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The charge per booking was $2.50 from what I remember, and it was lower based on number of bookings. Granted, the first price model change made the price more reasonable for most, but that is no longer the case for a while.
Thank you for everything you do for all of us users! I don’t mind the price increases at all. It doesn’t hurt to factor in for 1 property a $1.34 per night increase to rent to cover the OwnerRez fee or allotting that much to it but to just be able to streamline my rental agreements and Photo ID uploads makes my life so much easier. I love seeing all the new updates and continued changes to making using OwnerRez easier and efficient
I absolutely love you don’t charge a per booking charge bc even at 1% per booking would be double, triple, and quadruple the $40 for the first property charge.
Thank you for being a great company!
Well, butter us up and call us leprechauns because we've got some St. Patty's Day shenanigans🍀(er, product updates) brewing! Green is the OwnerRez color, after all!
As you celebrate St. Patrick's Day with a pint (or two) 🍻 of green beer, rest assured that OwnerRez has been jigging harder than a team of Irish step dancers to improve our software. These latest updates will leave you feeling luckier than a four-leaf clover.🍀Even though this March 15th release with 25 updates doesn't seem to be the most exciting, know that upcoming future enhancements will have all of us feeling like we've got the luck of the Irish on our side.
So don't be a wee bit shy, grab your pint 🍺 and let's dive into this grand bit of craic worth more than a pot of gold! 💚
Reviews for your properties can benefit your vacation rental business, including increased visibility, improved credibility, valuable feedback, and a powerful marketing tool. Positive reviews from past guests can help build trust with potential guests and increase their confidence in your property.
As I mentioned in the last product update, review syncing is becoming available across more channels. OwnerRez users with properties API-connected with Florida Rentals can now sync their earnestly sought-after OwnerRez reviews with their Florida Rentals listings now that they have wired up the functionality on their end.
Users can Include Reviews by navigating to Settings > API Integrations and achieve either of the following.
At the bottom of the page in the Options section, users can choose to Sync my reviews from OwnerRez by selecting the checkbox.
Learn more by reading our Reviews Overview and FloridaRentals.com Setup & Connecting support articles.
Add Case to Vrbo Channel Bridge to Treat Booking with a Payment That is a Fee Only With $0 to the Owner as Cancelled Full Refund. A user experienced an edge case where Vrbo was showing a canceled booking with a payment that was only the guest fee to Vrbo. But then the payout amount was $0 to the owner, leading to a checksum violation in Channel Bridge. OwnerRez has added additional checks to avoid this type of Vrbo data feed error violations in the future by treating the booking as canceled and fully refunded, which skips all checksums and zeroes it out, thus bypassing that error.
Add Extra Availability Push for Airbnb and Booking.com Cancellation/Void to Ensure Calendar is Reopened Immediately. The property calendar is blocked for reservation request dates during an Airbnb reservation request process. However, if the reservation request was rejected, the property's calendar didn't automatically open up to allow for other bookings. OwnerRez has modified this process to clear the reservation request now when the reservation request is voided, allowing the property's calendar to open up and display the correct availability immediately.
Alert User When Secdep Couldn't Be Released Because It Was Charged Back. If users experienced a security deposit (secdep) hold chargeback by the cardholder, the OwnerRez system would get stuck spinning and attempt to release it daily. To correct this issue, we have added a counter for the secdep for attempted auto-release counts. After three failed attempts, the user will receive a system alert letting them know we could not refund secdep and that they must address it manually.
Clear Platform Email Address for Old 2019 Airbnb Bookings Where It Was (no email alias available). OwnerRez has removed/cleared all 2019 and older Airbnb platform email addresses that were (no email alias available) from the system. It was determined that since they were not helpful to users, they should be removed.
Create a New Lynnbrook Method if Using a Saved Card From a Different Payment Method. We ran into an issue where a user initially had one Lynnbrook Group gateway (OwnerRez payment method) for all their properties but then split each property into a separate LLC. In doing that, they removed the old Lynnbrook Group payment method and created a new Lynnbrook Group payment method for each property but there were payments associated with the old payment method and upcoming payments on the new split-out methods. To fix this, we check to see if the Lynnbrook Group "charge method" associated with a saved card was created for the same Lynnbrook Group payment method that we're now attempting to charge for the new scheduled payment, etc. If not, we create a new Lynnbrook Group "charge method" on the current Lynnbrook Group payment method, use that, and store it as the current Lynnbrook Group "charge method" on the card on file rather than reusing the old Lynnbrook Group "charge method" like we used to.
Don't Allow Adding an Airbnb iCal if the Property is Connected via API Already. OwnerRez disables Airbnb iCals when the associated property is API connected on a listing channel. However, it was still possible for users to manually add them later, leading to booking requests getting blocked and other problems. We have added a FinalCheck on the CalendarSync that checks for any active Airbnb API-mapped property and no longer allows any Airbnb iCals that match the property to be added/updated if the sync is active.
