Host Manual

Introduction

Welcome to Blackpoolholidayflats.com, the new dedicated online bookings platform for holiday rental properties in Blackpool, with the aim of this manual being to guide you through completing your profile, getting yourself verified as a host and listing and managing your bookings on our site.

Getting yourself verified?

Once you have registered your host account, in the interest of preventing fraud before you can post a listing on our site we need you to verify your identity to our site admin. To do this we require you to complete your host profile, (including photograph), verify your e-mail address and upload a copy of some official photo id, (passport or driving licence). Once you have done that site admin will verify you within 24 hours, (but usually quicker).

To do that, hover over your user name at the top right of your screen and select Profile from the drop down menu.

This will take you to:

Where we ask you to complete your profile in full.

Once you have completed and saved your profile, you need to verify your identity by uploading a copy of an official form of photo ID, (driving licence or passport), for us to check. To do this, click on verification on the left hand main menu which will take you to the page below.

Upload a copy of your identity document and click Verify Your ID

Once you have done that we will check your profile and ID document and verify you within 24 hours, (but usually quicker).

Why do we need to do this?

We verify hosts identities in the interest of protecting the integrity of our platform and to prevent fraud. If you do not verify your identity, you will not be allowed to list your properties on our platform.

Once you have had your ID verified, you will be able to list your properties.

Adding a New Property Listing

To add a new property listing, click on your user name at the top right of the page and select Add New Listing and this will take you to the page below.

The form is self-explanatory, all you need to is complete each page, click Continue.

On the second page, (Pricing), at the top you will see “Allow instant booking for this place” If this option is left unticked, instead of being able to instant book, your prospective guests will only be able to send you their booking proposal for you to either accept or decline. If you accept the booking, the guest will be sent and e-mail informing them that their booking has been accepted and inviting them to follow a link, complete the booking and pay. If you do tick the “Allow instant booking for this place” option, guests will be able to instant book and you will receive and e-mail advising you of the booking and confirming payment.

You can set your rental prices by the day, weekend, week and month, plus add any other extra services you charge for, cleaning fees etc., any local taxes you need to pay and the security deposit if required.

You also need to add the maximum number of occupants for the nightly price, price for extra occupants per night and the  maximum number of occupant and you can add and price any extras you charge such as for breakfast, cleaning etc.

On the next page you can upload photos of your property and a link to a video of it if you want to show a video of the property, with as it says, if you click on the Star Icon that photo will become the featured image.

Please note minimum image size is 1440 x 900 px

The next page is where you can select any special features your property has, for example Air Con, WiFi or any close by local facilities, with your selecting these by ticking the box.

The next page is where you put in the properties address.

In some areas of the world Google Maps is not very good at recognising postal/street addresses which can cause problems showing your property in the right place on our sites map, and if that is the case after you have entered the address and pressed the Find Address button below the map, there is an alternative way to show the exact place your property is on the map, with this alternative way being to locate your property on Google Maps, then right click your mouse when it is over the exact spot, then clicking the longitude and latitude from the dropdown which will copy it to your clipboard, then paste it into the longitude and latitude fields below the map before pressing find address button, something that will also complete the address fields too.

If the address fields are incorrect or not all in English, (the site core language), you can edit the address without losing its place on the map as long as the longitude and latitude are correct.

The next page is where you add the bedroom details, and the last your cancellation policy and any rules you have set for the property before clicking Publish Listing.

Calendar Synchronisation

If you also list your properties on Air BnB or Bookings.com this is a very important feature on Blackpoolholidayflats.com as it allows you to synchronise your booking calendar on this site with your bookings calendar on Air BnB or Bookings.com, this meaning that if your property listing gets booked through this site, it will show as booked on your Air BnB and Bookings.com listing, and if it gets booked on either Air BnB or Bookings.com it will show as booked on here.

To configure this:

On the last Calendar section when you are adding, (or editing), a property click on where is says “Sync Cal”, (red arrow above), then import which will launch this pop up:

Name the feed, (Air BnB if it’s your feed from there for example), and then post a link to your export feed from Air BnB.

This video shows you where to find your calendar feed in Air BnB