 1) you already have an account. Your listing is here: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/detail/inn/innId/9665
2) You can see that the city has been accidentally omitted from your listing. You should enter that and that should add Port Clyde to the searchable cities in ME.
3) The "Security Code Incorrect" message means that the CAPTCHA code was entered incorrectly--that's the code in the box. It is not case sensitive, but it can sometimes be difficult to tell the i's, L's and 1's apart. *But you already have an account, so no need to create another.*
Finally, we have discovered a bug in Google's mapping, which is where we get the maps, and we have our tech department working on it. My head tech is on vacation through this week, though (he deserves it after a solid year of development!) and I will see that this remains on his list of priorities as soon as he returns to work Monday.
THANK YOU for these comments; it is exactly what we need to hear while we are in beta.
If you would like, I will put you in touch with my tech department directly.
Sincerely,
Read
.

That's not me...close (sort of) but no cigar. I know about the Captcha thing and I DID try it 3 times...
.

Bree,
OK, sorry about that, got my lines crossed with Seaside. Please contact me directly ([email protected]).
Read
.

OK, I got an account id. But then I couldn't log on. Have the tech person look at glitches with Firefox. I do allow cookies, from any and all. I could set up the account (today) doing nothing differently than yesterday. However, I could not then go in and use the supplied password. Worked fine on IE. As Swirt said elsewhere, it may have to do with my having ads blocked on Firefox so that's something to consider.
OK, onto the actual inputting of info. Very nice! I like the layout. It was very intuitive what to do. Didn't like that I can't enter a range of prices. My assumption is that has to do with the booking engine more than anything else, correct? You'll have to keep in mind, tho, that most lodging places have seasonal rates, so that needs to be taken into account. I could add the prices to the text, but I chose not to at this point.
The map. Why are there 2 points on the map? One shows what I am guessing is the 'center of town' and one shows where I'm located, sort of. It's off by a little bit, not much. However, as a guest I am assuming there are 2 locations for this one place or what? How do I know where I'm supposed to go?
It's a nice app. Thanks for all the work you did and for allowing the 'beta' folks to get into most of the features for free.
.

Hi Bree,
We have identified the problem, and the permanent fix is in place. There should be no more CAPTCHA or Login issues.
Thanks again, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Read
.

Hi Bree,
We have identified the problem, and the permanent fix is in place. There should be no more CAPTCHA or Login issues.
Thanks again, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Read

Hello Read, can you tell me about the bid a bed? Is this being sent to the innkeeper to approve or how does this work? I put in $95 on one just to see what happened, but then it said "there are no rooms available for these dates"
I really like this feature btw.

 

[readspear]

Hi Everyone,
I saw your postings here and thought I'd get in and clear things up for you. Cup & Pillow is my company. I have a partner named Robert Seiling. We are not running a scam, we are doing business the way it should be done. The reason why we required credit card verification was because we want to keep your temporary listings as locked down as possible until such time as you register and update your listing. This prevents the kind of abuse we fear could happen otherwise (kids logging on and claiming to be the property owner when they are not, posting unwanted edits, etc.). Most people were just fine with the credit card process, but a few people were suspicious so we changed our verification process. We now simply log email and IP addresses and monitor content.
What's the free listing and why are we doing it? We offer two levels of membership, one which is free of charge and which we call a Courtesy Membership, the other is a Preferred Membership and it allows you to post your website address, a link to your email (using a form submission to protect you from spam crawlers), and the ability to take real-time bookings (or not) and use our Bid-A-Bed feature which allows you to set a reserve price and acquire last-minute reservations. You can read about all of our features on the site. The reason why we offer a free listing is because with a large number of members, whether they ultimately upgrade or not, everyone benefits. You don't need me to tell you about B&B occupancy rates. The only way you can compete with the big players in the hospitality industry is by establishing your corner of the internet where finding a B&B is just as easy as finding a hotel, so absolute numbers mean a lot. Though some folks here sound skeptical because we are new, we are adding members quickly.

Cheers,
Read Spear Founding Partner
CupandPillow.com.

Hi Read!
My inn was listed a couple of days ago and now it's gone. I got the postcard so it must have been listed for the postcard to be sent. Any ideas what might have happened?
.

Hi Bree,
I think I know what happened (this is usually an entry error with the state abbreviation, so the listing may have "moved" to the wrong state), but to be sure I will need a little more information: what is the name of your inn? If you don't want to post this information you may contact me directly at [email protected]. Thanks!
Read
.

Hi Bree,
I think I know what happened (this is usually an entry error with the state abbreviation, so the listing may have "moved" to the wrong state), but to be sure I will need a little more information: what is the name of your inn? If you don't want to post this information you may contact me directly at [email protected]. Thanks!
Read

Hi Read!
OK, just tried to create an account 3 separate times and got 3 separate 'Security Code Incorrect' messages. Any ides on that?
.

Bree,
A couple of things are happening: 1) you already have an account. Your listing is here: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/detail/inn/innId/9665
2) You can see that the city has been accidentally omitted from your listing. You should enter that and that should add Port Clyde to the searchable cities in ME.
3) The "Security Code Incorrect" message means that the CAPTCHA code was entered incorrectly--that's the code in the box. It is not case sensitive, but it can sometimes be difficult to tell the i's, L's and 1's apart. *But you already have an account, so no need to create another.*
Finally, we have discovered a bug in Google's mapping, which is where we get the maps, and we have our tech department working on it. My head tech is on vacation through this week, though (he deserves it after a solid year of development!) and I will see that this remains on his list of priorities as soon as he returns to work Monday.
THANK YOU for these comments; it is exactly what we need to hear while we are in beta.
If you would like, I will put you in touch with my tech department directly.
Sincerely,
Read
.