Don't Allow Adding a New Cancellation Fee For a No Refund Cancellation. During the booking cancellation process inside OwnerRez, if the No Refund radio button was selected, the cancellation fee section was grayed out as expected, but the Add New cancellation fee link was available. This has been fixed.
Fix Error When Viewing All Properties For a Vrbo Channel With Properties That Were Never Linked. When attempting to view all properties for a Vrbo channel, there was a crash when some properties had never been linked to the channel. That has been fixed.
Fix Google Maps API Warning on Geocoding. During the new OwnerRez property setup process, we were receiving Google Maps API console errors. This bug has been fixed.
Flag Airbnb Listing Published on Status Check If It Wasn't Before. There was an edge case where an Airbnb listing wasn't recorded as ever published but was published. Users can now preview their Airbnb API-connected property status by navigating to the far right Actions column and selecting Check Status from the Actions drop-down list to detect and fix accordingly.
Improve Vrbo iCal to API Transition. During the OwnerRez Vrbo iCal to API transition, some users were experiencing iCal errors. OwnerRez has tightened up the transition using the determination of active Link Access Protocols (LAP) to improve the Vrbo API connection process.
On Vrbo CB Import, Handle Case Where RDD Amount is Subtracted vs. Added for Checksum. This was an edge case where a user experienced a Refundable Damage Deposit (RDD) amount displaying as a subtraction on their Vrbo Channel Bridge (CB) import rather than displaying correctly. This bug has been fixed.
Only Block Airbnb Publish for Location Updates. In a recent release OwnerRez started blocking Airbnb publish when there was a pending sync to ensure that users didn't publish something during a pending update. This frustrated users because they'd change something, and the system wouldn't allow those changes to publish. The point was to keep users from publishing when fields, such as location that cannot be changed after publishing, hadn't been synced yet, so the block was changed to do just that.
Optimize Airbnb Channel Push by Skipping Cases Where Nothing Has Changed. OwnerRez has optimized the Airbnb channel push sync by allowing the index to skip properties that have experienced no changes, such as rates, bookings, photos, descriptions, etc.
Optimize Lock Integration Index Page By Removing External API Hit. The view page for lock integrations listed all locks when loaded. It used to do this to find lock names, but a few years back, we started storing them on the OwnerRez side. However, the page still downloaded all lock integrations even though it didn't need to. That's been removed, making things load snappier on that page.
Optimize New Ribbon Precalc Length to Speed Up Display of Long Bookings. Some users block their properties for ten years or longer, which caused the new Ribbon Calendar to take a long time to load due to the precalculation of booking data. We have optimized it to only precalculate up to a point for longer bookings/blocks. We recommend users set their property's booking window to handle this need rather than placing years-long blocks. Users can accomplish this by navigating to Properties > Rules > Booking Window.
Remove Legacy Booking.com OwnerRez Tax Calculation Mode. Booking.com opens up a property's calendar upon booking cancellation by default. Still, this process can cause double booking problems because the calendar is occasionally open even when OwnerRez thinks it's closed. We have corrected this bug so that upon a Booking.com cancellation, if the booking is already canceled or isn't linked to the calendar, we clear the Link Access Protocols (LAP) availability to make the system push availability again.
Show Preview Rates for Feed Based Channels as Well as Direct Sync. An intrepid OwnerRez user pointed out that you could only preview rates for specific listing channels like Airbnb, Booking.com, and TripAdvisor, but not Vrbo and other "pull" channels. So we've added the preview shortcut for Vrbo etc. as well. Users can now preview their Vrbo API-connected property rates by navigating to the far right Actions column and selecting Preview Rates from the Actions drop-down list on the API channel's properties tab.
Show Saving Spinner on Grid Batch Tags Save Button. For some reason, the spinner on the Save button was not "spinning" while users saved batch tags. This bug has been corrected and the Save button now spins as expected.
Update ECBYO Instructions Email Address. The Emerald Coast By Owner (ECBYO) email address on the API integration instructions tab was updated with a different ECBYO email address.
Update WP Plugin to Refer to the WP Premium. OwnerRez displayed generic and unhelpful connection error messages related to the WordPress Plugin. Corrected connection error messages will now refer to the WordPress Plugin premium feature and the IP address in the blocked message for additional and more accurate information for our users.
Use 400 Status Code for Validation Failures on Legacy API. We experienced some dynamic pricing partner update requests causing validation and HTTP status 500 errors with min nights values higher than the property max nights. We now return the proper 400 status code to respond to these requests.
