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Important "Sender pays all fees" click here for more details.

Price Policy - Why did "Your Website" Offer a Different Price?

IdyllicPrague.com, the owner of the IdyllicPrague Cottages only has one website. 
This Website can be accessed from www.IdyllicPrague.com, www.IdealPrag.com and www.londonprague.com .

If you are looking at any other Website, then we are sorry, you are not looking at IdyllicPrague,
you are not looking at "Our WebSite".   We are sorry that other websites suggest different
prices.  For more explanation read on......

Price Policy - Simplicity

The foremost principle of the IdyllicPrague.com pricing policy is simplicity.

We think it is important that our pricing is as simple as possible so that our Clients
can understand our pricing, and so that we can understand our pricing and avoid mistakes!
For an idea of how our prices work see www.Calc.IdyllicPrague.com

But there is another reason we have to keep our prices simple.  IdyllicPrague.com is
advertised on a very large number of "Holiday Portal" web sites.  (To see just a few
of the Holiday Portal web sites click here.)  We do not actually know how many
"Holiday Portal" web sites advertise IdyllicPrague.com - from time to time we stumble
on new "Holiday Portal" web sites advertising IdyllicPrague.com that we did not know
existed! 

The problem is that each of these Portals tries to make themselves unique by
approaching holiday Cottage pricing in a different way - and each is convinced that
they alone have the right approach!  But because of this it is simply impossible for
IdyllicPrague.com to invent a pricing structure that can be accurately displayed on each
of these websites. 

It is very frustrating to try to placate a Guest who is understandably very angry that
the prices displayed on www.StarHolidayRent.com on behalf of IdyllicPrague.com do
not match the IdyllicPrague.com prices! 

They exclaim indignantly "but those were the prices displayed on YOUR website!".
It takes a great deal of gentle explanation to convince the aggrieved party that,
not only is www.StarHolidayRent.com (or whatever today's web site happens to be)
not "our" website, but that we had not even heard of the website until a few minutes ago!

We cannot win, but we do try to minimise problems.  And the best way to minimise
problems is to keep our pricing structure as simple as possible.

Small Groups and Big Groups

For smaller groups we charge by the Cottage per night, and for larger groups
we charge by the person per night. 

So, in the case of Conifer Cottage at "standard" rate

    we charge 100 per Cottage per night for groups of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8

    and we charge 12 per person per night for groups of 9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17 etc.  

We charge for the Cottage per night because the Cottages are extremely expensive to
purchase and extremely expensive to maintain, and because they need to pay for
themselves whether they have one occupant or six.

When we started renting IdyllicPrague.com Cottages we did not imagine accommodating
large groups.  But many Guests begged us to accept bigger groups, some even offering
to camp in tents in the gardens!  So we invested tens of thousands of pounds in improving
the Cottages to provide luxury accommodation to larger groups.  It will take us dozens of
years to recoup this investment, so we do not think it unreasonable for us to charge a little
extra for big groups.

IdyllicPrague.com offer delightful Cottage accommodation.  If you compare this with other
accommodation and even with much lower quality accommodation in the Prague area you
will find that IdyllicPrague.com offer excellent value for money - particularly for larger groups.

Lastly larger groups are more expensive for us to accommodate, not only in services such
as laundry, cleaning, electricity, gas, water, greeting etc but also in wear and tear
on the Cottage.  It is very noticeable that the Cottage suffers more when accommodating
large groups compared to small groups.

So, IdyllicPrague.com charge smaller groups by the Cottage per night, and larger groups by
the person per night.  Is that fair?  Yes - we think so!  Would it be more fair if we made it
more complicated?  Yes - probably - but as explained above we think our pricing is quite
complicated enough without making it even more complicated.

We are very open to receiving your constructive suggestions and we would love to listen to
ways in which we might improve our pricing policy.  But please do not argue that our pricing
policy is flawed and then expect us to provide you with a discount on the basis of that argument!
Our perspective is that such a change would be grossly disrespectful to all the Guests who have
already respected and accepted our pricing policy.  If our policies are not optimum we will change
them, but we will change them in a correct and professional manner, which means publicising a
new approach to be implemented at a future date.