That's not me...close (sort of) but no cigar. I know about the Captcha thing and I DID try it 3 times...
.

Bree,
OK, sorry about that, got my lines crossed with Seaside. Please contact me directly ([email protected]).
Read
.

OK, I got an account id. But then I couldn't log on. Have the tech person look at glitches with Firefox. I do allow cookies, from any and all. I could set up the account (today) doing nothing differently than yesterday. However, I could not then go in and use the supplied password. Worked fine on IE. As Swirt said elsewhere, it may have to do with my having ads blocked on Firefox so that's something to consider.
OK, onto the actual inputting of info. Very nice! I like the layout. It was very intuitive what to do. Didn't like that I can't enter a range of prices. My assumption is that has to do with the booking engine more than anything else, correct? You'll have to keep in mind, tho, that most lodging places have seasonal rates, so that needs to be taken into account. I could add the prices to the text, but I chose not to at this point.
The map. Why are there 2 points on the map? One shows what I am guessing is the 'center of town' and one shows where I'm located, sort of. It's off by a little bit, not much. However, as a guest I am assuming there are 2 locations for this one place or what? How do I know where I'm supposed to go?
It's a nice app. Thanks for all the work you did and for allowing the 'beta' folks to get into most of the features for free.
.

Hi Bree,
We have identified the problem, and the permanent fix is in place. There should be no more CAPTCHA or Login issues.
Thanks again, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Read
.

Hi Bree,
We have identified the problem, and the permanent fix is in place. There should be no more CAPTCHA or Login issues.
Thanks again, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Read

Hello Read, can you tell me about the bid a bed? Is this being sent to the innkeeper to approve or how does this work? I put in $95 on one just to see what happened, but then it said "there are no rooms available for these dates"
I really like this feature btw.

.

Hi JunieBJones!
Sure, I can tell you about the Bid-A-Bed feature and I'm glad you like it. First, here's a few links where you can read about it. This is what your guest will see when they place a bid (front facing):
http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/bid/index
and the guests' FAQ:
http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/footer/faq
On the innkeepers' side (back end) as you go about inputing your room rates on the booking calendar you are able to enter two prices, your rack rate and a reserve rate. You don't have to use this feature, but it's there if you want it. Let's say you know you have a sluggish March, maybe you'd like to use the Bid-A-Bed feature and see if you can't sell some rooms for below your rack rate to people who are looking for a last-minute deal. Let's use a rack rate of $150 and say your cost is $50 just to keep the numbers easy for the example. If March has slow weekdays you can enter a reserve of say, $90 but the weekends are a little better so your reserve for March weekends would be maybe $120. These are just examples, but you know your own seasonality and I'm sure you get the gist of it.
Now a guest comes along looking for a room in your area and he's going to be traveling within the next 10 days. He qualifies so he decides he'll take a shot at using the Bid-A-Bed feature. He figures he'll spend $110 on a room in a plain old chain hotel, why not try and get a great room at an attractive B&B or inn instead, so he bids his $110 and the Bid-A-Bed function returns your inn for $110 for the weekdays (because he's over your reserve) but not weekends (because he's under your reserve). You have already negotiated your rate when you entered your reserve, so it all happens in real time. He never knows your reserve, never has to wait, but he does know your rack rate (if he cares to check) so he's happy because he got a deal on a great room and your happy because you acquired a customer (a happy one!).
We have also put in safeguards to prevent a customer from incremental bidding so they can't start low and bid until they get a hit. They can only bid once a day (24 hr period), unless they move 25 miles away from their first bid and they must accept an offer within 48 hours. So, your rack rate is protected, they're happy, everybody wins. Let me know if you have any more questions!
Thanks,
Read

 

[JunieBJones (JBJ)]

Hello Read,
The only issue I saw was the guest needed to know the CITY to do the bid-a-bed. I wanted to just see what rates I could find - kind of 'luck of the draw' sorta thing, but had to know the specific name. Could you put this in my region? ie a list pops down of the inns in that region (ie central va for example).
I updated my info and DID put the rates in like you mentioned, I figured all that out before posting here. Of course since I am not a premium member that was as far as it went for the bid-a-bed etc.
Does the bid-a-bed pop up FOR the Inn you are looking at? It seems it is for all of them since it is asking for the city. Obv many inns are not in large cities - most of them I would guess, so any other functionality you can add to make that searchable or provide a database in some sort of fashion would be beneficial for the guest.

