Little Hotelier

Pros

Ease of use. Integration with the other apps available. Flexibility of the view in the calendar. The reports and analytics. And there are tons of features I would love to explore but don't have the time.

Cons

Not much. I'm really pleased with the recent upgrades to the mobile app. The only feature I'd like to see is the ability for me to colour code my calendar based on the incoming channel. That way I would have a quick visual confirmation that tells me at a glance where the reservations are coming from and would quickly indicate to me how any specific promotion is doing depending on the channel. If the reservation also could have an indicator of what promotion was used, that would be even better!

Pros

Very easy to use with clear uncluttered screen layout.
It was the first time we used a CMS as the hotel had not really got into the 21st Century. The integration and change was so simple and the support from Little Hotelier was amazing.
The Reports section is so helpful with the day to day accounting
Very rarely have any glitches or problems with the software.
I am pleased that we now have a choice of 14 and 28 day calendar view

Cons

The invoices are unnecessarily complicated and take up too much paper. Guests do not want a copy of their invoice that is 3 pages long if they have stayed for a month. Obviously we email invoices if requested but guests do comment and say it is too complicated.
If a guest cancels through our OTA, and they fall within the free period they are not charged, but Little Hotelier does not remove the cost so it comes up as an outstanding amount.
It would be good to have a button that marks a guest as a no show so we can track how often this happens through the reporting (also we still take payment for the room)

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Little Hotelier

Pros

I liked the ready hover access to info on clients in the Front desk version, as well as the fact that Site-minder came with the cost of the product. Also, the sales person was very helpful, I wish she was the tech-support or training person.

Cons

This was too hard to implement correctly, and too error prone. It needed a process "Step one", but that was missing. I set everything up in the Booking Engine first without realizing that the information in the booking engine is only what clients see online, not what is happening on the back end. I ended up deleting hours of work and starting over several times. there are videos and good instructions -- but never does it say -- do this first. Training never told me this. Tech support did, but only after I was integrated with Site-minder (another big project). The entire experience was probably one of the worst experiences I have ever had -- further more, when I wanted to stop using the product I still had to pay for 3 months to fulfill a contract.

Pros

It has everything I need, reports, customisable emails, guest registration forms and invoices. An app that at a quick glance I can easily see what I need to as well as do bookings. Integration with my website and OTAs.

Cons

I found the set up a bit confusing , but I am not good at technology and am new to the industry, so it could be me and not the system.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Little Hotelier

Pros

Reliable and simple to use yet versatile

Cons

Small business affordable. Good value for what it offers.

Pros

Generally it has great features for a small accommodation property and has everything in one spot, easy to use and the phone app has many great features to help when out and about.

Cons

Chat staff not reading what I write. Two months back I had an issue where a direct booking created by the guest is not able to be checked in, modified or payment recorded. I am very experienced with the system but had the live chat staff explain to me how to edit a booking from scratch, ignoring almost all of what I had explained earlier. Eventually the person realised there was a problem and it was escalated. Now I have another direct booking doing the same thing (numerous others in the meantime work fine). Once again the chat person does not understand there is a problem and asked me to perform the same things as last time (e.g. delete the guest email and type it in manually, which is exactly what I had told them would not work). Back around Christmas just gone I had issues with double bookings and it took a lot of effort to get it escalated and for them to identify it was indeed their system. I knew more than the chat staff and I was assured the staff involved would have further education. I now find I have chat staff not reading my messages before responding and it is simply not good enough for the price I pay. There is a lot I love about the Little Hotelier system, but with cheaper options out there I expect better quality service.

Pros

fairly nice gui and layout. easy to move rooms in calendar

Cons

everything is a paid add on, every feature requires another package and more money. its madness how they have done this. they could have one really decent product, instead its split into so many parts its unusable.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Little Hotelier

Switched From

Pros

ease of use, price, great features, linked with website and other software

Cons

not enough features, can lag some times, needs added features like making rooms clean or dirty etc

Pros

LH covers 90% of the tasks we need to complete in an effort to run the hotel. It is stable and reliable. It is very affordable.

Cons

Set-up was not intuitive and initially customer service support ineffective. Subsequent to launch we found the development team does not talk to the sales/customer support team so developers roll out beta versions of enhancements before the bugs are worked out and without telling customers of the changes. Initially I found the customer support team poorly trained with limited communication skills. I sensed they were also frustrated with their inability to satisfy customer needs. in the past 18 months I have not had to lean on customer service as frequently and when I do, the service is good.

