What is the Reservation Process?
When making a reservation, generally, 50% of the total rental is required, final 50% is required at least 30 days prior to arrival. Please see "What is the Payment Schedule?" below for full details. After providing the necessary information to generate the Rental Documents (this can be found at the bottom of your emailed quote), the documents will be sent to you. You will need to:
1. Print these Rental Documents.
2. Carefully Read them over.
3. Double check your check-in & Check-out dates.
4. Choose your personal 4 digit door code; we do not issue house keys. Which, as you think about as many as a
dozen different adults, there would be no way to issue all a key. With the door code system, only one code is issued
and everyone in your group will have that code to come & go as they please.
5. If there are discrepancies, in the Rental Documents and your intended stay, those needs to be addressed prior
to you signing the Rental Documents.
6. If all is agreeable on the Rental Documents, please sign where required.
7. Within 72 hours (24 hours of your arrival date is less than 60 days away) of receiving the Rental Documents,
please scan (or Fax):
A. The signed original Rental Documents you were sent.
B. A copy of your driver's license.
C. If paying with a check, a copy of that check.
8. If 72 hours (or 24 hours if your arrival date is less than 60 days away) has passed, and you have NOT sent back
(scanned or faxed) the signed documents, The Rental Documents will be considered "Stale." Which means if another
group sends in their information to book the house, and that group is issued Rental Docs, they now takes 1st position.
NOTE:
Payment not received within 7 days of the Rental Documents being emailed to you, will also result in the Rental Documents becoming "Stale." If you Dilly Dally around and no one else has requested to book these dates, you can still send in the Documents and payment on your own schedule... days, weeks, or even months later. Should you delay sending in required documents/payment, it would behoove you to verify dates are still available. Please do not think, your receiving the rental documents from us, in anyway "Holds" the dates; or sending us your scanned (or faxed) signed documents "Holds" these dates. The Rental Documents are not binding on either party until payment has been accepted and cleared. Because of this, I strongly recommend you make securing your booking, a priority over such things as booking your airline tickets. Once Payment has been received, you will be emailed confirmation that your reservation is now secured.
9. Regardless of if you are paying by Credit Card, Personal, or Business Check, please mail the original signed Documents,
a copy of your driver's license, and if paying by check, the Check, so that everything is received within 7 days of your
receiving the Rental Documents. Many of our guests, choose a mailing method with a tracking number, when sending
in their payment. They then provide us with the tracking number so we can be on top of its arrival.
10. If you are paying with a Credit Card, these payments are processed through PayPal. Any Credit Card or Payment
Method accepted through PayPal, we will accept. After Receiving the scanned Rental Documents & a copy of your
Driver's License, you will be invoiced through PayPal. The Rental Rate you were quoted, is Net.
The PayPal processing fees of 3.5% will be added to all PayPal Invoices. If for some reason, there are higher
charges associated with your PayPal Payment, those will be passed on to you. There have never been higher
than 3.5% on USA Credit Cards, but Foreign Charge Cards (such as from Canada or Europe) have had fees as
must as 8%; these additional fees will need to be paid by the Booking Guest.
11. Within 7 days of you receiving the rental documents, we should have received your signed documents,
copy of your driver's license, and if paying by check, the check; and if paying charge card, the PayPal payment.
Only when the payment has cleared, is your reservation confirmed and the on-line calendar will show those dates as booked. 30 days prior to your arrival, the final 50% is due. If you wish to pay this final amount by check, but forget, once the 29th day has been reached, you will need to pay through PayPal and the processing fee of 3.5% (or higher, depending on how PayPal charges - usually only affects folks outside the U.S.A.) will be added to your invoice.
See Policies for Payment Information (#13): http://www.gulfportvacationhome.com/policies.html
1. Print these Rental Documents.
2. Carefully Read them over.
3. Double check your check-in & Check-out dates.
4. Choose your personal 4 digit door code; we do not issue house keys. Which, as you think about as many as a
dozen different adults, there would be no way to issue all a key. With the door code system, only one code is issued
and everyone in your group will have that code to come & go as they please.
