This past week I diverted yet another potential disaster. I received an e-mail inquiry from a renter who said she was flexible within a two-week period. One week she requested was booked, but I had the other week open. Knowing that my chances of scoring a booking are significantly better when I call instead of e-mail, I picked up the phone. I told her right off the bat that I was only open one of the two weeks she requested, and then we had a nice lengthy conversation about my home, the area, and we even chatted about families. She was comfortable with me and I was comfortable with her. I was pretty confident she would book, but before she could commit, she had to work out the details with her hubby. Sounded reasonable.

The next day she e-mailed me and said she wanted to book it. I sent her a contract and told her I would call her in the evening to get her credit card information. While talking to her this time, she was in a hurry because her two year old was screaming in the background. I quickly took her credit card information but since we had a lengthy conversation the night before I was not as regimented about going through my usual “booking spiel” with her (here';s the description of the cabin, location, policies, etc.) As I was literally about to hang up I said, “One more thing…I just want you to look over the contract to make sure I have your dates and rates correct before I charge your card.”

She looked at it and said “NO! The dates are wrong. I need the other week we talked about.” Not possible. I was already booked that week. I asked her if the other dates she had originally inquired about were still an option but unfortunately, her husband had already gotten approval for that week off from work and could not change it. We were both very bummed. I lost the booking and she had to go back to the drawing board to find another rental.

Yikes! I cannot imagine what could have happened if I had omitted that one very important step of the booking process. Lesson learned: Never deviate from the booking process, no matter how comfortable you get with a person.