Do you want to see if your accommodations' host will let you practice you electric guitar during the stay or stock the refrigerator with Spaten Oktoberfest beer?
iStopOver, which matches condo and homeowners with lodging-seeking guests, introduced a Wise Ask! feature, enabling guests to make such customized requests.
So, guests can select the site's Wise Ask! feature, input their destination city and dates and post their finicky -- or perfectly reasonable -- requests, such as the plea for Spaten Oktoberfest.
Here's an example of an actual Wise Ask! request for London:
"Hi, We will be in London Fri. May 27th and departing on Mon. May 29th. It is my husband and myself, our son (who will be celebrating his 45th birthday on May 28th in London) and our grand-daughter, she is 22 yrs. old. We would like to find an apt. with a double bed for my husband & myself and then two twin beds for our son and grand-daughter. Do you have anything available like this in about the $150. per night range (U.S. dollars). Thank you in advance for your help. Looking forward to hearing from you. Would like to have a place that would be close to some "tourist" interest. Thanks again."
Within a couple of minutes the traveler receives an iStopOver email confirming the specifics of the request and stating: "So, sit back, relax and let us do the work. In no time at all, you'll start hearing from our Hosts with great offers."
Hosts in the specified destination city get notified that a Wise Ask! request has been made and they can respond with a custom quote through their site dashboard, if they choose to do so. [Contact information is only exchanged after the booking.]
Guests can then accept or reject the quotes, engage in further discussion with the host through the dashboard and then decide whether they want to complete the transaction.
iStopOver positions its Wise Ask! feature as speeding the shopping process for guests and giving them more choice if several owners respond with offers.
For hosts, iStopOver notes they get immediate notification about these special requests and may access a greater number of inquiries.