 

[josh]

Hi Everyone,
I saw your postings here and thought I'd get in and clear things up for you. Cup & Pillow is my company. I have a partner named Robert Seiling. We are not running a scam, we are doing business the way it should be done. The reason why we required credit card verification was because we want to keep your temporary listings as locked down as possible until such time as you register and update your listing. This prevents the kind of abuse we fear could happen otherwise (kids logging on and claiming to be the property owner when they are not, posting unwanted edits, etc.). Most people were just fine with the credit card process, but a few people were suspicious so we changed our verification process. We now simply log email and IP addresses and monitor content.
What's the free listing and why are we doing it? We offer two levels of membership, one which is free of charge and which we call a Courtesy Membership, the other is a Preferred Membership and it allows you to post your website address, a link to your email (using a form submission to protect you from spam crawlers), and the ability to take real-time bookings (or not) and use our Bid-A-Bed feature which allows you to set a reserve price and acquire last-minute reservations. You can read about all of our features on the site. The reason why we offer a free listing is because with a large number of members, whether they ultimately upgrade or not, everyone benefits. You don't need me to tell you about B&B occupancy rates. The only way you can compete with the big players in the hospitality industry is by establishing your corner of the internet where finding a B&B is just as easy as finding a hotel, so absolute numbers mean a lot. Though some folks here sound skeptical because we are new, we are adding members quickly.

Cheers,
Read Spear Founding Partner
CupandPillow.com.

Hi Read!
My inn was listed a couple of days ago and now it's gone. I got the postcard so it must have been listed for the postcard to be sent. Any ideas what might have happened?
.

Hi Bree,
I think I know what happened (this is usually an entry error with the state abbreviation, so the listing may have "moved" to the wrong state), but to be sure I will need a little more information: what is the name of your inn? If you don't want to post this information you may contact me directly at [email protected]. Thanks!
Read
.

Hi Bree,
I think I know what happened (this is usually an entry error with the state abbreviation, so the listing may have "moved" to the wrong state), but to be sure I will need a little more information: what is the name of your inn? If you don't want to post this information you may contact me directly at [email protected]. Thanks!
Read

Hi Read!
OK, just tried to create an account 3 separate times and got 3 separate 'Security Code Incorrect' messages. Any ides on that?
.

Bree,
A couple of things are happening: 1) you already have an account. Your listing is here: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/detail/inn/innId/9665
2) You can see that the city has been accidentally omitted from your listing. You should enter that and that should add Port Clyde to the searchable cities in ME.
3) The "Security Code Incorrect" message means that the CAPTCHA code was entered incorrectly--that's the code in the box. It is not case sensitive, but it can sometimes be difficult to tell the i's, L's and 1's apart. *But you already have an account, so no need to create another.*
Finally, we have discovered a bug in Google's mapping, which is where we get the maps, and we have our tech department working on it. My head tech is on vacation through this week, though (he deserves it after a solid year of development!) and I will see that this remains on his list of priorities as soon as he returns to work Monday.
THANK YOU for these comments; it is exactly what we need to hear while we are in beta.
If you would like, I will put you in touch with my tech department directly.
Sincerely,
Read
.

That's not me...close (sort of) but no cigar. I know about the Captcha thing and I DID try it 3 times...
.

Bree,
OK, sorry about that, got my lines crossed with Seaside. Please contact me directly ([email protected]).
Read
.

OK, I got an account id. But then I couldn't log on. Have the tech person look at glitches with Firefox. I do allow cookies, from any and all. I could set up the account (today) doing nothing differently than yesterday. However, I could not then go in and use the supplied password. Worked fine on IE. As Swirt said elsewhere, it may have to do with my having ads blocked on Firefox so that's something to consider.
OK, onto the actual inputting of info. Very nice! I like the layout. It was very intuitive what to do. Didn't like that I can't enter a range of prices. My assumption is that has to do with the booking engine more than anything else, correct? You'll have to keep in mind, tho, that most lodging places have seasonal rates, so that needs to be taken into account. I could add the prices to the text, but I chose not to at this point.
The map. Why are there 2 points on the map? One shows what I am guessing is the 'center of town' and one shows where I'm located, sort of. It's off by a little bit, not much. However, as a guest I am assuming there are 2 locations for this one place or what? How do I know where I'm supposed to go?
It's a nice app. Thanks for all the work you did and for allowing the 'beta' folks to get into most of the features for free.
.

Hi Bree,
We have identified the problem, and the permanent fix is in place. There should be no more CAPTCHA or Login issues.
Thanks again, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Read
.

Whats the Fee on this service?
How do I learn more about this, I have signed up for the Expedia Deal,
Can you email me some Info or send it or call?
Thanks, Josh
www.innharmonyguesthouse.com

 

[readspear]

Hi Everyone,
I saw your postings here and thought I'd get in and clear things up for you. Cup & Pillow is my company. I have a partner named Robert Seiling. We are not running a scam, we are doing business the way it should be done. The reason why we required credit card verification was because we want to keep your temporary listings as locked down as possible until such time as you register and update your listing. This prevents the kind of abuse we fear could happen otherwise (kids logging on and claiming to be the property owner when they are not, posting unwanted edits, etc.). Most people were just fine with the credit card process, but a few people were suspicious so we changed our verification process. We now simply log email and IP addresses and monitor content.
What's the free listing and why are we doing it? We offer two levels of membership, one which is free of charge and which we call a Courtesy Membership, the other is a Preferred Membership and it allows you to post your website address, a link to your email (using a form submission to protect you from spam crawlers), and the ability to take real-time bookings (or not) and use our Bid-A-Bed feature which allows you to set a reserve price and acquire last-minute reservations. You can read about all of our features on the site. The reason why we offer a free listing is because with a large number of members, whether they ultimately upgrade or not, everyone benefits. You don't need me to tell you about B&B occupancy rates. The only way you can compete with the big players in the hospitality industry is by establishing your corner of the internet where finding a B&B is just as easy as finding a hotel, so absolute numbers mean a lot. Though some folks here sound skeptical because we are new, we are adding members quickly.