When Regenerating a Manual Door Lock Code, Don't Reuse a Code From a Different Manual Door Lock. There was an edge case where regenerating a manual door lock code for one lock could reuse a door code from a different manual lock, leading to confusion. This bug has been corrected so that manual door locks will only reuse their own codes.
Telephone support is available for VRBO - but answers are not always correct.
Agents have the flow chart - ask name, listing number, email, phone number, permission to
access the account - then reason for call. Answers are standard - one way to take care of
thing — but when I take the time to think about problem - usually realize there are other solutions —
Another way to handle the issue. Live person on the phone may not have experience with the website -
may just be reading from flow chart.
Considering that owner as it’s definitely not user-friendly if you’re going to increase the price, I would hope that you would increase the tech support. Dealing with Ken bot is not optional for me. At this point I work four jobs to support my family and I’m trying to grow my cohosting business. I don’t have time to read through all the articles and even if I had the time the whole purpose of a property management system is to make our life easier not more difficult. Live 24 seven tech-support or at least 9 to 9 tech-support would be much appreciated at this point.
Sorry about the typos/grammar. I clicked "submit" before correcting my post
I join the frustrated. I remember still when OR was based on a small fee PER EACH BOOKING, with promises that the first users will not see increased fees, as a gratitude of being sort of beta users. That obviously ended, multiple increases have happened since.
For those that do not need or WANT to use features that are now a "whole package" and "value", there is no value. I have chatted with you guys about perhaps offering a lower rate for those that don't need all these features, but in turn was made feel bad for not using them. If I don't need/want them, why would they matter to me?
I've been a part of OR for multitude of years and it's a shame that this has not been considered. The price increase is significant for me and I do not need to be told what features are offered that I won't use, with the increased price if I don't if I'm not interested in using them. It really would be nice to offer a basic for those with that don't need such at more reasonable price. Thanks.
We are pleased to announce our integration with ChargeAutomation to offer OwnerRez users a FREE online check-in tool to collect Guest ID, selfie, documents, custom questions, e-signature & personalized guest portal with guidebook.
ChargeAutomation is a globally-recognized leader in collecting Pre-Arrival Info, reservation deposit, balance, damage deposit & and upsell services. Guest experience starts from the moment a reservation is made. By creating a frictionless pre-check-in experience, ChargeAutomation creates a Seamless Digital guest experience for vacation rental property managers.
FREE! Check out their pricing page to learn more here.
Get started with ChargeAutomation by visiting the ChargeAutomation website and checking out the OwnerRez support doc for how to integrate OwnerRez with ChargeAutomation.
On Thursday, 3/16, join us live with Touch Stay to discuss how our integration makes light work of clear and catchy communications that get read by guests, maintains their excitement for the stay, and keeps reviews glowing.
Who needs another tool to make their lives easier and their guests happier? Anyone not yet using a digital guest welcome book. Hear from Tyann Marcink Hammond, Touch Stay's "Queen of Guest Experience," on how she uses OwnerRez and Touch Stay to combine the art of hospitality with tech and welcome happier guests, attract direct bookings, drive repeat business, and build an efficient business with a recognizable brand.
Key takeaways:
The session is free to join, but you must use the Touch Stay webinar link to register.
You can find all our upcoming and past webinars on our Webinars page.
Thanks Shawn and Ken. I LOVE the new calendar-- it is so much easier on my old eyes. And thank you for letting me know I can toggle back and forth to access the filters I need.
Hello MB - if you're speaking of the Ribbon Calendar and if you need that particular filter, you can revert (or toggle between) the new ribbon and the legacy ribbon for now here: https://app.ownerrez.com/account/preferences
Read up on the latest regarding the new Ribbon View here.
Yes, the new ribbon display is missing many of the filters that the old one had, but, they'll be added back in the next version. In the meantime, you can revert back to the old ribbon with all its filters if that works better for you.
RE: Cleaning date: I could previously search by 'has cleaning date: yes or no' but that option is no longer visible since the calendar update. Am I missing it? It has created a lot of issues with my workflow to have that disappear on me ...
Happy International Women's Day! 💚 Oh wait--that was yesterday?! 🤦♀️
We were so into National Procrastination Week that it slipped right by us! In all seriousness, OwnerRez would like to honor and celebrate the vacation rental industry achievements of women.
We recognize the importance of gender diversity and women's contributions to the travel and technology industries. International Women's Day reminds us to reflect on progress made toward gender equality and the work that still needs to be done to ensure that women have equal opportunities and representation in the workplace. We believe that empowering and supporting women in tech is the right thing to do and leads to better innovation and more successful businesses. A special nod to those on our team here at OwnerRez!
P.S. Don't go back to procrastinating just yet. Please read on for the 18 updates from our March 8th product release -- a bunch of channel listing enhancements, cleaning trigger additions, improved sidebar menu behaviors, and more.