5. If there are discrepancies, in the Rental Documents and your intended stay, those needs to be addressed prior
to you signing the Rental Documents.
6. If all is agreeable on the Rental Documents, please sign where required.
7. Within 72 hours (24 hours of your arrival date is less than 60 days away) of receiving the Rental Documents,
please scan (or Fax):
A. The signed original Rental Documents you were sent.
B. A copy of your driver's license.
C. If paying with a check, a copy of that check.
8. If 72 hours (or 24 hours if your arrival date is less than 60 days away) has passed, and you have NOT sent back
(scanned or faxed) the signed documents, The Rental Documents will be considered "Stale." Which means if another
group sends in their information to book the house, and that group is issued Rental Docs, they now takes 1st position.
NOTE:
Payment not received within 7 days of the Rental Documents being emailed to you, will also result in the Rental Documents becoming "Stale." If you Dilly Dally around and no one else has requested to book these dates, you can still send in the Documents and payment on your own schedule... days, weeks, or even months later. Should you delay sending in required documents/payment, it would behoove you to verify dates are still available. Please do not think, your receiving the rental documents from us, in anyway "Holds" the dates; or sending us your scanned (or faxed) signed documents "Holds" these dates. The Rental Documents are not binding on either party until payment has been accepted and cleared. Because of this, I strongly recommend you make securing your booking, a priority over such things as booking your airline tickets. Once Payment has been received, you will be emailed confirmation that your reservation is now secured.
9. Regardless of if you are paying by Credit Card, Personal, or Business Check, please mail the original signed Documents,
a copy of your driver's license, and if paying by check, the Check, so that everything is received within 7 days of your
receiving the Rental Documents. Many of our guests, choose a mailing method with a tracking number, when sending
in their payment. They then provide us with the tracking number so we can be on top of its arrival.
10. If you are paying with a Credit Card, these payments are processed through PayPal. Any Credit Card or Payment
Method accepted through PayPal, we will accept. After Receiving the scanned Rental Documents & a copy of your
Driver's License, you will be invoiced through PayPal. The Rental Rate you were quoted, is Net.
The PayPal processing fees of 3.5% will be added to all PayPal Invoices. If for some reason, there are higher
charges associated with your PayPal Payment, those will be passed on to you. There have never been higher
than 3.5% on USA Credit Cards, but Foreign Charge Cards (such as from Canada or Europe) have had fees as
must as 8%; these additional fees will need to be paid by the Booking Guest.
11. Within 7 days of you receiving the rental documents, we should have received your signed documents,
copy of your driver's license, and if paying by check, the check; and if paying charge card, the PayPal payment.
Only when the payment has cleared, is your reservation confirmed and the on-line calendar will show those dates as booked. 30 days prior to your arrival, the final 50% is due. If you wish to pay this final amount by check, but forget, once the 29th day has been reached, you will need to pay through PayPal and the processing fee of 3.5% (or higher, depending on how PayPal charges - usually only affects folks outside the U.S.A.) will be added to your invoice.
See Policies for Payment Information (#13): http://www.gulfportvacationhome.com/policies.html
What is the Payment Schedule?
The above has described in great detail how a booking 50 days or further out, is made. Truth be told, about half of our bookings are made about 180 days in advance, but some are made less than 2 months from the arrival date and a few, just days before arrival. Below is the time frame for bookings made less than 2 months from arrival date:
More than 9 months prior to arrival:
Generally, 50% due with the Signed Rental Documents and 50% due 30 days prior to arrival, works great for me. My busy schedule doesn't always allow for a good memory of who owes what when. Every year, we do have about dozen weeks that are booked as far out as a year. In these cases:
Booking from Mid-May to Mid-August, Holidays, & Cruisin the Coast
25% of the total amount is due with the Signed Rental Documents
25% is due 9 months prior to arrival date
50% is due 30 days prior to arrival date
Booking from Mid-August to Mid-May:
25% of the total amount is due with the Signed Rental Documents
25% is due 6 months prior to arrival date
50% is due 30 days prior to arrival date
More than 50 days prior to arrival:
50% is due with the Signed Rental Documents. The final payment of 50% is due at least 30 days prior to arrival. Approximately 45 days before arrival, a friendly reminder should be sent. If for some reason, this does not happen, you are still responsible to have your 50% payment in at least 30 days prior to arrival. If too much time elapses, you may be required to pay this final amount through PayPal, paying the applicable fees.