Cheers,
Read Spear Founding Partner
CupandPillow.com.

Hi Read!
My inn was listed a couple of days ago and now it's gone. I got the postcard so it must have been listed for the postcard to be sent. Any ideas what might have happened?
.

Hi Bree,
I think I know what happened (this is usually an entry error with the state abbreviation, so the listing may have "moved" to the wrong state), but to be sure I will need a little more information: what is the name of your inn? If you don't want to post this information you may contact me directly at [email protected]. Thanks!
Read
.

Hi Bree,
I think I know what happened (this is usually an entry error with the state abbreviation, so the listing may have "moved" to the wrong state), but to be sure I will need a little more information: what is the name of your inn? If you don't want to post this information you may contact me directly at [email protected]. Thanks!
Read

Hi Read!
OK, just tried to create an account 3 separate times and got 3 separate 'Security Code Incorrect' messages. Any ides on that?
.

Bree,
A couple of things are happening: 1) you already have an account. Your listing is here: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/detail/inn/innId/9665
2) You can see that the city has been accidentally omitted from your listing. You should enter that and that should add Port Clyde to the searchable cities in ME.
3) The "Security Code Incorrect" message means that the CAPTCHA code was entered incorrectly--that's the code in the box. It is not case sensitive, but it can sometimes be difficult to tell the i's, L's and 1's apart. *But you already have an account, so no need to create another.*
Finally, we have discovered a bug in Google's mapping, which is where we get the maps, and we have our tech department working on it. My head tech is on vacation through this week, though (he deserves it after a solid year of development!) and I will see that this remains on his list of priorities as soon as he returns to work Monday.
THANK YOU for these comments; it is exactly what we need to hear while we are in beta.
If you would like, I will put you in touch with my tech department directly.
Sincerely,
Read
.

That's not me...close (sort of) but no cigar. I know about the Captcha thing and I DID try it 3 times...
.

Bree,
OK, sorry about that, got my lines crossed with Seaside. Please contact me directly ([email protected]).
Read
.

OK, I got an account id. But then I couldn't log on. Have the tech person look at glitches with Firefox. I do allow cookies, from any and all. I could set up the account (today) doing nothing differently than yesterday. However, I could not then go in and use the supplied password. Worked fine on IE. As Swirt said elsewhere, it may have to do with my having ads blocked on Firefox so that's something to consider.
OK, onto the actual inputting of info. Very nice! I like the layout. It was very intuitive what to do. Didn't like that I can't enter a range of prices. My assumption is that has to do with the booking engine more than anything else, correct? You'll have to keep in mind, tho, that most lodging places have seasonal rates, so that needs to be taken into account. I could add the prices to the text, but I chose not to at this point.
The map. Why are there 2 points on the map? One shows what I am guessing is the 'center of town' and one shows where I'm located, sort of. It's off by a little bit, not much. However, as a guest I am assuming there are 2 locations for this one place or what? How do I know where I'm supposed to go?
It's a nice app. Thanks for all the work you did and for allowing the 'beta' folks to get into most of the features for free.
.

Hi Bree,
We have identified the problem, and the permanent fix is in place. There should be no more CAPTCHA or Login issues.
Thanks again, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Read
.

Whats the Fee on this service?
How do I learn more about this, I have signed up for the Expedia Deal,
Can you email me some Info or send it or call?
Thanks, Josh
www.innharmonyguesthouse.com
.

Hi Josh,
We are restructuring our pricing. With the current economic turndown we want to be able to get as many people on board as possible for as little as possible. Our Preferred Listing, which includes the Bid-A-Bed feature is soon to be priced at $9.95 a month (with automated recurring billing). We have not decided how long that price will last and we haven't announced it yet, but we will soon (probably within the next 10 days).
Thanks,
Read

 

[readspear]

Hello Read,
The only issue I saw was the guest needed to know the CITY to do the bid-a-bed. I wanted to just see what rates I could find - kind of 'luck of the draw' sorta thing, but had to know the specific name. Could you put this in my region? ie a list pops down of the inns in that region (ie central va for example).
I updated my info and DID put the rates in like you mentioned, I figured all that out before posting here. Of course since I am not a premium member that was as far as it went for the bid-a-bed etc.
Does the bid-a-bed pop up FOR the Inn you are looking at? It seems it is for all of them since it is asking for the city. Obv many inns are not in large cities - most of them I would guess, so any other functionality you can add to make that searchable or provide a database in some sort of fashion would be beneficial for the guest..

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read

 

[JunieBJones (JBJ)]

Hello Read,
The only issue I saw was the guest needed to know the CITY to do the bid-a-bed. I wanted to just see what rates I could find - kind of 'luck of the draw' sorta thing, but had to know the specific name. Could you put this in my region? ie a list pops down of the inns in that region (ie central va for example).
I updated my info and DID put the rates in like you mentioned, I figured all that out before posting here. Of course since I am not a premium member that was as far as it went for the bid-a-bed etc.
Does the bid-a-bed pop up FOR the Inn you are looking at? It seems it is for all of them since it is asking for the city. Obv many inns are not in large cities - most of them I would guess, so any other functionality you can add to make that searchable or provide a database in some sort of fashion would be beneficial for the guest..