In OwnerRez, it was sometimes unclear how to publish listings or tell if listings were published. We improved the published status in these ways:
For Airbnb and Tripadvisor, we have clarified the process of publishing a property listing by breaking up the drop-down list into two drop-down lists, one for Change Property Mappings and one for Change Listing Status.
The Change Property Mappings drop-down list now only includes the following.
The example below details the Change Property Mappings drop-down list on an Airbnb listing.
The new Change Listing Status drop-down list allows users to either Publish or Unpublish their listing, as detailed in this TripAdvisor example. Note: on Airbnb, you can also Delete (but be careful with that one!).
This new drop-down list is available for Airbnb and TripAdvisor API-integrated Channels since both support these listing status features.
Learn more by reading our API Integrations Overview support article.
Lost TV remote? Broken window? Besides our Damage Protection program, security deposits provide a way to guarantee that you'll be able to cover any damages. Vrbo API-connected properties have been able to specify whether the security deposit is included in the Guest Charges and displayed during guest checkout for a while now. Or you could choose the option to just mention it in your house rules and have your totals display less. As long as the specific listing site supports it, OwnerRez has implemented the same security deposit display options for other API-connected listing sites.
The enhanced security deposit display options are now available in OwnerRez on the API settings page for each. First up will likely be Florida Rentals.
Note: these channels will have to add support on their side to reflect the setting accordingly.
When connecting (or editing) any of these API connections, users can select the following from the Security Deposit section within the Credit Card Payments section.
Schedule a security deposit using OwnerRez property rules by clicking the checkbox.
The above channels' API settings page security deposit sections are identical except for the listing channel name. See this example from Florida Rentals.
Want to learn more? Read our Security Deposits Overview support article.
OwnerRez users work extremely hard to get reviews. And if you're like most users, you ask your guests to post reviews after every booking, but only a tiny fraction do. Building a good list of reviews can take a long time, and the more you have them, the stronger your reputation (and easier your marketing) gets.
Having your reviews displayed on your API-connected channels adds to the legitimacy of your vacation rental! We're pleased to announce that one more channel is syncing/importing your OwnerRez reviews to their channel--Houfy! HOUFY derived its name from "HOUse For You." Not only is Houfy currently free from service fees for both hosts and guests, but it is a platform for book-direct vacation rentals, with over 55,000 properties worldwide.
While setting up (or editing) their Houfy account, OwnerRez users now have the option to Include Reviews.
Interested in learning more? Watch our Houfy Setup & Connecting support video.
OwnerRez keeps getting better and better! Last week we rolled out our new Ribbon Calendar with the nifty navigation handle, and this week we've subtly improved the in-app sidebar menus' behaviors!
At the bottom of the page, notice how the lower left hover link moves to the right when you hover in the lower left side of the menu when it would previously block other menu item selections. See how the scrollbar snaps to the center when you click on the upper or lower menu items in the sidebar menus? Previously you might select a menu item, and it would scroll the sidebar menu would snap to where the thing you were on was no longer in view. Subtle, but much better!
Keep in mind that these sidebar menu behaviors may act differently depending on your device, browsers, operating system and display resolution.
One of the most powerful advantages of using OwnerRez is utilizing our channel management API connections with large Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) such as Airbnb. In this release, we updated our Airbnb API to a newer version under the hood providing our users with a range of benefits, such as improved performance and enhanced security.
Learn more by reading our Airbnb Overview support article.
Triggers?! Who doesn't love a trigger? Users can schedule their custom Messaging Templates to send by using the Trigger feature to determine when it will be sent. You can configure the Trigger to send the Template a certain number of days before/after arrival or when a specific event occurs.
Users can set their triggers by navigating to Settings > Messaging > Triggers.Click on Create Trigger.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you say. We all know how to create triggers... But has anyone ever experienced the agony of ensuring that cleaners are aware of any booking changes affecting cleaning dates? Or maybe the Owner needs to know when their property will be cleaned, especially before or after blocked-off time? OwnerRez has addressed this by adding two new triggers to the list of trigger event types!
Presenting the Blocked-Off Time cleaning date changed event trigger.
And the Booking cleaning date changed.
Users may also notice that the option to allow the Trigger to send multiple instances of a message was removed. Why? Because it was confusing to users, especially since we had language stating it was "not recommended." We discussed this internally at length and ultimately decided event-based triggers should always fire, even if it is multiple times during a booking.
Learn more by reading our Email Templates support article.
Accept Vrbo Surcharge Amount on Booking Even if Amount is 0 in OwnerRez. OwnerRez experienced an edge case where a Vrbo booking crashed due to an incorrect surcharge added. OwnerRez has corrected this bug to accept and validate Vrbo's booking surcharge amounts even if the amount is 0 as long as the surcharge is a positive number and a discount only if a negative number.
