I recently came to learn that when a planned arrival time is entered or the default time is displayed on the Properties tab, and the Guest’s reservation is checked in, changing its status to “Started”, the data field supporting the Properties tab and the Start time are not currently related to one another. With both data points sitting in the same PMS, a “Start” time should override the planned arrival time and not block a product charge from being added.

I learned this when I was attempting to post a product charge to a Guest’s open bill using the date and time the charge was incurred at our on-property venue. I continued to get an error message preventing the charge from being posted.

Chatting with Mews Support, I learned that the room charge date/time of 11:28 PM was in conflict with the planned arrival time the Guest had communicated to us prior to arriving. He initially anticipated arriving at midnight, so we set his arrival time on the Properties tab to 11:59 PM. He actually arrived and his reservation status was changed to “Started” at 2:04 PM, earlier in the afternoon.

The insight and recommendation given in the chat in follow-up email was as follows:

In Mews, every reservation has two arrival times:

The check-in time: the moment your team actually checks the guest in.

The reservation arrival time: the planned arrival saved on the reservation. You can find it in the reservation under Properties, in the Arrival and Departure fields.

The planned arrival time normally shows your property’s default check-in time. It can be changed manually by your team, or automatically by an integration, for example when an OTA sends the guest’s estimated arrival time. Mews uses this planned arrival time to decide when the stay starts and Items can’t be posted to a reservation before that time.

In this case, the guest first let you know they would arrive after midnight, as shown in the reservation notes. Your team then moved the arrival time on the reservation. When the guest arrived earlier than expected, they were checked in, but the planned arrival time stayed unchanged. Because the item was posted at 23:28, Mews saw this as before the guest’s arrival and blocked it.

To avoid this in the future: when a guest who was expected late arrives earlier, please also update the arrival time under Properties as part of the check-in. This keeps the reservation in line with the guest’s real arrival, so your front desk can post items without any blocks.

This is far too many extra steps and clicks when the Start time should override the Planned arrival time instead of the other way around. If someone from Mews would like to look at the background, the case number and thread tag are 00736794 Mews Support Chat | Billing and invoicing | Error message [ thread::3zTFkvLmdj6JAj8uXcEXVjw:: ]