Pros

I cannot double book a room and customer service is excellent very patient even with a non computer geek like me

Cons

It tends to ask for the password every other day

Pros

When it looked so user-friendly it was user-friendly now it has literally become like all the rest are zoomed screen difficult to drag things and when you press on the icon it doesn’t bring you straight to today so you must always know your dates I find this update terrible I am very disappointed!!!

Cons

The update calendar is terrible .. I specifically signed up with Little Hotelier because it was different.. the screen was so simple and easy to see and read .. now it looks like an excel spread sheet!! I literally hate it!!! it was a step above the rest now it has literally downgraded to be just like everyone else’s! Yet the price keeps going up! :(

Pros

Ease of use, short learning curve.

Cons

Most everything else. No wait list. No audit trails. No customization. No custom reports (ie can't use all fields in a report. Can only view 2 weeks at a time on the booking screen. The list goes on.

Pros

Not much to be honest. There are a few roo many limitations

Cons

Inability to connect to dynamic pricingCustomer support is slow (days to reply)Invoicing is not automatic - when I pay them, they still ask to be paid Staff provide incorrect information to us

Pros

Easy to track reservations and make adjustments. Does a great job of minimizing overbookings. Most issues are with the external OTA's.

Cons

A few times I have called tech support, it transfers you to voicemail to leave a message, and it is turned off.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Little Hotelier

Pros

Staff that don't understand computers in general can still muddle through

Cons

Can't merge customers, so the same staff that doesn't understand software make duplicates all the time
If a person calls to make 3 scattered reservations you have to get the same cc info FOR EACH ONE
No back end logs. Can't see what time someone was clicked "Check in" "Check Out" etc...

Doesn't integrate with quickbooks or anything else

No supported credit card reader. So you better enjoy typing in credit card numbers FOR EVERY RESERVATION. Even if it's the same person making multiple

Pros

It was easy to set up and is easy to use (for a non-technical person!) and it streamlines our booking process. It allowed me to set up an 'enquire only' on the booking engine so I can vet my guests and gave me the ability to use a pricing calculator for booking enquiries and the use of a compliant credit card system. It was good to link it to my Facebook page. It is very handy to have it on my mobile to use whenever and wherever I like.

Cons

My only problem is that it's not a channel manager and the calendar doesn't link to Air BnB and Stayz - I have to change the calendars individually for every booking. That's because I don't take direct online bookings and need to vet guests first, but it would be good to link the calendar bookings to i-Cal.

Pros

It is visually appealing (which unfortunately gave me false hope that it would be more user friendly), it is easy to add staff to it (even though they then don't have access to a user friendly platform without being on a laptop/desktop), their customer service seems helpful once you get them on the phone.

Cons

Counter intuitive, frustrating and ENDLESSLY time consuming. Sometimes things I expect will take me 10 minutes to change (like a discounted room for 4+ nights) ends up taking me 8+ hours.

The two people (including myself) who are in my office are both in our early 30's and are fairly tech savvy - growing up in the technological era. We spend a LOT of time discussing glitches, horrible lack of syncing, its counter-intuitive process and how often we spend HOURS on hold trying to reach someone in customer service. It even is lacking some very basic capabilities like being able to add links or images to auto emails which send to guests after they book a room.

I really wish I had chosen another company to work with. I can't imagine a worse one out there but I don't have the time now to change over all of our information to a new system so I am trapped with them for the time being.

I would HIGHLY recommend you look in to alternatives before choosing Little Hotelier.

Pros

Everything good in the software makes it bad as no support. You are left alone to learn everything .

Cons

Must admit the people who are helping in customer support are not trained and we have to wait days for finding answer for one question and sometimes they never get back

Pros

The new four week view is useful. Overall it is simple and suits our business.

Cons

Since the updates, it lags when you try to drag a booking between rooms/ beds and it also refreshes every time you try to do something which is very frustrating.

Pros

I have been using this software for 6 years it mostly works

Cons

Every up date the user interface gets worse
You can only us Crome on mac
The soft ware sometimes just goes haywire

Pros

I like that I can call any time and receive back up or have questions answered.

Cons

There is a lot to learn not easy for me as I do not have a tech background. But with the help I am able to have confidence in the program.

Pros

Easy to use. It is very user friendly and packed with features at a good price.

Cons

The phone app could be easier to use and have more features to allow our staff to do more.

Pros

We have been using Little Hotelier for 2 years and are very satisfied with the offerings they provide. We make use of all the products, payments, front desk, web site and channel manager. Having all this coordinated via one provider is perfect for our business.