Incremental Occupancy

Sometimes some members of a group of Guests do not stay for the full extent of the
holiday.  We still charge as if all members of the group were present throughout the entire holiday. 
We realise that some Guests view this as harsh - and we can easily imagine why this appears harsh. 
But from the perspective of IdyllicPrague.com a Guest who is not present throughout the holiday
has the same cost - the same services are delivered, and the occupancy still excludes another party
of Guests from occupying the Cottage.  So the opportunity costs are identical whether or not every
Guest sleeps in the Cottage every night, and the incurred costs are similar.

And any other pricing approach is impractical - we are not going to raid your Cottage at 02:00 every
night to count how many are sleeping in the Cottage!  So how can we ever know how many nights
each particular Guest slept in the Cottage?

We have to pay a local Tourist Accommodation tax per person per night.  We pay that on behalf
of our Guests, we do not charge you extra for it.  But the tax is calculated on the maximum
number of nights for the maximum number of people, no rebate is given for missing nights.

So we charge for the full number of Guests for the full extent of the holiday.  That is our policy.
However under exceptional circumstances we will give a 50% QNN rebate.

QNN Qualifying Non-Resident Nights

A QNN is a mechanism by which in exceptional circumstances a partial rebate may be given
for nights in which a Guest is not resident in his/her IdyllicPrague.com Cottage.  If a non-resident
night is accepted as qualifying as a QNN, then, at the sole discretion of IdyllicPrague.com a
rebate of 50% of the average cost per night per person may be deducted per QNN. 

In order to qualify as a QNN a Non-Resident Night needs to fulfil the following criteria

    -    Irrefutable proof that the individual is not resident (e.g. substantiated flight details)

    -    A clear reason why the individual was unable to be resident for the full holiday

    -    A request to validate a QNN must be made at an early stage in the booking process

    -    The individual must constitute a "large group" not a "small group" (see above)
         Typically that means more than 8 in Conifer Cottage, more than 7 in Cherry Tree Cottage
         more than 5 in Cherry Tree Lodge, or more than 2 in Cherry Garden Suite

    -    QNNs may not be awarded at times of extremely high demand e.g. New Year or August,
          if the award of the QNN is effectively denying another Guest an IdyllicPrague.com holiday

    -    QNNs will only be awarded at the discretion of IdyllicPrague.com whose decision is final.

The approach to calculating the QNN rebate can be seen on www.Calc.IdyllicPrague.com

Infants and Children

In our experience infants and children are often more expensive for us to accommodate than adults. 
So we simply charge by the total number of Guests, irrespective of their ages.

Seasonal Pricing

We adjust our prices according to seasonal demand.  This is not profiteering - we lower our prices to 50%
for much of the year - so price increases are more than balanced by price decreases.

It can be heartrending to tell a family who are begging us for a booking that the booking has already
been given to another family - once you have experienced that your realise that it is fairer to charge
more for the very high demand holiday dates.

Last New Year we were "fifty times over sold".  By that we mean that - having sold and been paid for
all our Cottages for New Year and having published that everything was sold, 50 families begged us to
take them on a non-existent "waiting list" in the hope of a cancellation!

"Please Give Us Your Best Price" - Discount

Discount

We do not discount.  Is not our way of doing business.  We believe that the fairest and best way
to do business is to be as open and transparent in our pricing and in our allocation of bookings as
we are able to be.

We are very open to receiving your constructive suggestions and we would love to listen to
ways in which we might improve our pricing policy.  But please do not argue that our pricing
policy is flawed and then expect us to provide you with a discount on the basis of that argument!
Our perspective is that such a change would be grossly disrespectful to all the Guests who have
already respected and accepted our pricing policy.  If our policies are not optimum we will change
them, but we will change them in a correct and professional manner, which means publicising a
new approach to be implemented at a future date.

No Free Gift Discount

We do not discount.  Is not our way of doing business.  We believe that the fairest and best way
to do business is to be as open and transparent in our pricing and in our allocation of bookings as
we are able to be.

We do provide a number of items to arriving Guests free of charge, such as sometimes offering subsidised
collection from Prague Airport.  We do this because we believe it is very important way to ensure
that our Guests enjoy the best possible start to their holiday.  But these "free" items are "free"
- that is to say we do not charge explicitly for them.  Conversely if on occasions we do not offer
these "free" services to Guests, or if Guests chose not to take them, then we do not provide any
discount to compensate for the absence of the "free" service.  If we were to offer a discount for
a missing "free" service, then the service would not be "free".  So we do not do that. 
We do not discount.

