Our contracts are essentially permanent - this means that the hotel will feature on Secret Escapes indefinitely - unless & until the contract is terminated, which can be done by either party in accordance with the agreed terms. 

The aim here is to make working with us as seamless as possible - you can naturally manage your availabilities, rates and offer types anytime but your listing is permanent & visible to our members until agreed otherwise.

Our members can cancel accommodation bookings free of charge up to 7 days prior to the check-in date, unless stated differently in your contract with Secret Escapes. We will inform you of these cancellations within 24 hours of the customer informing us. Free of charge cancellation is also possible in cases of force majeure: this is possible up to the check-in date as we cannot predict when the incidents will take place.  

Please always check your inbox for our supplier communications as soon as the government announces lockdown and travel restrictions on how we handle affected bookings. Secret Escapes will be in charge for the refund to the guest if the arrival is in the future. 

Regarding our joint inventory, please note that when a room is cancelled it will be returned to our allocation and available to book again on the website, unless that date/room/offer has previously been closed out.

The hotel is able the viewed cancellation policy in the Reservation details under 'Sale details' in the Partner Portal as well

You will be able to top up or closeout existing dates through the 'Rooms and Availability' tool in the Partner Portal. In order to be able to do this, you will need editing access. We will be sending automated notifications alerts via email whenever your remaining availability runs low for travel dates, giving you the option to top up again with additional availability simply by responding to that email as well.

 To update your rates on Secret Escapes, please contact your Contract Manager.

To update your hotel information on Secret Escapes, please contact your Contract Manager. 

If there is an in-resort issue due to wrongly displayed information that you need our help for, please contact supervisor@secretescapes.com and copy customerservice@secretescapes.com with your query. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

Secret Escapes acts as your agent in marketing your hotel to our members. We provide a platform through which you can enter into a contract with the customer; the contract is concluded directly between you, as principal, and the customer. In effect, this relationship is the same as if the customer had booked directly with you.

Secret Escapes will send you an individual confirmation for each booking in real-time via email, to one or multiple email addresses of your choice. Furthermore, the bookings will be made visible in the Partner Portal under Reservations. Here, you are able to view all reservation details and payment data in one overview and see the current status of reservations, as well as download a reservations list in both .xls and .csv format.

If member cancels with Secret Escapes directly

For refundable bookings cancelled within the valid cancellation period (please see contract) you will receive an automated cancellation confirmation and the virtual card is automatically invalidated and can no longer be charged. For more information on our virtual cards, please refer to SUVC section.

For non-refundable bookings, or refundable bookings cancelled outside the agreed cancellation period (please see contract), you are entitled to the agreed booking revenue and can charge the card as per usual, unless the booking is cancelled for force majeure, or i.e. governmental or regulatory reasons such as COVID-19 relating.

If you haven't received a cancellation confirmation, please email supervisor@secretescapes.com to request this. 

If member contacts the hotel / wants to cancel with the hotel directly

Please refer the guest to Secret Escapes so we can reflect the cancellation in our system and send confirmations to both the customer and yourself. Members can edit/cancel their bookings via the 'my bookings' section in their Secret Escapes account, or contact us via the Contact Us Page on our website. 

As you act as the principal of the booking, any confirmation of the no-show is obliged to come from you. We'd kindly like to ask you to send a cancellation or no-show confirmation to the member if this is being requested.

The no-show policy is up to you. You may charge the SUVC the full amount on (or after) the check-in date if you wish. Secret Escapes is entitled to the full commission for no-shows. 

All Secret Escapes bookings must be considered leisure travellers bookings unless the customer contacts you otherwise. 

In case of travel restrictions, please don't consider these bookings as a no-show as the traveller is not allowed to be accommodated by the hotel.

For more information on our virtual cards, please refer to SUVC section.

If the customer is contacting you for an amendment request, please redirect the guest to their Secret Escapes account. We have a rebooking tool that allows the guest to self-serve a date change;

If the preferred new date is available:
The guest will be able to change the date in their account. You will receive a new booking confirmation for the reservation and a cancellation confirmation for the old one.

If the preferred new date is not available/the request is outside the cancellation period:
The guest will not be able to change the date in their account with Secret Escapes. If the customer is contacting you for an amendment request which you are happy to accept, please feel free to accept this change in your system and forward the request to hotelvcc@secretescapes.com in order for us to send you new SUVC details.

If the customer is contacting you for an amendment request which you are happy to accept, please forward the request to hotelvcc@secretescapes.com in order for us to send you new SUVC details, change the dates in our system and resend you the correct booking confirmation.

• If you action the refund directly to the guest, no further action is needed and you can charge the card in full as normal. 

• If you want SE to action the refund on your behalf, please contact customerservice@secretsescapes.com with the customer transaction ID/booking reference, the amount you want to refund (including the currency), and a short summary detailing the reason for the refund. The team will be able to assist you and process the refund to the guest on your behalf. 

