Ten questions, and why each one matters
- What is a booking's identity in your system? If it is the iCal UID, Booking.com's re-keys will cancel and recreate jobs. Lemon's answer: property, feed and checkout date.
- When a booking disappears from the feed, what happens and how fast? Immediate cancellation is the wrong answer. Lemon's answer: flag, wait 24 hours (2 hours near checkout), never inside 24 hours of checkout.
- What happens if the feed comes back empty? It should be treated as a failed fetch. Lemon's answer: nothing changes.
- How often do you read the calendar? Lemon: every 5 minutes, with every fetch snapshotted for 30 days.
- Do cleaners need an app or an account? Every install step is a cleaner who does not use it. Lemon: a link on Telegram, WhatsApp, SMS or email.
- How are photos required? "Upload some photos" produces three photos of the sofa. Lemon: one per named area, with a reference photo, approval and comments.
- What happens when a cleaner declines or goes silent? Lemon: offer expires after 60 minutes (10 urgent), next cleaner, then host alert, then broadcast.
- What does it cost per property, and what does messaging cost on top? Lemon: €18 / €14 / €10 by tier; Telegram and email free; SMS on credits.
- Where is my data and is there a record of every decision? Lemon: EU hosting, every sync decision logged with a reason, every message logged with delivery status.
- Can I see your real numbers? Lemon: yes — the feed integrity report is published monthly.
How to test any tool in an afternoon
Connect one Booking.com feed with a stay in progress and one Airbnb feed with a block. Watch for a day. Count the messages your cleaner receives. A tool built for what these feeds actually do sends one.