No tricks, just treats. 🎃 October's bag was full: nightly rates and a heat tint in the Booking Ribbon View, Owner Bookings for every host, smoother Airbnb guest phone numbers, a cleaner Reviews widget, and plenty more. Grab your leftover candy and dig in.
New Features
Booking Ribbon View
The Booking Ribbon View offers a versatile way to seamlessly view past and upcoming bookings, and blocked-off times for all properties. With the October 14th release, OwnerRez added a new optional display layer for nightly rates and heat tint/map, and optimized the Ribbon View Handle for speed and smoother touch on trackpads and mouse scrolling.The nightly rates and availability rules are updated in real time when hosts make changes, so the Booking Ribbon View is always up to date and even more versatile than ever.
Click Layers at the top of the Ribbon view, next to the Bookings filter button. On a narrow screen, the button shows only its icon. Inside are two switches:
- Nightly rates puts each open night's rate in its box, along with the dot and stripe markers described below. It's on for everyone; uncheck it to hide the rates.
- Heat tint shades each open night green, darker for higher rates. It's off unless you turn it on.
It's the same nightly rate the Rates Calendar shows, whether from a season or a rate set for that night. It doesn't include surcharges, taxes, discounts, or channel markups, so it won't exactly match what a guest pays.
Owner Bookings
Following the July 1st release of Owner Bookings and Vendor Contacts, OwnerRez thought that combining the two would allow OwnerRez hosts to enable Owner Bookings for all properties with an Owner Booking Contact configured. With the October 21st release, Owner Bookings are no longer limited to accounts with the Property Management premium feature enabled.
All hosts can configure a property's owner booking contact by navigating to Properties > your specific Property > General Info > Change > Owner Booking Contact, then click the Choose Contact button.
In the Owner Booking Contact pop-up, you can select an existing contact as the property's contact or create a new one by clicking the + Add "name" as a new... button.
In the Contact Info pop-up, under Type of Contact, check the This contact is an owner checkbox.
After the Update Contact & Use button is clicked, the property owner booking contact appears in the Property General Info Owner Booking Contact section. Click Save.
After saving, the Owner Booking Contact appears on the Property General Info page.
Additionally, all hosts (and co-hosts) can set an Owner Booking Contact on individual Property General Info pages for owner bookings during the booking creation process by clicking the Set an owner booking contact link in the Type of Booking section, which takes hosts through the same process as above.
When completed, the Owner Booking radio button becomes available for selection, and when selected, the Owner Booking Contact is displayed.
An owner booking's contact changes only when the owner changes; changing a property's Owner Booking Contact affects only new or future bookings. This release also allows OwnerRez account owners to configure their Team Access Portal members to view, add, or cancel owner bookings, enabling your Owner Booking Contacts to create owner bookings through your branded Team Access Portal website.
To enable this, account owners can grant portal users the ability to view, add, or cancel owner bookings when inviting their Owner Booking Contact to the Team Access Portal Website.
Airbnb
Guest communication is key and encompasses interactions between hosts and guests before, during, and after their stay. Released on October 29th, OwnerRez saves Airbnb temporary guest phone numbers instead of a guest's real one when provided and saves it on the individual booking as the Platform Phone. Hosts can communicate with guests with SMS messaging via triggers, broadcast messages, and Inbox replies, and the booking shows the last day you can send.
When Airbnb sends a platform phone number, it stops working 2 days after checkout and may change during a guest's stay. OwnerRez updates the saved number each time the booking syncs.
Existing guest phone numbers already on the guest's contact are never removed. If a guest has a real phone number from an earlier booking, OwnerRez continues to use it, and SMS messages are sent to that number.
Guest records stay clean too. Because the platform phone is tied to the booking, it never merges guests, matches a banned guest by mistake, or is used for door codes.