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read
.

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read

OH! See since I am the only inn here in this town, I thought it WAS specific to my inn. Good, would prefer it not be. I AGREE WITH YOU. That was what I was saying, a regional area so a guest can cover an area, not specific to any inn. Blue Ridge Region of VA. Bid-a-bed is a bargain idea, tho, you cannot deny that.

I am wondering if the bid-a-bed will be the larger draw to your website?
Now that you are back to answer questions - please tell us about the Authorize.net - is this where a person books online and the deposit is taken through the booking automatically. Then we can swipe it here or run it through here at check in/check out? Can you extrapolate a bit more.
I am VERY interested in this. You comparables were enlightening to say the least - Dh said a few words about "cost" on some other sites.
Also, again can you share if this online booking agent is embedded on our own website or how that works. This is good stuff for discussion, thanks.

 

[readspear]

Hello Read,
The only issue I saw was the guest needed to know the CITY to do the bid-a-bed. I wanted to just see what rates I could find - kind of 'luck of the draw' sorta thing, but had to know the specific name. Could you put this in my region? ie a list pops down of the inns in that region (ie central va for example).
I updated my info and DID put the rates in like you mentioned, I figured all that out before posting here. Of course since I am not a premium member that was as far as it went for the bid-a-bed etc.
Does the bid-a-bed pop up FOR the Inn you are looking at? It seems it is for all of them since it is asking for the city. Obv many inns are not in large cities - most of them I would guess, so any other functionality you can add to make that searchable or provide a database in some sort of fashion would be beneficial for the guest..

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read
.

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read

OH! See since I am the only inn here in this town, I thought it WAS specific to my inn. Good, would prefer it not be. I AGREE WITH YOU. That was what I was saying, a regional area so a guest can cover an area, not specific to any inn. Blue Ridge Region of VA. Bid-a-bed is a bargain idea, tho, you cannot deny that.

I am wondering if the bid-a-bed will be the larger draw to your website?
Now that you are back to answer questions - please tell us about the Authorize.net - is this where a person books online and the deposit is taken through the booking automatically. Then we can swipe it here or run it through here at check in/check out? Can you extrapolate a bit more.
I am VERY interested in this. You comparables were enlightening to say the least - Dh said a few words about "cost" on some other sites.
Also, again can you share if this online booking agent is embedded on our own website or how that works. This is good stuff for discussion, thanks.
.

Great, I'm glad you agree with our approach to the auctioning of excess inventory. The Bid-A-Bed function will seek within a 25 mile radius of the target area (zip code or city), so unless you don't have any competition within 25 miles in all directions you should be fine.
Authorize.net: yes, this is the outfit that we chose as our payment gateway provider. They are one of the biggest providers on the web, have been around since the beginning of web commerce, have been very responsive to us, have never had a single security problem, and they fit into our Spiral Notebook booking calendar module. If you already use Authorize.net you're ready to go, you just enter your two keys in the admin section of our site and you're up and running. If you don't already use them they'll have you set up within a couple of days, very easy. If you already use them, our site, when you use it, simply adds to your daily batch. ALL of our functionality runs on the web, never on your personal computer. This is far and away the most efficient way to do this and hands-down the most secure way to store sensitive information. Does that help?
Read

 

[JunieBJones (JBJ)]

Hello Read,
The only issue I saw was the guest needed to know the CITY to do the bid-a-bed. I wanted to just see what rates I could find - kind of 'luck of the draw' sorta thing, but had to know the specific name. Could you put this in my region? ie a list pops down of the inns in that region (ie central va for example).
I updated my info and DID put the rates in like you mentioned, I figured all that out before posting here. Of course since I am not a premium member that was as far as it went for the bid-a-bed etc.
Does the bid-a-bed pop up FOR the Inn you are looking at? It seems it is for all of them since it is asking for the city. Obv many inns are not in large cities - most of them I would guess, so any other functionality you can add to make that searchable or provide a database in some sort of fashion would be beneficial for the guest..

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read
.

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read

OH! See since I am the only inn here in this town, I thought it WAS specific to my inn. Good, would prefer it not be. I AGREE WITH YOU. That was what I was saying, a regional area so a guest can cover an area, not specific to any inn. Blue Ridge Region of VA. Bid-a-bed is a bargain idea, tho, you cannot deny that.

I am wondering if the bid-a-bed will be the larger draw to your website?
Now that you are back to answer questions - please tell us about the Authorize.net - is this where a person books online and the deposit is taken through the booking automatically. Then we can swipe it here or run it through here at check in/check out? Can you extrapolate a bit more.
I am VERY interested in this. You comparables were enlightening to say the least - Dh said a few words about "cost" on some other sites.
Also, again can you share if this online booking agent is embedded on our own website or how that works. This is good stuff for discussion, thanks.
.

Great, I'm glad you agree with our approach to the auctioning of excess inventory. The Bid-A-Bed function will seek within a 25 mile radius of the target area (zip code or city), so unless you don't have any competition within 25 miles in all directions you should be fine.
Authorize.net: yes, this is the outfit that we chose as our payment gateway provider. They are one of the biggest providers on the web, have been around since the beginning of web commerce, have been very responsive to us, have never had a single security problem, and they fit into our Spiral Notebook booking calendar module. If you already use Authorize.net you're ready to go, you just enter your two keys in the admin section of our site and you're up and running. If you don't already use them they'll have you set up within a couple of days, very easy. If you already use them, our site, when you use it, simply adds to your daily batch. ALL of our functionality runs on the web, never on your personal computer. This is far and away the most efficient way to do this and hands-down the most secure way to store sensitive information. Does that help?
Read
.

