Guestbook Rewards - Operations Manual

Operational overview of how The Guestbook rewards program works.

The Guestbook is a cash based program that rewards guests for booking direct at hundreds of the best independent & boutique brand hotels. Guests enroll with their email address to receive 5% Cash Reward via PayPal/gift cards, a 5% Cash for a Cause on their behalf or may triple their reward as 15% in Cash Forward (see FAQs for additional information on Cash Forward).

The Guestbook has been designed by experienced hoteliers to minimize disruption to the hotel operation – we know you’re busy. Here are a few highlights to note:

• No need for member recognition at the front desk

• No requirement to extend comp upgrades or other on-property benefits

• Stay tracking & rewards distribution are done entirely by The Guestbook

• No formal training required

• It’s easy to hand off to the next person during staff transition

Property Notifications

The Guestbook will correspond with one or more people on property for various transactional aspects of the program, such as folio requests, stay validations and sharing guest arrivals & preferences. Hotels usually assign a front office / reservations manager or night auditor for this task. A generic email address is used that is checked by various reservations or front office personnel on duty (example: ‘reservations@hotelxyz.com’, or ‘guestservices@hotelxyz.com’) is highly recommended.

If you haven’t already, please let The Guestbook know who should handle these by emailing contact@theguestbook.com. You will be sent one email summarizing all new and open tasks at 7am local hotel time whenever one of the below items occurs:

• There is a new item in your queue.
• An item is in overdue status; either 8+ or 11+ days overdue.
• There is a Guestbook member arriving within the next 5 days.

A few items to note: 

• Guests are given an approximate response time of 7 business days, so please attempt to process your open items in this time window.
• Any items not processed in 30 days will result in a notice to the member advising them of our inability to validate their stay.
• You may forward this email to those whom you wish to process the items.
• It is not necessary to log in to access and process the open items, you simply need to click through the email.
• The email will come from contact@theguestbook.com, and will have one of the following subjects:
  • Open Guestbook Member items for “HOTEL NAME”
  • Attention: Overdue Guestbook Member Items for “HOTEL NAME”
  • IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED: Extremely Overdue Guestbook Items for “HOTEL NAME”

• You can access the hotel queue by clicking on the green button or any of the numbers in each column.
• Whenever a request is in an overdue status, you will receive daily notices, and you may also receive a call from one of The Guestbook’s team members.

Sample email: 

Hotel stay processing queue is accessed via the "Click here to process items" button at the bottom of the notification email. 

Stay Approvals / Denials: 

We request that the hotel team processes guest stays for rewards on a frequent and regular basis to ensure speedy delivery of rewards. The hotel has two options for approving stays - either by uploading the guest's folio, or by manually entering an approved amount. Detailed instructions for either process can be found in the articles linked below. 

Folio Upload Approval Process

Folio-less Approval Process

Interested in switching to Folio-less Approval Processing?

Monthly Invoicing:

Properties are billed monthly on the last day of the month for any rewards that were approved since the last invoice. The invoice will be sent from
contact@theguestbook.com. The email will appear similar to the below:

Attached to the email you will find a PDF version of the invoice, as well as an Excel spreadsheet containing the reservation details The Guestbook is invoicing based off of. 

A few items to note: 

• You may access the hotel’s invoice by clicking on the link provided in the email.
• Payment may be made in several ways, including PayPal, Credit Card (using PayPal), ACH, physical check or wire transfer. Payment instructions, Credit Card Authorization form, tax certifications and a completed W-9 can be found here. A link is provided on the invoice email as well.
• Invoices are sent in the hotel’s local currency in order to avoid currency calculation hassles.
• Please ensure your Accounts Payable team is aware of the program and its costs. Failure to process payment within the allowed terms will result in late fees being added to your account. Service may also be suspended for accounts with excessive open and past due invoices.
• If you haven’t already, please let The Guestbook know who should receive monthly invoices by emailing contact@theguestbook.com.

You can find a thorough explanation of how to read The Guestbook invoice below: 

How to Read The Guestbook Invoice

Enrollment Reports

A weekly report is provided to the hotel that includes all hotel-generated enrollments to date, sorted from earliest enrollment to most recent enrollment. There are also columns that indicate whether the enrolled member has opted NOT to receive marketing emails and which hotel agent enrolled the member (if applicable). You can find more information about the reports below: 

Enrollments

If you would like to be included on this report, please contact your Customer Growth Manager or email us at customergrowth_team@theguestbook.com.

Visuals of Guestbook Member Account Dashboard

The best way for your team to learn about the details of the program is to enroll in the program and explore. To supplement & reinforce key concepts, this section also highlights some of the more commonly used pages within the “My Account” section.

Dashboard

Profile

Here members can update their currency, language/date formats, and link additional email addresses to their account: 

Manage Communication Preferences

On the Profile page there is a button that leads to a new page where members can update their email preferences. Please note that members may not opt out of Transactional Emails. These types of emails are automatically sent in response to an interaction they made with The Guestbook including password resets, legal notices, reservation confirmations, reward notifications, etc. These emails contain important account information and are required with The Guestbook service. To unsubscribe from these emails, they must delete their Guestbook account.

Members are informed with the below policy regarding marketing emails from our partner hotels.

“If you enrolled in our service from one of our lodging partners, your profile will be added to their marketing communications list to help maximize your rewards. You may remove yourself from those communications by following the unsubscribe link on any email they send to you.”

Redeem Rewards

Here members can explore the different redemption options available to them in their currency. Please note that gift card options vary per currency. If a member decides to redeem for Cash Forward, they will be presented with the Cash Forward rules prior to moving forward with redemption. 

Frequently Asked Questions: 

Additional FAQs can be found on our page (https://faq.theguestbook.com/)

Below please find some FAQs common with our partner hotels.

Do all guests and bookings qualify for rewards?
No. Guests must be enrolled prior to their arrival and book direct in order to be eligible for the cash rewards. Guest’s who enroll upon check-in or after are not eligible for the cash rewards. We can make an exception if you are willing to grant them the rewards. Just send us an email to contact@theguestbook.com

What are the rewards options?
All guests earn 15% Cash Rewards on the total net value of the booking (not including taxes or fees) and have the option to redeem it for one of the below 3:

• 5% Cash Back via PayPal or gift cards (Most guests cash out for the 5%)
• 5% Cash for a Cause to donate to a favorite charitable cause
• 15% Cash Forward towards a future stay at another hotel in the Guestbook network

Does the hotel need to inform The Guestbook when a guest makes a reservation?
No. If the guest enrolls during the booking process online, or is already enrolled, we capture their reservation and track it up until the date of departure. It is the members responsibility to send us their booking (if we don't have it), and they can send it to rewards@theguestbook.com or upload it to their account.

Which hotel charges qualify for rewards?

• Room-only rates
• Package rates
• Upgrade fees
• Early check-in and late check-out fees

If you have further questions, please feel free to contact us any time at contact@theguestbook.com or +1-323-302-4602.