Enhance Permission Denied Impersonate Page. OwnerRez users designated as staff (mostly property management staff) and regular OR users using multiple accounts through portal and team accounts received permission denied errors during the Impersonate process. We streamlined the permission error process to redirect to the login page (instead of displaying the error page) with a message that their currently logged-in account doesn't have access to do that, and they need to log in to their primary account.
Fix Crash in LQA When a Tax Has Per Property ID, But None Are Populated. The Listing Quality Analyzer was experiencing a crash when taxes were applied to an account with no property ID attached to the tax. This bug has been corrected.
Fix Issue Where Inquiry Email Subject Wasn't Using the User Culture Setting. It was brought to our attention that a customer-facing {IDES} inquiry field code for dates in inquiry emails was not rendering the user culture setting correctly. This bug has been corrected so that the {IDES} inquiry field code for dates in inquiry emails will render and display according to the users' culture settings.
Remove Bambora, now Worldline, Test Charge Support. OwnerRez used to support testing credentials on payments provider Worldline by charging a test card and checking their response for "Card type not accepted." The expected response from Wordline on testing payment credentials has changed, and the test function is not currently working. Until we learn more, we have disabled charge testing on Worldline.
Render og:image by Default for Hosted Website Property Pages. When some users shared their OwnerRez Hosted Websites, we noticed that the property image was rendered incorrectly and only text was displayed. All OwnerRez Hosted Websites have a specific property image, so we decided that the property image (og:image) should be rendered automatically.
Return HTTP 400 Status for OAuth app exceptions (instead of 500). If users submitted invalid data to the oauth post action, it resulted in a 500 server error. All the cases in which we throw an OwnerRezOAuthException are consumer errors, not server errors. We have corrected this to default that exception class to HTTP 400 instead of 500.
Set active=false on Listing Feed if Property is Unchecked in the Vrbo Property Mappings. A listing channel contacted OwnerRez regarding a few failed booking attempts for a specific listing. It was determined that the listing, initially included in the feed, was deactivated by the user in OwnerRez. That listing channel has added the additional validation to verify that if the listing isn't returned in the index, the listing will be considered inactive based on the listing index feed.
Update Braintree API to Latest Compatible. A new version of the payment processor Braintree's software development kit (SDK) with new security enhancements was released. We upgraded to the latest compatible version.
Update Partner Logos/Names for Worldline and PointCentral. Bambora has a new name, Worldline, and a new logo. PointCentral has a new logo. Worldline's name and Worldline's and PointCentral's logos have been updated inside our app and in support articles.
Use Channel Name (If set) vs. Company Name in Vrbo Feeds. After optimizing our Vrbo advertiser index feeds last fall, we noticed that Vrbo displayed company names rather than channel names (if set in OwnerRez). This bug has been corrected to always show the Channel Name (if set in OwnerRez) in Vrbo.
Validate Min Age on Property Import. While OwnerRez does validate the minimum age when editing amenities, we realized it was not checking to validate the minimum age upon property import. This bug has been corrected, and the minimum age will now be validated upon property imports to ensure it can't be set to less than 18 years.
I feel like Ownerrez keeps glitching and is really slow to load and respond since this update. Anyone else seeing this?
Adding to my comment on the new ribbon calendar.... how do I filter by payment due/overdue, etc. and legal agreement signed or not?
Hey Tracy! While the new Ribbon View only allows for Property Filtering (for now), the Legacy Ribbon View continues to offer both Property and Booking Filter options. You can follow this link to change back to the Legacy Ribbon View.
Thanks for the updates - very nifty! I am wondering though if there is an easy way to filter by property like before. For example, I have five properties listed and often only want to view four of them. I can figure out how to do that now with the new calendar.
Our pleasure Tracy! If you are lucky and all four of your properties have one letter in common, you could add that letter to the filter box.But most of us will probably have to use the Property Filter covered in the Filter Options section of the Main Bookings Display support article.
Adding to my comment on the new ribbon calendar.... how do I filter by payment due/overdue, etc. and legal agreement signed or not?
Thanks for the updates - very nifty! I am wondering though if there is an easy way to filter by property like before. For example, I have five properties listed and often only want to view four of them. I can figure out how to do that now with the new calendar.
I so appreciate the new Vrbo Commission Import tool!!! Is there a way I can customize my import document so that it uses a preferred description, adds the Channel category, and chooses the correct PM account handling option? Right now it defaults to no category at all and sets it to "Paid from escrow (won't be reimbursed on PM statement)" which is incorrect for our setup.
We are happy to announce our partnership with Quibble to offer our OwnerRez users insight and intelligence to vacation rental pricing.
Quibble – Next-Generation Revenue Management Software For Short-Term Rentals – brings insight and intelligence to vacation rental pricing by utilizing big data analytics and airline pricing models to forecast optimal pricing strategies, allowing you to intelligently manage inventory and maximize revenue.