Great, I'm glad you agree with our approach to the auctioning of excess inventory. The Bid-A-Bed function will seek within a 25 mile radius of the target area (zip code or city), so unless you don't have any competition within 25 miles in all directions you should be fine.
Authorize.net: yes, this is the outfit that we chose as our payment gateway provider. They are one of the biggest providers on the web, have been around since the beginning of web commerce, have been very responsive to us, have never had a single security problem, and they fit into our Spiral Notebook booking calendar module. If you already use Authorize.net you're ready to go, you just enter your two keys in the admin section of our site and you're up and running. If you don't already use them they'll have you set up within a couple of days, very easy. If you already use them, our site, when you use it, simply adds to your daily batch. ALL of our functionality runs on the web, never on your personal computer. This is far and away the most efficient way to do this and hands-down the most secure way to store sensitive information. Does that help?
Read

Tell me how you would replace what I have currently. In other words, what can I get rid of completely - - I intend to change these - all at once if I can.
What I have:

• Webervations
• Guest mgmt software on our pc (GuestAll) for all reporting, statements, etc etc
• Omni3200 credit card processing machine using BB&T as the mechant processor

 

[readspear]

Hello Read,
The only issue I saw was the guest needed to know the CITY to do the bid-a-bed. I wanted to just see what rates I could find - kind of 'luck of the draw' sorta thing, but had to know the specific name. Could you put this in my region? ie a list pops down of the inns in that region (ie central va for example).
I updated my info and DID put the rates in like you mentioned, I figured all that out before posting here. Of course since I am not a premium member that was as far as it went for the bid-a-bed etc.
Does the bid-a-bed pop up FOR the Inn you are looking at? It seems it is for all of them since it is asking for the city. Obv many inns are not in large cities - most of them I would guess, so any other functionality you can add to make that searchable or provide a database in some sort of fashion would be beneficial for the guest..

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read
.

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read

OH! See since I am the only inn here in this town, I thought it WAS specific to my inn. Good, would prefer it not be. I AGREE WITH YOU. That was what I was saying, a regional area so a guest can cover an area, not specific to any inn. Blue Ridge Region of VA. Bid-a-bed is a bargain idea, tho, you cannot deny that.

I am wondering if the bid-a-bed will be the larger draw to your website?
Now that you are back to answer questions - please tell us about the Authorize.net - is this where a person books online and the deposit is taken through the booking automatically. Then we can swipe it here or run it through here at check in/check out? Can you extrapolate a bit more.
I am VERY interested in this. You comparables were enlightening to say the least - Dh said a few words about "cost" on some other sites.
Also, again can you share if this online booking agent is embedded on our own website or how that works. This is good stuff for discussion, thanks.
.

Great, I'm glad you agree with our approach to the auctioning of excess inventory. The Bid-A-Bed function will seek within a 25 mile radius of the target area (zip code or city), so unless you don't have any competition within 25 miles in all directions you should be fine.
Authorize.net: yes, this is the outfit that we chose as our payment gateway provider. They are one of the biggest providers on the web, have been around since the beginning of web commerce, have been very responsive to us, have never had a single security problem, and they fit into our Spiral Notebook booking calendar module. If you already use Authorize.net you're ready to go, you just enter your two keys in the admin section of our site and you're up and running. If you don't already use them they'll have you set up within a couple of days, very easy. If you already use them, our site, when you use it, simply adds to your daily batch. ALL of our functionality runs on the web, never on your personal computer. This is far and away the most efficient way to do this and hands-down the most secure way to store sensitive information. Does that help?
Read
.

Great, I'm glad you agree with our approach to the auctioning of excess inventory. The Bid-A-Bed function will seek within a 25 mile radius of the target area (zip code or city), so unless you don't have any competition within 25 miles in all directions you should be fine.
Authorize.net: yes, this is the outfit that we chose as our payment gateway provider. They are one of the biggest providers on the web, have been around since the beginning of web commerce, have been very responsive to us, have never had a single security problem, and they fit into our Spiral Notebook booking calendar module. If you already use Authorize.net you're ready to go, you just enter your two keys in the admin section of our site and you're up and running. If you don't already use them they'll have you set up within a couple of days, very easy. If you already use them, our site, when you use it, simply adds to your daily batch. ALL of our functionality runs on the web, never on your personal computer. This is far and away the most efficient way to do this and hands-down the most secure way to store sensitive information. Does that help?
Read

Tell me how you would replace what I have currently. In other words, what can I get rid of completely - - I intend to change these - all at once if I can.
What I have:

• Webervations
• Guest mgmt software on our pc (GuestAll) for all reporting, statements, etc etc
• Omni3200 credit card processing machine using BB&T as the mechant processor

.