Less than 50 days to arrival, but more than 14 days:
Same as above, except full payment is due within 7 days
Less than 14 days to arrival:
Same as above, except full payment will need to be made by credit card, within 3 days; and those additional fees will apply.
Once your 1st Payment is received, you will receive confirmation of payment being received & a map to the house. Approximately 45 days prior to your arrival, you should receive a friendly reminder, by email, to pay the balance due. This final 50% payment can be paid by Credit Card or Check. Once this payment is received, you will also receive an email confirming its receipt. Throughout this entire process, at any point that you have a question about the reservation process, the house, whatever, please feel free to send an email or call.
More than 9 months prior to arrival:
Generally, 50% due with the Signed Rental Documents and 50% due 30 days prior to arrival, works great for me. My busy schedule doesn't always allow for a good memory of who owes what when. Every year, we do have about dozen weeks that are booked as far out as a year. In these cases:
Booking from Mid-May to Mid-August, Holidays, & Cruisin the Coast
25% of the total amount is due with the Signed Rental Documents
25% is due 9 months prior to arrival date
50% is due 30 days prior to arrival date
Booking from Mid-August to Mid-May:
25% of the total amount is due with the Signed Rental Documents
25% is due 6 months prior to arrival date
50% is due 30 days prior to arrival date
More than 50 days prior to arrival:
50% is due with the Signed Rental Documents. The final payment of 50% is due at least 30 days prior to arrival. Approximately 45 days before arrival, a friendly reminder should be sent. If for some reason, this does not happen, you are still responsible to have your 50% payment in at least 30 days prior to arrival. If too much time elapses, you may be required to pay this final amount through PayPal, paying the applicable fees.
Less than 50 days to arrival, but more than 14 days:
Same as above, except full payment is due within 7 days
Less than 14 days to arrival:
Same as above, except full payment will need to be made by credit card, within 3 days; and those additional fees will apply.
Once your 1st Payment is received, you will receive confirmation of payment being received & a map to the house. Approximately 45 days prior to your arrival, you should receive a friendly reminder, by email, to pay the balance due. This final 50% payment can be paid by Credit Card or Check. Once this payment is received, you will also receive an email confirming its receipt. Throughout this entire process, at any point that you have a question about the reservation process, the house, whatever, please feel free to send an email or call.
Once I send an Email to book certain dates, could I forfeit them?
After you have received a Rental Quote for a specific date range, if you are interested in Reserving those dates, please send an email with the answers to the questions at the bottom of your quote, when you are financially prepared to pay the required amount.
We are always amazed that a particular time frame goes without a single inquiry and then as soon as one inquiry is received, within hours, we are receiving another and even the next day possibly a 3rd or 4th inquiry for the same or over lapping date range. 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, none of these inquiries has more of a lock on these dates then the other. Dates are locked in only after payment has cleared.
Rental Documents will be sent to the first person to request them with the answers to the questions at the bottom of the initial emailed quote. The questions we'll need answered to generate the Rental Documents can be found at the bottom of the email that contains the quote. Remember, just because you received a Rental Agreement, the booking is only secured after payment is received. If it is your intention to get the Rental Documents and Dilly Dally while your gather funds (or worse, attempt to gather funds), this will not take the house off the market. It continues to be quoted. Should someone else send their information to book the house, a new Rental Agreement will be issued, if 72 hours (or 24 hours if your desired date is less than 60 days away) has passed. By sending in your signed Rental Documents, you also stop the clock on Rental Agreements going out ... up to the 7 days from when you first received the blank Rental Documents. This gives you plenty of time to get your payment & original documents in.