Enhancements
MCP
OwnerRez's MCP (Model Context Protocol) securely connects your AI assistant, such as Claude or ChatGPT, to your OwnerRez account. Now, when connecting to Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, or other AI assistants, the consent page asks whether to grant Read-only or Full read and write access, with Full read and write preselected for new connections, as part of our October 7th release. Changing the Access level later in Settings > Connected Apps now applies immediately to the assistant's live tokens in both directions, with no need to disconnect and reconnect.
Learn more about the OwnerRez MCP and get connected today.
Reviews Widget
Hiding host responses on your website keeps Reviews shorter and cleaner so potential guests can scan guest feedback quickly without having to read your replies beneath each review. OwnerRez added the option to hide host responses in the Reviews widget as part of our October 14 release.
To hide host responses to guest reviews on your hosted website, go to Settings > My Website > your Hosted Website > Reviews page > Content tab > Reviews Widget > Change Settings, then check the Hide Host Responses checkbox.
To hide host responses to guest reviews on your integrated website, go to Settings > My Website > Widgets > Reviews Widget, then check the Hide Host Responses checkbox.
When the Reviews Widget Hide Host Responses checkbox is selected for integrated and hosted websites, all host responses to guest reviews are hidden.
Thinking about creating your own website for direct bookings? Check out OwnerRez Hosted Websites.
Vrbo
Vrbo handles a few health and safety items and amenities differently from the rest: smoke detector, carbon monoxide detector, towels, and linens. If one of these was left unchecked in OwnerRez, our sync would tell Vrbo that your property didn't have it. Vrbo then showed guests a message like "Host has indicated there is no smoke detector on the property," even if Vrbo had already listed that amenity for your property. OwnerRez added the ability for hosts to mark smoke detector, carbon monoxide detector, towels, and linens now support a three-state control: Present, Absent, or Not set on Vrbo listings, as part of our October 14th release. Marking these items "Absent" tells Vrbo the property explicitly lacks that feature, while leaving it unset preserves whatever Vrbo already knows.
Review your amenities by navigating to Properties > your specific Property > Listing Content > Amenities > Popular Amenities, and review the Linens Provided and Towels Provided settings. If you do not provide those amenities, you can now click on the X to mark the item as Absent.
To check your health and safety items, navigate to Properties > your specific Property > Listing Content > Health & Safety > Home Safety Features, and review the Carbon Monoxide Detector and Smoke Detector settings. If your property does not have one of those, you can click on the X to mark the item as Absent.
When Absent is selected, the item will display strikethrough text with an Absent label next to it.
Airbnb & Vrbo Promotions
Strategic Airbnb and Vrbo discounts can boost rental performance by attracting guests, extending stays, and filling calendar gaps. As part of the October 14th release, OwnerRez added a Stay Date Condition for Airbnb Mobile Promotion and Highly Rated Guest, as well as for Vrbo Mobile Promotion and One Key Discounts, allowing hosts to exclude individual nights (up to 30 nights) from these discounts.
Add your own Stay Date exclusion condition for Airbnb and Vrbo discounts by navigating to Settings > Pricing > Discounts, then select an existing Airbnb or Vrbo discount, or select + Create Discount > Channel Specific Discounts. In the Conditions section, click + Add Condition > Stay Date is > Anything But (default), then select the individual nights you want to exclude from the Airbnb or Vrbo discount.
Tasks
OwnerRez's centralized Task area helps you stay organized across all your properties by creating and tracking actionable items, special requests, issues, housekeeping, maintenance, and other property-related tasks. With our October 7th release, OwnerRez improved the Tasks area by removing older tasks from the default view and by adding user avatars and first names to the tasks grid, task detail page, and task alert emails.
Tasks display first names only in task assignments and activity when names are unique. When two or more people share the same first name, tasks include the last initial to avoid confusion.Older tasks were removed from the default view to reduce visual clutter, keeping only the most recent tasks expanded by default. Older tasks appear when the Show All button is clicked.
Email notifications now credit the individual in the subject line (e.g., "Note added by Kevin" or "Task marked as Completed by Laura") and, if added to, will include a "Latest Note By" field.
