Help centre
Answers for guests booking a stay or activity, and for owners listing their property with Manage My Guests.
For guests
Everything you need to know about booking, paying and managing your stay or activity.
Find a place on Find a stay, choose your dates and room, and enter your details at checkout. Depending on the property, you pay a deposit or the full amount securely through PayFast, and you get a confirmation by email once your booking is confirmed.
No. You pay the host's own rate. There are no service charges or platform mark-ups added at checkout.
Payments are made securely through PayFast, which supports card, Instant EFT and SnapScan. Your payment goes straight to the host's own PayFast account. Manage My Guests never holds your money.
It depends on the property. Some hosts ask for a deposit online with the balance paid on arrival, some take the full amount online, and some confirm your booking straight away and ask for an EFT deposit. You'll see exactly what is due before you pay.
When you pay online, your room is held for 30 minutes while you complete the payment. Your booking is confirmed automatically as soon as PayFast confirms the payment, and a confirmation is sent to you by email. If the property doesn't take online payments, your booking is confirmed immediately and the host will send you their EFT details.
Yes. Availability is live, and hosts can sync their calendars with Airbnb, Booking.com and other channels, so what you see is what's free.
Go to My account to log in or register and see all your bookings in one place. Your confirmation email also has your booking reference.
Each host sets their own booking terms, including cancellations, changes and refunds. You'll see these terms at checkout. To cancel or change a booking, please contact your host directly.
The host's phone number, email address and physical address are shown at the bottom of their booking page and in your booking confirmation. You deal with the owner directly — no call centre in between.
Yes. Many properties offer activities such as tours, game drives, spa treatments and classes. Choose a date, a time and the number of people, and pay through PayFast just like a room booking. Some activities are open to day visitors, so you don't always need to be staying at the property.
Each property sets its own check-in and check-out times and house rules (for example about pets). Check the property's booking page and your confirmation, or ask your host.
Yes. All payments are processed by PayFast, one of South Africa's leading payment gateways. Your card details are entered on PayFast's secure pages and are never stored by Manage My Guests or the host.
For property owners
How Manage My Guests works for hosts: pricing, payments, channels and getting set up.
A direct-booking platform for South African guesthouses, B&Bs and holiday homes. You get your own booking page with live availability, online payments through your own PayFast account, activity bookings and calendar sync with the big booking sites, so guests can book you directly.
Listing costs R250 per property per month, or R2,500 per year. New properties get a 30-day free trial. There is no commission on your bookings.
No. Guests pay you directly through your own PayFast account and PayFast pays the money out to your bank account. Manage My Guests never holds your money and takes no commission.
Sign up on the List your property page, then add your property name, bookings email, phone and address. New properties are reviewed before their booking page goes live. Our Setup help guide walks you through the rest.
Your property stays live for a 7-day grace period after payment is due. If it is still unpaid after that, new bookings are paused until your account is up to date.
Up to 10 room types per property, and up to 30 activities. A room type is a group of identical rooms, e.g. "Sea-view Double" × 4 units. Hidden room types count towards the limit.
Yes. Under My property → Channels you can connect Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia, Vrbo and Google Calendar through iCal, or choose Other for any site that offers an iCal link. Calendars sync automatically every 15 minutes. See Setup Help for step-by-step instructions.
Not on its own. Google Calendar has no room types or unit counts, so if you use Google Calendar, an iCal link must be connected for each room. Create a separate Google calendar for every physical room, then add each one under My property → Channels → 2. Import, choosing the room type it belongs to. Each event then takes one unit of that room type. For example, a "Sea-view Double" with 3 units needs 3 Google calendars and 3 iCal links. See Setup Help.
Yes. You can choose to take a deposit online, the full amount online, or no online payments at all. Without online payments, bookings confirm immediately and you collect the deposit by EFT yourself.
Yes. Add seasonal and special rates per room type to override your base rate for specific periods, and use close dates to take units off sale for maintenance or owner use. Closed dates are also sent to your channels.
Yes. Link a "Book now" button to your booking page, or paste the embed code into your website so guests can book without leaving your site. You'll find both under My property → Property settings.
Yes. Sell tours, game drives, spa treatments, classes and more, to staying guests and day visitors. Set the price per person or per group, the start times, the number of places and the days each activity runs.
Our Setup help page covers everything step by step: adding your property and room types, connecting PayFast and Google Calendar, changing photos and showing your availability.
Still have a question?
Guests can contact their host directly using the details on the booking page. Owners can get started in a few minutes.