If you are set on those dates, I urge you not to delay in moving forward to secure your rental dates. I imagine most folks think the worst thing, for me, in the Vacation Rental Booking process, is having a date go un-booked. They would be wrong, very wrong. The worst thing, is having a family Dilly Dally sending in their information, my assuming they are no longer interested, and then booking the 1st families dates to another family, only to have to give the 1st family the bad news when they finally do get around to sending in their Rental Documents or Payment.
Twice we've sent Documents out, told inquiries it was booked, only to not get the documents returned and to never hear from the person who requested them. Once we were even told "I don't know how to scan, I don't have a fax machine, I'm mailing the docs & a check;" only to wait over a week for them and they never arrive. We assume, this person we've sent the Rental Documents to has been trying to gather up the money from their friends and it is just not happening. By the time we returned to the 2nd person requesting documents, they have already found another Vacation Rental in Florida, Tennessee, or some other 2nd choice location. They are also NOT happy to find out that The Great Escape River House is still available, because they just put money down on another Rental and the River House was their 1st choice; but they are already locked into their 2nd choice. Now, we just send out the 2nd set of documents, when its clear, by the delays, the person really wasn't ready to book, when they said they were.
EXAMPLE of Non-Charge Card Payment:
(Example Rates do not represent actual Rates)
EXAMPLE #1 (personal check)
$2,295.00 Rental Rate (Example - Quotes based on # of Nights, time of year, if a holiday, etc.)
350.00 Cleaning Fee
$2,645.00
317.40 12% MS Lodging Taxes
$2,962.40
600.00 Refundable Damage Deposit (this is not a deposit to hold the house)
$3,562.40 Actual Rental is $2,962.40, after $600 Refundable Deposit is Returned
~
$1,781.20 is due (50% of total Rental), by Personal Check within 7 days
Balance of $1,781.20 due by Personal Check, at least 30 days prior to arrival
Remember, as long as conditions are met, within 14 days of departure, refundable deposit of $600 is returned.
*Vacation Home is now paid in full
EXAMPLE of Charge Card Payment:
The Rental Rate is NET. Processing fees are paid by Renter. We use PayPal, one of the most secure ways to pay with a Credit Card or other form of Electronic payment. Most electronic processing fees are 3%, foreign processing fees are higher, electronic checks are usually less. Whatever payment choice you make, if there are fees, such as in the case of a credit card, it will be passed on to the renter. You may also elect to charge half the amount due and issue a check for the remainder. Whatever you choose, if it results in additional processing fees, those will need to be paid by the renter. The below examples, are of a US based Credit Card Charge. Our most frequent form of payment:
EXAMPLE #2 (PayPal Electronic Payment)
$3,500.00 Rental Rate (Example - Quotes based on # of Nights, time of year, if a holiday, etc.)
350.00 Cleaning Fee
$3,850.00
462.00 12% MS Lodging Taxes
$4,312.00
600.00 Refundable deposit
$4,912.00 Sub-Total before estimated PayPal Processing Fee
171.92 Estimated PayPal Processing Fee of 3.5% of $4,912.00
$5,083.92 Actual Rental is $4,483.92, after $600 Refundable Deposit is Returned
~
$2,541.96 is due (50% of total Rental), by Credit Card Payment (you will be invoiced through PayPal) within 5 days
Balance of $2,541.96 due, by Credit Card Payment (PayPal Invoicing), at lease 30 days prior to arrival
Remember, as long as conditions are met, within 14 days of departure, refundable deposit of $600 is returned. If PayPal Rates change, this is a foreign charge, or electronic payment from a checking account, this 3.5% charge will also change.
*Vacation Home is now paid in full
We are always amazed that a particular time frame goes without a single inquiry and then as soon as one inquiry is received, within hours, we are receiving another and even the next day possibly a 3rd or 4th inquiry for the same or over lapping date range. 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, none of these inquiries has more of a lock on these dates then the other. Dates are locked in only after payment has cleared.