Cons

There are some challenges at times, but the support team is spot on when getting things taken care of.

Pros

The integration was very hard work with very little help from Little Hotelier

Cons

very antiquated, need to add a lot more features this is an ongoing matter they just keep saying their working on it!
They go into my bank account and take money for cancelled bookings when their non refundable and the guest where no shows

Pros

The central control of all sales channels covering price and particularly availability.

Cons

I found it difficult to at up. Half the concepts were new to me. If you are not working with the back office daily then remembering the function of each variable is challenging. But that probably applies to similar software apps.

Pros

The software is easy to use, very intuitive, easy for our onsite staff and reservations team. Easy display, and easy booking platform

Cons

After several years using the software, we were happy with the software.. It had its issues (reports and very basic features) but their simplicity was what made us choose them. That and their integration with Stripe which allow us to take payments at time of booking and direct payments from clients on site. We have been with stripe for over 15 years.... Little HOtelier, decided a few years later that they wanted to have their own payment processing system... which meant we had to ditch Stripe... However, tLittle HOtelier Payemnt system was NOT available for our country, so we were offered to just simply take payments by hand or using a third party platform. This has been a nightmare, as we need to collect payment from future guests using a third party system (stripe), sending invoices separately, managing all these invoices, and now onsite payment manually as well.We are not against their payment system, we are upset they gave us absolutely NO alternative or option. We will be ditching the software as it does not meet the most essential part of a booking system: payment processing.

Pros

user friendly interface, integration with other siteminder softwares. and new apps... that are very useful. vote 10! but

Cons

gigantic problem. there is no way to put in evidence in the calendar with a strong color the bookings that are still unprocessed or have problems. And siteminder aims on a percentage of the business coming from STRIPE quite clearly. Conflict of interests, good service to their clients, against making more money from percentages of all Stripe sales. WRONG, morally wrong. To change system it takes months of work. So, we have to have an ultra fast glance at bookings that are unprocessed on the calendar. Track them and try to solve them. Without this we miss the unprocessed bookings. We travel in blindness unless we dedicate lots of time in the process of verifying things. And at times we get a scam of guests who never really paid a penny. Second point often stated. If they call us to book a basic function that competitors have is to book for a limited period on the calendar. After this period if client doesn't pay booking erases in automatic. the first point is fundamental. the second one also.

lastly the ad-ons for the bistro and drinks, is not so organic. but perhaps we just didn't have time to try to implement it.

Pros

The customer service team is extremely helpful

Cons

As the manager and sole operator of the system with the phone app I do not have the ability to make a reservation, change the length of a stay, build out a quote. or any of the most basic operations of the job. the phone app is only a window to view what is happening with the system and does not let me alter anything in the system. A broken tool.
The reporting functions are EXTREMELY limited, we only have 19 rooms and i have to compile multiple reports just to compare year to date revenue.
A broken tool.
As the sole operate during the winter season i built the Lodge Email to receive the customer notifications and my business email to receive the management notifications. the customer notifications are full of vital information that the management notifications do not have, like the actual date the guest is going to be staying with us. Again, a broken tool.

Pros

I'm not saying anything above the software. I've read other peoples' comments and I am agreeing with them that it could be better. For me having 4 rooms and a private suite of 2 rooms...which means 5 total...and being the first online reservation program that I've ever used I was pleased...but no help on weekends? What's that about. That's nonsense. We in the wine country mostly have weekend visitors and that's when I might have a problem. I cannot sign in. I type in the name...then the password and enter and it acts like it's going to load and then reverts back to sign in again...I need to use my computer for this because the app doesn't provide the same capabilities. Changes cannot be made using the phone app. It's too small on my phone. It doesn't print out the same either. I can't get the cc# using the phone app. Can you? If anybody can provide help please let me know because I'm getting mad!

Cons

I haven't been able to access the program from my computer for three or so weeks. They've taken away the person who used to manage my account and she was a Gem. Return call right after her morning meetings...never let me hang. Even called me one time on a weekend. I thought can you imagine that....but not even a tech available on a weekend..my gosh...I can't use a program without assistance when I need it...could me once in a year but when you need help with running your business that is when you need it. Frustrated here in Plymouth, CA.

Pros

Its easy to use and navigate and customer service is excellent, I like the team and the management and that they are based in Australia.