30-day free trial for new users! Learn more here.
Get started with Quibble by visiting the Quibble website and checking out the OwnerRez support doc for how to integrate OwnerRez with Quibble.
Are you observing Plan A Solo Vacation Day 🧳while listening to Pink Floyd's chart-topping album Dark Side of the Moon, which was released today in 1973?
Pink Floyd's philosophical lyrics dealt with the pressures of modern life and how those pressures can sometimes cause insanity, and today's Plan A Solo Vacation Day encourages people to get out and explore the world on their own and the self they find within it.
While these two events appear to be incompatible at face value, OwnerRez understands how complex running a vacation rental business can be. Our mission is to deliver a fast and reliable software solution for you. But before you go off exploring, don't forget to slide into today's product update that details our March 1st release with 3 updates, including our spiffy new Ribbon View!
Not just an overhaul but a facelift! Maybe you saw our teaser video on Facebook? We're hyped, and for OwnerRez users that own or manage multiple properties, the new Ribbon View will be pretty thrilling. And it will improve as we add more to it over time. But let me share what's included so far...
The Ribbon view offers a versatile way to view past and upcoming bookings seamlessly. Users can view the Ribbon calendar by selecting Ribbon on the Bookings page. The current date will always be highlighted in a light yellow color.
For this exercise, I'm using the setting under display preferences to have the property name be color-coded according to the property calendar color. When users hover over the individual Properties on the left menu, a nifty informational pop-up (i.e., hover card) will appear detailing information about that specific property.
And users will still find individual Booking Information when they hover over each booking too. Blocks are also visible.
But the most exciting part of the new Ribbon View is that users can now slide the view using the "Handle" back and forth, to view past and future bookings, including scrolling across months.
But does it work on mobile, you ask? And how will I fat-finger that "handle" on my phone? No worries there. Just let your fingers do the walking on your mobile device. Check it out in action! We'll be adjusting the ability to have different mobile swiping velocities in a future release.
Not sure if you are comfortable with the new look and feel of the Ribbon View? We know change can be challenging, and technically it is not at "feature parity" with the old view at present (i.e., you can't filter on Booking info yet). So, that's why we still have a way for users to revert to the Legacy Ribbon View for the time being.
Want to see more? Read all about it in the Ribbon View section of the Main Bookings Display support article.
Upgrade Channel Bridge to Use New Vrbo Booking Data Endpoints. We upgraded Channel Bridge (to version 12) to use different Vrbo booking data endpoints. Vrbo recently retired some old API endpoints that Channel Bridge relied on, essentially breaking it for use with Vrbo. We've moved it over to using available data from newer Vrbo endpoints.
Fix Account Billing to Apply Negative Invoice Balances Against Future Invoices. This was an edge case where booking cancellations that generated Damage Protection refunds were displayed as a credit on OwnerRez users' accounts, but the credit was never applied to either the user's regular subscription invoice. This bug has been fixed, and any credit amounts will be correctly applied to user accounts.
YES! That is coming very soon! We will be sure to let everyone know as well.
Is there any plan to do the same for SMBYO?
Hey Everyone! This is Joe with ECBYO.COM
We are very excited about getting the integration set up with OwnerRez. Here is what you can expect. With this being a new integration and process for us, we do ask for your patience as we streamline the process to get your listings up ASAP! Any new integration has a learning curve and we are getting through that now!
Once you initiate the integration in OR, that sends us your ID. Then you need an account with ECBYO and purchase your ECBYO listing(s). Then you need to use the CONTACT US form on ECBYO.COM and give us that OR ID and ECBYO IDs you want to set up. We need the ID's in that CONTACT US EMAIL.
Once we have both the OR IDs and your ECBYO IDs we will be in communication with you through our ticketing process. Our team will then work to map your request to the new listings and get your properties live. This has been taking our team 1-3 days presently but we hope to speed the time up as we get more familiar with this new integration.
We also have a completely new site coming very soon! ECBYO 2.0! It will be 100% new from top to bottom and have many more desired features. We will of course keep you posted once this is up. It will also serve all the areas on the Gulf Coast, including, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas! Stay tuned for that announcement!
We look forward to working with you and appreciate your business!
For specific custom changes you'll typically need to rely on using CSS code to modify the hero unit of the website. We've written some examples of what's possible you can view here: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/hosted-website-css-magic#hosted-site-hero-unit-font-color
Did you know that back in February of 1992, Wayne's World opened in U.S. theaters? 😮
No way?!! Way!! Yes, the beloved duo, Wayne and Garth, hit the big screen 31 years ago. Despite their immaturity, Wayne and Garth had moments of joy and the spontaneity of youth, providing movie-goers everywhere a refreshing break from the stress and responsibility of adult professional life. In much the same way, OwnerRez provides fast and flexible vacation rental software to help streamline your vacation rental business allowing you to take time to relax and recharge!