You could ditch it all. Before you do that, you should look at our demo site (get an access code here: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/misc/viewdemo) and make sure it functions how you want it to. Some of our reporting features are still under development (these are fairly easy to implement so if there is something missing that you need just let me know). The upside to this is that your input would weigh heavily in our design process as we continue to roll out new functions. Probably your best approach is to run the two systems in parallel for a while until you're comfortable with just ours.
Read

 

[JunieBJones (JBJ)]

Hello Read,
The only issue I saw was the guest needed to know the CITY to do the bid-a-bed. I wanted to just see what rates I could find - kind of 'luck of the draw' sorta thing, but had to know the specific name. Could you put this in my region? ie a list pops down of the inns in that region (ie central va for example).
I updated my info and DID put the rates in like you mentioned, I figured all that out before posting here. Of course since I am not a premium member that was as far as it went for the bid-a-bed etc.
Does the bid-a-bed pop up FOR the Inn you are looking at? It seems it is for all of them since it is asking for the city. Obv many inns are not in large cities - most of them I would guess, so any other functionality you can add to make that searchable or provide a database in some sort of fashion would be beneficial for the guest..

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read
.

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read

OH! See since I am the only inn here in this town, I thought it WAS specific to my inn. Good, would prefer it not be. I AGREE WITH YOU. That was what I was saying, a regional area so a guest can cover an area, not specific to any inn. Blue Ridge Region of VA. Bid-a-bed is a bargain idea, tho, you cannot deny that.

I am wondering if the bid-a-bed will be the larger draw to your website?
Now that you are back to answer questions - please tell us about the Authorize.net - is this where a person books online and the deposit is taken through the booking automatically. Then we can swipe it here or run it through here at check in/check out? Can you extrapolate a bit more.
I am VERY interested in this. You comparables were enlightening to say the least - Dh said a few words about "cost" on some other sites.
Also, again can you share if this online booking agent is embedded on our own website or how that works. This is good stuff for discussion, thanks.
.

Great, I'm glad you agree with our approach to the auctioning of excess inventory. The Bid-A-Bed function will seek within a 25 mile radius of the target area (zip code or city), so unless you don't have any competition within 25 miles in all directions you should be fine.
Authorize.net: yes, this is the outfit that we chose as our payment gateway provider. They are one of the biggest providers on the web, have been around since the beginning of web commerce, have been very responsive to us, have never had a single security problem, and they fit into our Spiral Notebook booking calendar module. If you already use Authorize.net you're ready to go, you just enter your two keys in the admin section of our site and you're up and running. If you don't already use them they'll have you set up within a couple of days, very easy. If you already use them, our site, when you use it, simply adds to your daily batch. ALL of our functionality runs on the web, never on your personal computer. This is far and away the most efficient way to do this and hands-down the most secure way to store sensitive information. Does that help?
Read
.

Great, I'm glad you agree with our approach to the auctioning of excess inventory. The Bid-A-Bed function will seek within a 25 mile radius of the target area (zip code or city), so unless you don't have any competition within 25 miles in all directions you should be fine.
Authorize.net: yes, this is the outfit that we chose as our payment gateway provider. They are one of the biggest providers on the web, have been around since the beginning of web commerce, have been very responsive to us, have never had a single security problem, and they fit into our Spiral Notebook booking calendar module. If you already use Authorize.net you're ready to go, you just enter your two keys in the admin section of our site and you're up and running. If you don't already use them they'll have you set up within a couple of days, very easy. If you already use them, our site, when you use it, simply adds to your daily batch. ALL of our functionality runs on the web, never on your personal computer. This is far and away the most efficient way to do this and hands-down the most secure way to store sensitive information. Does that help?
Read

Tell me how you would replace what I have currently. In other words, what can I get rid of completely - - I intend to change these - all at once if I can.
What I have:

• Webervations
• Guest mgmt software on our pc (GuestAll) for all reporting, statements, etc etc
• Omni3200 credit card processing machine using BB&T as the mechant processor

.

You could ditch it all. Before you do that, you should look at our demo site (get an access code here: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/misc/viewdemo) and make sure it functions how you want it to. Some of our reporting features are still under development (these are fairly easy to implement so if there is something missing that you need just let me know). The upside to this is that your input would weigh heavily in our design process as we continue to roll out new functions. Probably your best approach is to run the two systems in parallel for a while until you're comfortable with just ours.
Read
.

You could ditch it all. Before you do that, you should look at our demo site (get an access code here: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/misc/viewdemo) and make sure it functions how you want it to. Some of our reporting features are still under development (these are fairly easy to implement so if there is something missing that you need just let me know). The upside to this is that your input would weigh heavily in our design process as we continue to roll out new functions. Probably your best approach is to run the two systems in parallel for a while until you're comfortable with just ours.
Read

I actually did that already. Let me try it again for some more info. Two things of running parallel - #1 we are slow so the transition would be easier, #2 we are slow, so there wouldn't be a whole lot of activity to play with. Let me go lookie again...

 

[swirt]

Hello Read,
The only issue I saw was the guest needed to know the CITY to do the bid-a-bed. I wanted to just see what rates I could find - kind of 'luck of the draw' sorta thing, but had to know the specific name. Could you put this in my region? ie a list pops down of the inns in that region (ie central va for example).
I updated my info and DID put the rates in like you mentioned, I figured all that out before posting here. Of course since I am not a premium member that was as far as it went for the bid-a-bed etc.
Does the bid-a-bed pop up FOR the Inn you are looking at? It seems it is for all of them since it is asking for the city. Obv many inns are not in large cities - most of them I would guess, so any other functionality you can add to make that searchable or provide a database in some sort of fashion would be beneficial for the guest..

