Receiving a paid homestay enquiry
Once your profile has been published on Lingoo you will start to receive enquiries from members who would like to stay with you. Whether you are a Host Family or a Host Teacher Member, remember you decide who stays with you, when and for how long.
Read the Guest’s profile and message in detail before responding. They will want to know your availability and some basic details about what you offer. Please respond to all requests, even if you decline them.
If you’re interested, you can start discussing a stay. Get to know the Guest before progressing to the reservation stage. Ask about their interests, lifestyle and expectations of the stay. Be prepared to share your Credentials file if requested, just to offer further assurance (read about the Credential file here).
If you are new to Lingoo, the number of reservations you can accept is limited to 3. As soon as you have received your first evaluation, this limit will be lifted.
For your own security, keep all communication within the Lingoo secure messaging system at all times.
When all aspects of the stay have been discussed and agreed, your Guest can start the reservation process by clicking ‘Confirm a stay’.
Your Guest opens a Paid Language Stay Contract which you must then complete together online. You can read more about the Paid Language Stay Contract here.
Once the Contract has been signed by both parties, your Guest confirms their reservation by paying for the stay through Lingoo, together with a booking voucher and any applicable Guest charges.
The booking voucher is calculated as 15% of accommodation and language lessons included automatically for Teachers’ stays. The Guest booking fee is calculated on the same items, as 5% for Free Members and 2.5% for Verified Members. Full Members do not pay this fee. Booking voucher and Guest booking fee are subject to VAT, depending on where you live.
Payment is made to Lingoo in one or two payments, depending on the date of the booking, and the method of payment.
After the Guest has made the full payment (and in the case of a Free Member has been security checked), both parties get access to a printable PDF version of the completed contract, which includes full contact details and lists important information and commitments.
As soon as Lingoo has received the full payment from your Guest, we will ensure that you (the Host) will be paid via our partner Tipalti at the beginning of the stay, using the information you provided in your questionnaire Your bank details.
This service is designed to help Hosts concentrate on providing quality hosting and language teaching rather than spending time administering Guest payments.
You (Host) will receive 70% of the Guest’s payment from Lingoo via your Tipalti account on the first day of the stay and the remaining 30% one day after the end of the stay. If you have requested payment in your local currency instead of Euro, Tipalti will complete the foreign exchange on your behalf. You will receive exactly the amount you have requested from your Guest and neither Lingoo nor Tipalti will charge you for this service.
Shortly after your Guest completes the stay, we will ask them to leave an evaluation of their experience. This important feedback helps us improve the service and will be published on your profile.
This is highly risky and prohibited by the membership rules..
Lingoo provides a number of safeguards to protect both the Host and the Guest when booking through our secure system. For example, their deposit is held securely so that if they need to cancel the trip for any reason they could be entitled to a refund. You can read Lingoo’s cancellation policy here.
The Lingoo payment system guarantees that the Guest does not have to send funds directly to their Host and potentially incur expensive bank charges, and that the Host receives exactly the amount they have requested.
Lingoo pays Hosts directly so that they don’t need to manage Guests' payments themselves and gain the certainty that funds will be received on time and, if applicable, in the correct currency.
We also protect your confidentiality through our secure messaging system, carry out stringent identity validation and provide a completed contract containing all details of the agreement for each reservation. This contract is a safeguarding tool that is also useful when clarifying a dispute. We strongly advise against taking homestay bookings outside of the secure Lingoo system. Members who reserve a stay outside the Lingoo system will be systematically removed from the site.
