PRICING
How can I adjust my pricing on Kip?
You can access your pricing on Kip via your Supercontrol login. If you have forgotten your account details please email owners@kiphideaways.com.
We’ve loaded your 2024 rates for you already, but we’ll need you to keep them up to date moving forward – if you tweak them at all, and when you add new seasons. We will send out an email in August/September to remind all owners to update their rates for the following year.
Please remember that if your pricing is being raised outside the guide prices we show for you on the top of your Hideaway page, you’ll need to let us know by emailing owners@kiphideaways.com.
Can I add your commission on top of my prices?
No – the basis of your agreement with us is a complete match of your direct base rates, availability and minimum stays, and for you to have chosen the Kip Booking Policy that most closely aligns to your own. If we cannot ensure rate and availability parity it damages our reputation as it goes against our promise to give members the exact same things as booking direct.
Kip members must never be able to find your hideaway cheaper elsewhere online, or find less restrictive minimum stays / additional availability / more lenient booking conditions. This is something we’ll be keeping a careful eye on as our reputation and the trust we have built with our community will be reliant on it so please ask us if you have any concerns around this.
What about special offers and discounts?
Similarly, we expect you to let us know about any special offers or discounts you run on your own site so we can match them. You can load them up yourself, using your Supercontrol login. Please email owners@kiphideaways.com if you need help with this and to alert us of new offers so that we can promote them effectively for you on our special offers page.
Some helpful guides to help you load rates and offers are here:
How to edit manual pricing
DEPOSITS, PAYMENTS & CANCELLATIONS
A 30% deposit is taken when the booking is made, and the balance at a later date depending on which Kip booking policy you use – see below. As soon as the booking enters the non-refundable phase we will transfer your booking revenue. Date changes after this point are at your discretion.
The deposit and balance are paid to you all in one go (minus Kip’s commission) on the next owner pay run.
Owner pay runs are fortnightly (every other Wednesday), and any monies owing to you at this point will be transferred into your bank account. If you have any questions about this please email owners@kiphideaways.com
Kip’s Booking Policies can be seen in our Terms and Conditions here
BOOKINGS & USER JOURNEY
Using the live availability calendar on your hideaway page, members choose stay dates and enter their occupancy to see the exact price. They then proceed to book and pay for this stay instantly.
Depending how far in advance they are booking their stay, they will be prompted to pay either a deposit or the full balance, and will need to accept our Ts & Cs, in order to proceed with the booking.
Once money has been charged to the client’s card, we consider this booking to be confirmed and our system sends the guest an email that includes the details of the booking and your details (name & email address but not a phone number).
At this point, you will receive an email with the booking details and Supercontrol will sync with your own booking calendar to block off the corresponding dates. Please note that depending on the booking engine you use, this sync may take a few minutes.
If you use Supercontrol as your own booking engine, the clients’ details will also automatically pull through to your account. With all other booking engines, you will need to manually add these to your calendar booking – the sync will ONLY block out the dates.
The booking details we’ll capture and send over are: property name, booking number, date of arrival and departure, lead guest name, email, contact number, address, total guest numbers and whether the guests are adults/children. Also, whether the client has booked any extra beds/baby cots/dogs (if your hideaway can accommodate any of these; if not they won’t be able to book them).
What if there is a double booking?
As soon as you get our email, please double check that the dates do not conflict with any other bookings. Whilst double bookings are extremely unlikely as most booking systems will sync within minutes, there is a clause in our booking Ts & Cs that gives you 24 hours to let us know if you are unable to honour a booking for this reason. We will then correspond with the client to explain the situation directly. Please do not contact the client directly.
After this time, any double bookings will be treated as per our Ts & Cs (which means the first booking made stands and we may ask for evidence to support this. If our booking came in second, it will be your responsibility to fully refund and/or find alternative accommodation of an equal or higher standard for the guests. We reserve the right to keep our commission).
Other than a date conflict, if there are any other reason that would cause you to reject a booking (i.e. you do not accept hen parties), this should be outlined on your hideaway pages so that such guests would not even look to book with you in the first place. Please let us know if you’d like us to update anything on your page accordingly.