Today we're bringing you some totally excellent 👍OwnerRez product updates, including Security Deposit Hold Improvements, Multi-Property Hosted Website Search Results Tile Layout Improvements, and lots (14!) of bug fixes. So get ready to party on, excellent 👍readers! It's time to jump (or schwing!) into the February 22nd release with 20 updates.
You've got your booking, payment(s), and guests are on their way... but what if they're rockstars and trash your place?
No matter how hard you try, predicting and keeping out bad guests is impossible. If you are un-lucky enough to have really bad guests that burn your place down, your property and business interruption insurance (you do have those, right?) should cover you. But that's rare.
Much more common are minor damages that no regular insurance will cover - a lost TV remote, a carpet caked with tracked-in mud or a broken window. OwnerRez offers a variety of methods to protect yourself from having to eat these costs (one is Damage Protection). Security Deposits are another option. Security Deposit holds, in the below cases, provide a way to guarantee that you'll be able to charge the guest's credit card for any damages, even if they canceled the card during their stay.
Better Handling of Already Reserved Security Deposits When Booking is Changed or Moved via API
Life happens, and sometimes guests must change or move their travel dates. OwnerRez makes scheduling and rescheduling security deposit holds for direct-bookings easy for users when the booking is changed.
When it's an API booking, and there's a scheduled security deposit hold already reserved, but the guests change or move their booking via that API, OwnerRez users were not getting a warning to fix the security deposit.
Those days are over! If a guest changes their reservation on the API-integrated listing site (e.g., Airbnb), OwnerRez has implemented the following protocol:
Improved Security Deposit Failure Handling
Sometimes initial security deposits fail. This can create an unfortunate chain of events for owners and PMs.
Sometimes guests will decide to take it upon themselves to create a new security deposit, separately and unrelated to the scheduled one. Talk about confusing! And the confusion can continue if the new card actually succeeds.
And sometimes OwnerRez users get in the mix by visiting the payment processor's website or dashboard directly (mostly Stripe) to release a security deposit, causing even more complications.
We identified some changes to help clear up these troubling issues before they arise.
Occasionally guests don't understand the process of Security Deposit Holds and expect to get a refund transaction into their account. However, since security deposit holds are just an authorization hold on their funds, there is no charge to be refunded. It was simply an authorization on the account, and when the security deposit hold is released, there won't be any refund transaction. The best way to handle these situations is to educate guests about security deposit holds by including information about security deposit holds in your guest messaging.
Lastly and most importantly, OwnerRez recommends that security deposits are best handled in the OwnerRez app, when possible, to process security deposits consistently. Security Deposits can be set in the individual Properties > Rules > Change > Security Deposits or handled on each booking's transactions tab.
Learn more by reading our Security Deposits Overview support article.
Words matter, and sometimes the little things drive us nuts! 😜 This is an example of that.
We have changed the Quote/Booking Change Screens check-in and check-out drop-down lists phrase displayed from "use from property" to now show "use property default" (appears at the top of the drop-down lists).
We believe the new phrase "use property default" is more accurate than the older phrasing.
As more and more guests search for direct booking options for their vacation travel accommodations, having a direct booking website becomes more important. And it's even more essential that your website be mobile responsive and have a sleek professional design.
With that in mind, we tweaked the tile layout search results display for multi-property hosted websites. We recognized that the tile layout when displaying just two properties looked funny.
So we have improved the tile layout results to use auto-repeating columns or Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) grid auto-fit for all you more computer-savvy users.
See the examples below for both the 3-property and 2-property tile layout results.
Considering creating your own direct booking website? Learn more by reading our OwnerRez Hosted Website support article.
Earlier this month (February 10th to be exact!), we debuted our improved Rates Calendar. Part of that enhancement included removing the Delete button, which we knew would be jolting.
Why did we remove the Delete button anyway? Because referring to it as "delete" was inaccurate because deleting is not what was happening when you used "Delete." Instead, you were removing any override set on that date, whether rates or rules, and reverting to the default rates/rules from the season or property. Now that the additional set rule options were added, it's clearer to set to "use the default..." under each individual rates/rules setting.
We have added a helper link in the Rates Calendar tab, explaining just that if users go looking for it. It appears after highlighting one or more dates on the Rates Calendar. And is in the "Set" drop-down on mobile view.
Want to learn more? Read our Rates Calendar support article.
Allow Setting the Expense/Commission Settings for AirCover Resolutions in Channel Bridge. Channel Bridge was creating an "other surcharge" charge for AirCover resolutions, which made it impossible to configure the commission/expense because it's not a charge. We have fixed this issue so that when users run Channel Bridge for Airbnb, the query will look for a surcharge with "AirCover" in the description. If found, Channel Bridge will set any AirCover resolutions as the surcharge for the resolution (vs. other surcharge) and apply the Property Manager's settings.