Once the refund has been processed by SE Customer Services:

• If the card has not yet been charged, the card value will be reduced by the refund amount authorized by you. You will receive a notification to charge the remaining value.

• If the card has already been charged, you will receive a notification to put the refund value back onto the original card provided.
  
  For more information on our virtual cards, please refer to SUVC section.

Yes, you are able to export the booking list yourself through the Partner Portal. Please go to 'Reservations' and simply set the filters to your preferred time period. Then, you can export the list in an .xls or .csv format.

For accommodation bookings, Secret Escapes will take payment from the customer at the time of booking on your behalf, so you do not have to worry about payment default. 

Payments from Secret Escapes to Hotels are made using single-use virtual cards (SUVCs) on a per-booking basis, the details for which you will receive along with the booking confirmation. The card details can be charged over the net amount (booking value minus the agreed commission) from the check-in day (00:01 UTC) onwards for 90 onwards.

Secret Escapes is now trialling a new service for our suppliers, called the Partner Portal. In this Partner Portal, you are able to view all reservation and payment information in one overview and see the current status of reservations. If you would like to get access to this tool, please contact your Contracts Manager.

Mastercard

We work with a company called eNett to generate unique virtual Mastercards (card number, expiry date and CVC code) for each individual booking, the details will be available on our Partner Portal.

You are able to view all reservation details and the SUVC details per booking on the Partner Portal. Please go to 'Reservations', click on the preferred booking and then click on 'View details' on the credit card icon.

If you have any questions on SUVC details, please contact hotelvcc@secretescapes.com.

The card number, expiry date and CVC code are required and provided in the Reservation details in the Partner Portal.

Please enter the details of the Virtual Card in exactly the same way as you would a physical credit card.

The card becomes active on the check in date and is valid for up to 90 days onwards. Any attempts to charge the card before check-in will fail automatically.

The card will expire 90 days after the check in date. Should you accidentally forget to charge a card and exceed the 90 day expiry, please contact our dedicated finance team on hotelvcc@secretescapes.com to request the issuing of a replacement (please ensure to mention all relevant booking details, i.e. transaction ID)

No, these are single use only and will only work for the exact amount specified on the card as per the booking confirmation, respectively over the gross booking value minus the agreed commission amount.

No, the card must be charged in the same currency as per the rates agreed with Secret Escapes, so usually your local currency. Please confirm with the front desk / customer payment processing team that the contracted and charging currencies are the same prior to the sale going live as the card could fail if an attempt is made to charge the incorrect amount.

If the card keeps failing, or if you have other queries in relation to charging the cards, please email hotelvcc@secretescapes.com and quote the Secret Escapes booking reference. 

Yes - we will issue commission invoices to you on a monthly basis, in the first week of the month for all check-ins of the previous month.

The monthly invoice will cover any check-ins during the previous month plus any necessary adjustments for cancellations made relating to prior months.

Example: If a booking was meant to check in in November and was not cancelled in our system by December, the corresponding commission fee will be included in the November invoice issued at the start of December. If however that booking was cancelled, the corresponding credit memo won't appear until the December invoice issued at the beginning of January.

Example of a commission invoice when you are on VCC payment

Example of a commission invoice when you are on bank transfer payment

Secret Escapes acts as your agent and works with commissionable gross rates including statutory VAT, and earns an agreed commission for each successfully mediated booking for your hotel. You as the principal are therefore required by tax regulations to book the full rate in your systems without any deductions as paid by the guest. 

We want to save you the time and trouble to bank transfer the commission back to us and therefore we directly deduct it when sending you the SUVC over the resulting net amount.

As an intermediary, we handle the customer payment on your behalf and will gladly issue a payment confirmation to the customer upon request. You as the principal and ultimate provider of the booked accommodation service are obliged to issue a VAT invoice if requested, over the full amount paid by the customer. 

The hotel can offset the outstanding commission amount with the issued commission invoice in their system, which, together with the net amount received via SUVC, sums up to the total amount paid by the guest (the full gross rate) and balances the account.

The commission is therefore to be treated as cost of sales and does not reduce the amount to be posted or taxable. Should the hotel system not be able to map this handling, the offsetting entry of the commission invoice must be carried out retrospectively by the accounting department of the hotel.

The commission invoice issued by Secret Escapes includes the VAT, which the hotel can claim via input tax and which can be deducted from the taxable revenue of the bookings. 

The below guides will explain how our agency model works where we do commissionable rates (i.e. HO, H+, 3PP, T15) and the VAT / commission position.  

There is one for UK suppliers and one for EU (non-UK) suppliers.:

• Non-UK supplier

• UK supplier

Please contact hotel-invoices@secretescapes.com and we'll get it resolved for you as soon as possible.