What should I do once I receive a new booking?
Once a booking comes in, we encourage you to make direct contact with the guests within 24 hours to thank them for booking, share your own Ts & Cs if you’d like to, and either send them your usual pre-arrival information – check-in details, directions, key codes, house rules etc – or to reassure that you will do this in due course. You can also add the customer details to your own PMS system to trigger your usual emails.
If you charge a security deposit or a cleaning fee then you will need to arrange this directly with the guest at this point by sending them a payment link / your bank details as we cannot charge them on your behalf. Please ensure details of this are on your Kip Hideaway page so it does not come as a shock to the guest.
If you’d like to upsell things like food hampers / experiences for their stay, you can do this directly with the guest from this point.
What info do guests receive when they book through Kip?
Guests will receive a booking confirmation email containing: Hideaway name, date of arrival and date of departure, booking number, guests (and make-up of adults and children), owner or manager’s name, email, and a payment summary (deposit paid, balance due and date).
They will be directed to contact you directly for any questions about their stay from that point onwards.
What if a guest wants to amend a confirmed booking?
Any amendments including date changes made before the booking becomes non-refundable (the date of which will depend on the Kip Booking Policy you’re using) must be administered by Kip as the booking originated from our system.
If you receive a request from a guest to amend a booking, please let us know at bookings@kiphideaways.com as the booking must be first altered in our system. We will make the change, and the availability will then resync to your calendar and you will also receive a new booking summary.
You can login to your Supercontrol account to see any amendments or changes reflected there at any time.
Amendments including date changes after the booking becomes non refundable are at owners’ discretion. If the client contacts us to request an amendment we’ll tell them to email you directly.
What if a guest wants to cancel the booking?
If the cancellation is made before the booking becomes non-refundable we will cancel the booking within Supercontrol (which will sync through to your calendar and unblock the dates) and refund the client. We will also then email you to let you know.
Cancellations after the booking becomes non refundable are at owners’ discretion. If the client contacts us to request a cancellation from this point we’ll direct them to you so you can decide.
All amendments and cancellations before the booking becomes non-refundable are subject to a £30 admin fee payable to Kip. This would replace any amendment fees of your own, unless otherwise agreed with us.
What if I need to cancel a guest on the day of their stay due to something unforeseen?
If for some reason you are unable to honour a booking at the last minute due to a maintenance problem / personal emergency / adverse weather conditions etc, please phone the guest immediately, and send an email confirmation, copying in bookings@kiphideaways.com. We will get back to you as a matter of urgency.
DURING THE STAY
Prior to arrival please be sure the guest has been sent details on how to get into the property, and contact details for who to contact in the event of a problem. Please also share your Ts and Cs / house rules in advance of the stay so expectations for the stay have been set from the off.
How does it work with the Kip Gift?
We’ll periodically send you a stack of Kip Cards to accompany the Kip Gift you’ve kindly agreed to give our guests. Please put a card out with the gift to welcome a Kip guest (or pass it on to your housekeeper to do so); there is space to write a welcome message, if you like, or you can simply fold it and prop up next to the gift. If you’re running low on cards please email owners@kiphideaways.com with the address you’d like the cards sent to.
Complaints
In the event of any complaints during the stay we would encourage the client to contact you directly and immediately to discuss and resolve the issue.
In the event of complaints following the stay, we will discuss them in partnership with you, as we do now, and agree on a route forward.
It is your responsibility to regularly ensure that your page displays accurate and up to date information. Please let us know in the event of any changes. Should the complaint be to do with incorrect information displayed on your Kip page, we are not liable for any share of the refund unless the fault is with our editorial not being correct at time of booking despite you having informed us of changes.
FOLLOWING THE STAY
Reviews
We will send an email to clients following their stay asking for feedback. We will also use some member reviews to display on your hideaway pages as well as on our other channels for marketing and promotional purposes.
Why do you charge VAT?
Because Kip is VAT-registered, we’re legally bound to add VAT to all commission sales.
OTHER FAQs
Can I update my own pages moving forward?
No, we’ll retain full editorial control. Please email us at owners@kiphideaways.com with any changes/additions needed.