Channel Blocks Should Not Trigger Before Arrival Triggers. This was an edge case where a channel booking produced a trigger email sent to a property owner as an owner block. This rare occurrence happened because the channel picked up the initial webhook calendar block at 8:01:00 and converted it to a booking at 8:01:40, but not before the owner block email was triggered. This bug has been corrected.
Don't Push Taxable Base for Airbnb Luxe Listings. It has come to our attention that Airbnb Luxe property listings cannot set a taxable base rate (i.e., you can't set partial taxability based on category) in OwnerRez. We will no longer push taxable base rates for Airbnb Luxe listings.
Display Sent Title on SMS Communication History and Tag Manual Sends of SMS Trigger as Manual. We noticed the Sent title (or label) missing from each SMS entry in SMS Communication History. We have corrected this and also fixed it to correctly show when an SMS (text) trigger was manually sent on the Messages tab of a booking.
Fixed Florida Rentals Link to Portal. The step 4 link on the Florida Rentals API Integration Setup Instructions was incorrect. The link was corrected and now sends users to the correct URL to add their OwnerRez Account ID to their Florida Rentals integration.
Fixed Issue Where Description Could Be Inadvertently Deactivated While Editing. There was an edge case where a default property description could become deactivated during editing. The bug has been fixed.
Fixed Issue Where Surcharge Booking Field Criteria With Yes/No Answers (Has Holiday) Didn't Validate Correctly. A bug was identified affecting users' attempts to create a surcharge that included a booking field criteria "Contains a Holiday." The surcharge would fail to save and display the validation error, "Value must be either "0" or "1" for Contains a Holiday." This bug has been corrected.
Fixed Spelling Error of Occurances to Occurrences. The "occurances" spelling error was corrected as "occurrences" in-app on the Travel Insurance page.
Handle Case Where Lynnbrook Payment is Neither Voidable Nor Refundable. A user experienced an edge case where OwnerRez showed that the guest was refunded their refundable damage deposit (a type of security deposit equivalent to a payment) from Lynnbrook group. In this case, the payment at this step was neither voidable nor refundable, so it attempted both operations and failed. This bug has been corrected.
Prevent Publishing If There's a Pending Address/Name Sync. We identified a bug that could occur if an OwnerRez user updates a property type or address and promptly attempts to publish the property on Airbnb before these changes are entirely synced in OwnerRez. We have fixed this bug and it will now display the following, "Sync is currently in progress. Wait for it to complete and then come back to publish." if users attempt to publish their property before syncing is complete.
Remove '5-star' From Review is Submitted System Alert. When users created a delayed guest review under five stars, the system alert email subject and body still displayed "A scheduled or automatic 5-star review for "X Booking" was sent. This inaccuracy was fixed by just removing "5-star" from being mentioned since such reviews can be less than five stars.
Setup Wizard Properties Page Typo. There was a typo on the Setup Wizard Properties Page where the word "have" appeared twice in a row when adding the first property to an account. This typo has been corrected.
Smoothen Email Two-Factor Authentication. Are we tired of talking about the OwnerRez Two-Factor Authentication? Absolutely, but we are committed to getting this vital security feature right for our users. In this update, we extended the authentication codes to work for 10 minutes, made the Verify button the default (vs. send another code), and now track the expiration duration on the client side, so the authentication code isn't considered expired too early if the client's system clock is not accurately set.
Tax Report Explicit Alphabetic Ordering for Columns. Tax Report header columns were displayed in reverse alphabetical order. This bug is now corrected and the Tax Report header columns show correctly alphabetically, A-Z.
How do you change the color of the caption in the carousel?
How long after emailing ECBYO can we expect to see our integration take place?
@Chris Hynes -- thanks for the quick reply. To clarify, I'm not trying to set both to the same. It is the latter of your comments. I am trying to reduce the number of steps/clicks. In most of our cases, we block both arrival and departure for the required days. Right now we have to select the dates>Set Rules>Arrival>Select Option>OK and then repeat everything again (except Select Dates) for Departure. It would be easier to have Set Rules>Arrival/Departure (or Set Change Over as you suggested) and then have 2 columns of Radio buttons for the 4 choices for each Arrival and Departure. That way the user could select just arrival, just departure, or both all in one step. Reduced manual workload :-)
Great to hear that the rules will be added to upload feature -- please announce when its done. Completely understand get the feature out ASAP and then iterate. When the import is implemented, it would be great if there is a filter option for the rules but we can easily do that in the exported data. I assume like the manual process it wont be overwritten by Pricelabs, etc