Rental Documents will be sent to the first person to request them with the answers to the questions at the bottom of the initial emailed quote. The questions we'll need answered to generate the Rental Documents can be found at the bottom of the email that contains the quote. Remember, just because you received a Rental Agreement, the booking is only secured after payment is received. If it is your intention to get the Rental Documents and Dilly Dally while your gather funds (or worse, attempt to gather funds), this will not take the house off the market. It continues to be quoted. Should someone else send their information to book the house, a new Rental Agreement will be issued, if 72 hours (or 24 hours if your desired date is less than 60 days away) has passed. By sending in your signed Rental Documents, you also stop the clock on Rental Agreements going out ... up to the 7 days from when you first received the blank Rental Documents. This gives you plenty of time to get your payment & original documents in.
If you are set on those dates, I urge you not to delay in moving forward to secure your rental dates. I imagine most folks think the worst thing, for me, in the Vacation Rental Booking process, is having a date go un-booked. They would be wrong, very wrong. The worst thing, is having a family Dilly Dally sending in their information, my assuming they are no longer interested, and then booking the 1st families dates to another family, only to have to give the 1st family the bad news when they finally do get around to sending in their Rental Documents or Payment.
Twice we've sent Documents out, told inquiries it was booked, only to not get the documents returned and to never hear from the person who requested them. Once we were even told "I don't know how to scan, I don't have a fax machine, I'm mailing the docs & a check;" only to wait over a week for them and they never arrive. We assume, this person we've sent the Rental Documents to has been trying to gather up the money from their friends and it is just not happening. By the time we returned to the 2nd person requesting documents, they have already found another Vacation Rental in Florida, Tennessee, or some other 2nd choice location. They are also NOT happy to find out that The Great Escape River House is still available, because they just put money down on another Rental and the River House was their 1st choice; but they are already locked into their 2nd choice. Now, we just send out the 2nd set of documents, when its clear, by the delays, the person really wasn't ready to book, when they said they were.
EXAMPLE of Non-Charge Card Payment:
(Example Rates do not represent actual Rates)
EXAMPLE #1 (personal check)
$2,295.00 Rental Rate (Example - Quotes based on # of Nights, time of year, if a holiday, etc.)
350.00 Cleaning Fee
$2,645.00
317.40 12% MS Lodging Taxes
$2,962.40
600.00 Refundable Damage Deposit (this is not a deposit to hold the house)
$3,562.40 Actual Rental is $2,962.40, after $600 Refundable Deposit is Returned
~
$1,781.20 is due (50% of total Rental), by Personal Check within 7 days
Balance of $1,781.20 due by Personal Check, at least 30 days prior to arrival
Remember, as long as conditions are met, within 14 days of departure, refundable deposit of $600 is returned.
*Vacation Home is now paid in full
EXAMPLE of Charge Card Payment:
The Rental Rate is NET. Processing fees are paid by Renter. We use PayPal, one of the most secure ways to pay with a Credit Card or other form of Electronic payment. Most electronic processing fees are 3%, foreign processing fees are higher, electronic checks are usually less. Whatever payment choice you make, if there are fees, such as in the case of a credit card, it will be passed on to the renter. You may also elect to charge half the amount due and issue a check for the remainder. Whatever you choose, if it results in additional processing fees, those will need to be paid by the renter. The below examples, are of a US based Credit Card Charge. Our most frequent form of payment:
EXAMPLE #2 (PayPal Electronic Payment)
$3,500.00 Rental Rate (Example - Quotes based on # of Nights, time of year, if a holiday, etc.)
350.00 Cleaning Fee
$3,850.00
462.00 12% MS Lodging Taxes
$4,312.00
600.00 Refundable deposit
$4,912.00 Sub-Total before estimated PayPal Processing Fee
171.92 Estimated PayPal Processing Fee of 3.5% of $4,912.00
$5,083.92 Actual Rental is $4,483.92, after $600 Refundable Deposit is Returned
~
$2,541.96 is due (50% of total Rental), by Credit Card Payment (you will be invoiced through PayPal) within 5 days
Balance of $2,541.96 due, by Credit Card Payment (PayPal Invoicing), at lease 30 days prior to arrival
Remember, as long as conditions are met, within 14 days of departure, refundable deposit of $600 is returned. If PayPal Rates change, this is a foreign charge, or electronic payment from a checking account, this 3.5% charge will also change.
*Vacation Home is now paid in full