Additionally, the Task note body is now optional when attachments are included.
Booking.com
Connecting your property to Booking.com makes it visible to more travelers who search and book on Booking.com, helping you fill more nights while you manage everything in one place. With our October 21st release, OwnerRez improved the detection of Booking.com channel integration connection errors, identifying and providing helpful suggestions for fixing them.
When two properties are mapped to the same Booking.com room during channel connection, the error message now identifies the conflicting properties and suggests how to resolve the error in-app.
Looking to up your marketing game? Check out all of the OwnerRez Channel Management options.
Tweaks
October 7th Release with 1 Tweak
Extend Airbnb transaction lookup retries for recently altered bookings. OwnerRez extended the 6-hour retry window to also apply after booking alterations, not just new bookings, ensuring Airbnb charges aren't left missing when transactions take time to appear after a modification.
October 21st Release with 5 Tweaks
Add Google Hotels price tagging with structured data and enforce the OwnerRez Global Landing Page for price accuracy compliance. Google Hotels now tags prices on the OwnerRez Global Landing Page with structured data for Google's price accuracy crawler. Google Hotels accounts can no longer select a hosted website landing page, as Google's crawler cannot access nightly rates through that process; all Google Hotels traffic now lands on the global landing page.
Improve MCP Support Center search results to return complete support articles. OwnerRez Support Center searches used by AI assistants like Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor now return whole, current support articles instead of truncated excerpts or duplicate entries. Results also support paging, so you can request more matches if the first search results are insufficient.
Migrate Bambora payment processing to new Shift4 connection before December 2026. OwnerRez updated the Bambora (formerly Worldline) payment gateway to the new Shift4 connection following Shift4's acquisition and infrastructure migration. We also improved error handling for network timeouts and updated the branding to reflect the Shift4 (Bambora) name.
Prevent new OpenEdge payment method connections while keeping existing ones functional. OpenEdge has been retired and can no longer be added as a new payment method. Existing OpenEdge connections continue to work and can still process charges, but are marked as deprecated, and hosts cannot add new OpenEdge methods from the payment methods page.
Prevent adding new Payeezy, USAePay, eProcessing Network, and Plug'n Pay payment methods. The Payeezy, USAePay, eProcessing Network, and Plug'n Pay payment methods have been retired and can no longer be connected. Existing methods on these gateways will continue to work and are marked as deprecated, but new connections cannot be added through the payment methods page.
October 28th Release with 4 Tweaks
Extend My Stay (guest portal) link expiration in messages from 3 hours to 7 days. My Stay links sent via email and channel messages (including the booking confirmation) now remain valid for 7 days instead of expiring after 3 hours, preventing guests from encountering "Your link has expired" when they open a message link later and significantly reducing the need to request new links.
Update Vrbo headline (20-40 characters) and description character limits (400-10,000 characters) to match current Vrbo requirements. Vrbo property headline limits are now 20-40 characters (previously 10-255), and property description limits are now 400-10,000 characters (previously 400-20,000), and the character count tooltips and validation messages in the property listing editor now reflect these updated Vrbo requirements.
Prevent new Lynnbrook Classic payment method connections while keeping existing ones functional. Lynnbrook Classic (BridgePay) has been deprecated and can no longer be added as a new payment method. Existing Lynnbrook Classic accounts continue to work and are marked as deprecated, with guidance to switch to Lynnbrook Group.
Stop processing charges through Payeezy, USAePay, eProcessing Network, Plug'n Pay and OpenEdge after November 30, 2026. Payeezy, USAePay, eProcessing Network, Plug'n Pay and OpenEdge payment gateways will stop processing new charges, authorizations, and card verifications after November 30, 2026. Depending on the gateway, some operations like captures, voids, and refunds may continue to work or will need to be handled directly with the gateway. Hosts using these gateways should migrate to a supported payment method before the cutoff date.