Cons

I am sorry to leave negative feedback as customer service is excellent but I have tried to contact directly 4 times (twice of those in writing) to prompt your software development team to fix some really basic functionality issues:
1. Automated Guest Letters - This is a basic function available in any hotel management system but Little Hotellier is the most limited I have seen.
- There are no "fields" that you can import from the booking itself. For example, if you want to set up an automated "guest arrival letter", you cannot import guest name, check in date or check out date, or check in time. What is the point of this letter if it needs to be so generic that it cannot confirm with a guest their name, date of arrival or anything specific about their booking? I am honestly so surprised by this as the other systems we use are much more advanced than this. This means I must leave a note in my diary to send a personalised letter to each guest on their day of check in confirming their booking details.
- The automated letters do not leave a note with the reservation itself. Again any other system I have used, you can click on the reservation and see the correspondance they have received from us. Its impossible to know if they received any letters or not.
- No option for custom letters.
If this is not sorted out soon I will have no option but to change systems as we are getting busier and its making our procedures so clunky and inefficient.

Pros

Little Hotelier is designed for small Hotels/Bed&Breakfasts. We have only three rooms. When I looked at others and they asked if we had more or less than 100 rooms, I felt they were not interested in hotels like ours. Yet, Little Hotelier is part of Siteminder a company that does work with the large hotels, best of both worlds. Little Hotelier offered an easy gateway for deposits and channel manager to connect to booking agencies. When we change a rate or availability, it instantly updates everywhere. Customer service with chat or a person by phone has been wonderful.

Cons

I feel the most complicated thing is connecting to Channels. I find I need help each time I add a new channel and still cannot master it on my own. The good thing is support is quick to answer questions and makes a new connection easily. Once a channel is connected, I do not need to go back again.

Pros

It's easy to use, the reports are on the spot, and the online interface (booking button) is top-notch. Customer service is some of the best I have experienced.

Cons

I do not like that I cannot combine duplicate guest records. Every time a reservation is made and there is something as simple as a changed "-" or period, a new customer record is made and the previous reservations tied to the first customer record are not coupled. This is a big time-waster for me, especially when I am making reservations. Having to thumb through multiple records when I have multiple customers who come in from Mexico and El Paso who have the same first and last names.

The final thing that we need is the ability to blacklist a customer record. There are customers who have caused damages, etc. who we do not want back and we currently have no way to quickly search this, especially with multiple records from the same customer. We need to have the online system check our database, look for a blacklist selection, and refuse the reservation and have them call the office, then we can decide to rent to them or charge cleaning/damage fees or deposits at booking.

Pros

Great customer service, very customizable, integrates seamlessly with our webpage

Cons

We have clients who speak English and Spanish. By changing the language in front desk there is a long delay before the language change is reflected on the invoices and hotel confirmations. It would be ideal if there was a way to detect the language of the user and send documents in their language of choice for best communication.

Pros

1) ease of use of Front Desk for bookings on my own website
2) excellent Channel Manager software, and Payment software, integrated with booking calendar in Front Desk
3) unbelievably friendly and helpful customer support and training video resources
4) modern mobile phone and tablet friendly software for users
5) innovative tie-in with Google maps and search

Cons

Inability to easily customize forms and templates for reports for self use as well as for customers . It can be done if one is comfortable using java script style code. But I'm only an HTML/css trained guy. I'd like to see something friendly like Wordpress uses - our own website is run through self-hosted Wordpress and its "templates" and customizability is excellent for someone with my skill set.

Pros

Beware of little hoteliers free trial. I wanted to trial software, but even requesting via chat to do so without credit card they refused. Eventually I folded and gave my card. Was not suitable for our purpose and requested to cancel free trial. I have been invoiced and payment debited from my account. I called them and explained, confirmed I wanted to cancel, and asked for funds to be refunded and confirmation in writing via email, which they agreed. I recieved no confirmation by email and no refund. Now disputing charges with bank to force a refund. And to my shock, I can’t believe I just received another invoice and they are trying to withdraw funds again. Surely they can see there is no activity on the platform. I have been lied to and now I’m riding a scam roller coaster where they will not stop debiting my account. This is a warning to all, having tried many pms systems, this is the only one that won’t give you a demo without a credit card. Expect a fight before it’s over because they are taking your money regardless.

Cons

Setup was a disaster. Setup page contralto froslze and would not move forward. Support team would not reset account and I had to totally start again. And it’s a good basic system, but lacking the features we require.

Pros

Phone App - It’s best the best what LittleHotellier offers.