Payment - "Sender pays all costs"

Payment should be on the basis "sender pays all costs".  Please make certain that
you have paid in full well in advance of your holiday because the postal system, and
the banking system often malfunction and it is horrid for all of us if we are anxiously
waiting for a payment to arrive just before the start of a holiday, uncertain if the holiday
will be able to proceed. 

Payment is on the basis of "payment that arrives", not "payment that is sent"
Sadly the international banking system is quite greedy - when transmitting money
internationally banks often deduct a "sending fee", an "intermediary fee" and then
give a poor exchange rate.  Obviously we will pay any banking costs charged by our
own bank, but we do ask that the full payment amount for your holiday arrives in
our bank account.  A simple way around all this would be to send a little extra
(maybe 30).  That may sound a bit extreme, but it would avoid a lot of hassle and
uncertainty for everyone.   As explained below IdyllicPrague.com will be happy to
make an appropriate adjustment to any further payment if an overpayment arrives.

The diagram shows the 3 components of sending money between banks:-

Ju+

Your payment is sent out of your accountu.  Your bank u may charge you a fee for sending the money.

#*+

Your payment money travels between accounts sometimes, but not always, via an intermediary bank. Any greedy bank takes an extra fee #(eg 20).

*wL

Your payment money is received in IdyllicPrague account w, less the fee #taken in .  CitiBank w takes yet another fee (eg 30)

Any fees or deductions that happen in w are paid for by IdyllicPrague.com (typically CitiBank
will deduct around 30 or 30 or $45).  You do not have to worry about these deductions, because
IdyllicPrague.com will pay these bank fees.  But we do ask that the full payment arrives in w.

Your bank will (usually) tell you about the fees that they are charging you in u.

BUT your bank will usually NOT tell you about the fees they are charging you in , maybe
they do not even know about these charges themselves.  So, when you send your money from u
the money that arrives in w is short by perhaps 20 or 20 or $30.  An "invisible" bank has
deducted a fee without telling anyone. 
In addition to these deductions, if the money has to change from one currency to another,
the banks will give a poor exchange rate, which is in effect another deduction.

If through no fault of your own a payment arrives slightly short, we may, at our sole
discretion, accept the reduced payment.  But we do insist that any subsequent payment
redresses the shortfall.  Suppose that you have booked a holiday costing EUR 1,000.
You send a deposit of 500.  Your bank tells you that the transmission charges will be
40.  So you send 540.  But only 491 arrives in the IdyllicPrague.com bank account,
and in addition, the IdyllicPrague.com CitiBank account deducts 49 for receiving the
491.  IdyllicPrague.com will pay the 49 fee, that is our expense, and, at the sole
discretion of IdyllicPrague.com, we may accept the short payment of 491, if we are
satisfied that every effort and intent was made to pay the full amount.
BUT we do expect you to send 558 as your second payment, so that a total of 1,000
arrives in the IdyllicPrague.com bank account.  We will pay our own banking fees totalling
100 for receiving your payment, but we do not expect to pay any other fees.

So, IdyllicPrague.com know that the process often malfunctions, and want to be as
helpful and understanding and considerate as possible.  Our objective is to achieve
payment in as fair and transparent a manner as possible.  But we also expect you to be as
helpful and understanding and considerate as possible with the objective of achieving
payment in as fair and transparent a manner as possible. Click here

We have CitiBank bank accounts in GBP, USD and CZK both in London and Prague.
When sending money it is usually cheapest to avoid unnecessary changes of currency. 
We are happy to receive payments in GBP in our GBP account, we are happy to receive
payments in USD in our USD account, and we are happy to receive payments
in any other currency in our CZK account.

Alternatively, you may like to post a cheque to us.  We have successfully paid cheques
of many currencies into our CitiBank London GBP account.  Once again we only ask
that the correct full payment amount arrives in our account.  IdyllicPrague.com will
pay the banking fees CitiBank charge us for receiving your payment (typically 20-50),
but we expect you to pay any other fees so that the full correct amount arrives in the
IdyllicPrague.com CitiBank bank account.  We have had very few problems with cheques,
and very few unexpected deductions.  So paying by cheque is a good option.

For more Payment Details please click here

All Guests will be asked to sign an Arrival Acceptance Form.  Click here for Damage policy

Click here for availability charts

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