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read
.

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read

OH! See since I am the only inn here in this town, I thought it WAS specific to my inn. Good, would prefer it not be. I AGREE WITH YOU. That was what I was saying, a regional area so a guest can cover an area, not specific to any inn. Blue Ridge Region of VA. Bid-a-bed is a bargain idea, tho, you cannot deny that.

I am wondering if the bid-a-bed will be the larger draw to your website?
Now that you are back to answer questions - please tell us about the Authorize.net - is this where a person books online and the deposit is taken through the booking automatically. Then we can swipe it here or run it through here at check in/check out? Can you extrapolate a bit more.
I am VERY interested in this. You comparables were enlightening to say the least - Dh said a few words about "cost" on some other sites.
Also, again can you share if this online booking agent is embedded on our own website or how that works. This is good stuff for discussion, thanks.
.

Great, I'm glad you agree with our approach to the auctioning of excess inventory. The Bid-A-Bed function will seek within a 25 mile radius of the target area (zip code or city), so unless you don't have any competition within 25 miles in all directions you should be fine.
Authorize.net: yes, this is the outfit that we chose as our payment gateway provider. They are one of the biggest providers on the web, have been around since the beginning of web commerce, have been very responsive to us, have never had a single security problem, and they fit into our Spiral Notebook booking calendar module. If you already use Authorize.net you're ready to go, you just enter your two keys in the admin section of our site and you're up and running. If you don't already use them they'll have you set up within a couple of days, very easy. If you already use them, our site, when you use it, simply adds to your daily batch. ALL of our functionality runs on the web, never on your personal computer. This is far and away the most efficient way to do this and hands-down the most secure way to store sensitive information. Does that help?
Read
.

Hi Read,
Thanks for sharing all of this great info.
Is Authorize.net certified to act as a lodging gateway? Last I knew, it was not (but things change rapidly).

 

[readspear]

Hello Read,
The only issue I saw was the guest needed to know the CITY to do the bid-a-bed. I wanted to just see what rates I could find - kind of 'luck of the draw' sorta thing, but had to know the specific name. Could you put this in my region? ie a list pops down of the inns in that region (ie central va for example).
I updated my info and DID put the rates in like you mentioned, I figured all that out before posting here. Of course since I am not a premium member that was as far as it went for the bid-a-bed etc.
Does the bid-a-bed pop up FOR the Inn you are looking at? It seems it is for all of them since it is asking for the city. Obv many inns are not in large cities - most of them I would guess, so any other functionality you can add to make that searchable or provide a database in some sort of fashion would be beneficial for the guest..

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read
.

Hi JunieBJones,
I find your suggestion interesting and would like to get some more feedback from other innkeepers before we add something like the ability to bid on a specific inn. We intentionally did not include that function because we did not want the site to become primarily a site for bargain hunters and because we felt that most innkeepers would not want that. So a guest can only bid by geography, not amenity or specific inn. We feel that there is a balance to be struck between offering a discount to a guest and holding up innkeepers' rates and we think we've struck that balance. To address your concern, we do have a searchable DB of deals and you can create your own deals (e.g., 15% off through the Month of Feb) which will automatically be posted to it.
Read

OH! See since I am the only inn here in this town, I thought it WAS specific to my inn. Good, would prefer it not be. I AGREE WITH YOU. That was what I was saying, a regional area so a guest can cover an area, not specific to any inn. Blue Ridge Region of VA. Bid-a-bed is a bargain idea, tho, you cannot deny that.

I am wondering if the bid-a-bed will be the larger draw to your website?
Now that you are back to answer questions - please tell us about the Authorize.net - is this where a person books online and the deposit is taken through the booking automatically. Then we can swipe it here or run it through here at check in/check out? Can you extrapolate a bit more.
I am VERY interested in this. You comparables were enlightening to say the least - Dh said a few words about "cost" on some other sites.
Also, again can you share if this online booking agent is embedded on our own website or how that works. This is good stuff for discussion, thanks.
.

Great, I'm glad you agree with our approach to the auctioning of excess inventory. The Bid-A-Bed function will seek within a 25 mile radius of the target area (zip code or city), so unless you don't have any competition within 25 miles in all directions you should be fine.
Authorize.net: yes, this is the outfit that we chose as our payment gateway provider. They are one of the biggest providers on the web, have been around since the beginning of web commerce, have been very responsive to us, have never had a single security problem, and they fit into our Spiral Notebook booking calendar module. If you already use Authorize.net you're ready to go, you just enter your two keys in the admin section of our site and you're up and running. If you don't already use them they'll have you set up within a couple of days, very easy. If you already use them, our site, when you use it, simply adds to your daily batch. ALL of our functionality runs on the web, never on your personal computer. This is far and away the most efficient way to do this and hands-down the most secure way to store sensitive information. Does that help?
Read
.

Hi Read,
Thanks for sharing all of this great info.
Is Authorize.net certified to act as a lodging gateway? Last I knew, it was not (but things change rapidly).
.

No problem, it's my pleasure entirely. Authorize.net does in fact serve as a gateway for lodging providers. As for certification I'm not sure what you mean and I don't want to wade into their territory since they aren't mine to represent.
Thanks,
R