Cons

Customer service. Very average agents in terms of their knowladge of the software. Booking Engine without many customisation options

Pros

The integrated features that link to all channel and our website, saving an enormous amount of time through automatics inventory updates and automatic emails to guests

Cons

The booking window could be expanded especially with the disruption of Covid some guests are tying to book more than 2 years from the current date..

Pros

easy to create new reservation, good integration of email confirmation and invoices

Cons

- major bug (triple charge of service charge) will not be fixed. no chance of using the online booking engine- export of reservation data only exports a few of the data. not everything. no chance to adjust it- no custom emails to send to customer before arrival (only 1 fixed one, we need 5)- reporting limited- no public roadmap nor information about future changes (never experienced an update since we use it)-

Pros

- The fact that we don't have to insert the same information for repetitive guests. The info pops out as soon as we type the name of the booking.
- The fact that we don't pay commission for bookings coming from OTA's - we pay only a flat monthly fee
- The type of reports given
- So easy to use

Cons

- The fact that we have to create different bookings for same guest coming for interrupted dates (some guests leave for 1 night and then come back).
- The fact that we have to create different bookings for guests that move bedrooms. (some guests have to change rooms and the system doesn't allow the same booking to have a change of rooms or dates)

Pros

Easy to learn and use. I like the reports page to be able to track year on year growth.

Cons

Very slow, and not as many features as I would like and have had with previous similar software.

Pros

- The service for setting up this software was outstanding. We came from an other nonfunctional very expensive software solution and there was no problem for the customer service to take the database over to the LH system. It is very easy to handle.

Cons

There are still some little software improvements to do. Invoicing to travel agents, direct email from the system to guest about the booking and changes they make along the way. Mapping could be easier.
Too many nonsense emails from the support.

Pros

It works, meaning it does a lot of work for you, saving you time and effort

Cons

Relatively expensive. The inventory page is slow to load.

Pros

Easy to create reservations, block room, create listings, good visual presentation

Cons

There is no "UNDO" function. So if I update the rate for a time period for example 1/3/21-3/3/21 and mistype 3/3/22 then I have stuffed up pricing for that entire year and will have to manually change it all back. Which can take hours.
There is no log with customer conversation visible to me. If an automated email to a customer bounces due to a typo on the email address for example, then little hotelier team can see that but I receive no notification about this.
I cannot manually send a normally automated email, even if the system failed to send it

Pros

I really don't have anything positive except costumer service is fairly easy to get a hold of but then most of the time they don't know answers to my questions.

Cons

I am very disappointed with LH. I was trying to input previous guests into the system and customize emails for marketing. There was no way to do this without creating a reservation, then cancelling it. This caused issues with guests calling because they got a confirmation email and then a cancellation email shortly after then there is no way to customize emails to guests. I had to copy and paste into gmail to do what I wanted. Very time consuming and counter-productive. This system is only good for creating reservations and cancelling them.

Pros

Little Hotelier recently upgraded their software. It has helped make it very user friendly and easy to navigate. Site is set up in a logical way so that drop down boxes are clearly explained and navigated.
When we get a booking we immediately get an email with detailed and clear information on the guests. Very easy for people to use who are not that confident with using websites. Other channel managers l have used in the past were extremely complicated and way to many dropdown boxes which made to very confusing.

Cons

I find when l first go into the site their are way to many steps until you finally get in. Needs to have some kind of shortcut.

Pros

Overall functionality, and design. Set up.

Cons

I had to use it with another app, thebookingbutton, in order to make easier for guests to choose the type of apartment and the available rate. Pre payment options on bookingbutton, there should be more available options, like "x" number of nights payment, I used to charge two or three nights in advance, now I have to choose from % or 1 night or total of stay. But the upgrades are better every time...

Pros

Easy to use dashboard and reservations control

Cons

Terrible (non-existent) groups control
Poor accounting and billing system
Complicated and inflexible rates control

Pros

I chose this software because of its ease of use and the fact that it is tailored to B&Bs and boutique hotels.

Cons

Two many different apps within the system that need to be updated. You’d think that making an update on one app would push to the others. They make the process more complicated than it needs to be

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Little Hotelier

Pros

A lot of good functions, mostly easy to use.

Cons

When you need help with something the customer service is not good - it started off good but the outsourcing or whatever they changed it became difficult to get through then when you did get through you would need to be able to get over an accent issues as well as the technical issue you calling about. The calendar was also not helpful as if I had a one night stay in one room and the next day there was a one night stay in another room it would appear like we have a 2 night stay availably but we didn't so I would get abuse and be accused of lying not very pleasant.