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Get started with Monthly Rentals by Owner & American Snowbird by visiting here and checking out the OwnerRez support article for how to integrate OwnerRez with Monthly Rentals by Owner & American Snowbird.
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Vrbo hasn't forgotten about that, they're talking about later this year though.
What an exciting update!
I am looking forward to a fix for Owner-rez left VRBO reviews will sync with the channel and publish, please get this fix out soon! :)
Great job! Thank you for watching out for us. Blessings, Susy Downer
Good words are worth much, and cost little.
Herbert's quote highlights the value of using positive and meaningful language, suggesting that using words effectively can have a significant impact even while requiring minimal effort or expense, serving as a reminder of the potential influence and value that well-chosen words can bring to communication with guests.
So let's not mess around and get to the meat of this product update that outlines our June 7th release with 13 updates, but more importantly, we know that users want to read all about the new (and long-awaited) Vrbo Messaging feature! 📨
The wait is over. Vrbo Messaging has arrived! 🥳🎉
For those accounts connected via API to Vrbo, native in-app Vrbo messaging is now available (on a go-forward basis). Corresponding with Vrbo guests directly in OwnerRez allows users to unify their guest messaging that much more. With OwnerRez's Inbox, conversation view, system alerts, and channel templates/triggers, you can save time and automate more of your messaging to be delivered via the channel (or "on the platform").
If you already use Airbnb messaging in OwnerRez, you'll be quite comfortable with the addition of Vrbo messaging.
OwnerRez has collaborated diligently with Vrbo to ensure the seamless appearance of Vrbo messages within the OwnerRez Inbox. Users can navigate to their Inbox by clicking on the CRM drop-down menu and selecting Inbox.
New Vrbo messages will be listed in the Inbox. Note that the Via column indicates where the messages are from, in this example Vrbo.
Clicking on each individual message opens the message in the Conversation View. When users open the Conversation View, they can see any comments that Vrbo guests have added allowing them to respond directly to the Vrbo guest within OwnerRez.
Please note: Vrbo Messaging history currently works on a go-forward basis starting June 7th (or the date you connect to Vrbo via API). We will look to bring in some history of previous conversations in a future release.
Learn more by reading our Vrbo Messaging support article.
Ever had a guest mark your email as Spam? Or experienced a Hard Bounce even though you know you have entered the correct email address? That's frustrating because the guest will no longer receive any future emails from you, the host, about their upcoming reservation check-in process, property information, and more.
Users will always receive an OwnerRez email alert warning users that the guest has marked an email as spam or an email has bounced but attempting to reactivate the email was not as intuitive as we'd like.
While users could always reactivate any suppressed email addresses by navigating to Settings > Messaging > Suppressed Email Addresses, users can now reactivate suppressed email addresses by clicking the button in the Email History.
Reactivated email addresses are identified by the blue label.
Learn more by reading the Suppressed Email Addresses Overview support article.
Automatically Remove SMS Brands From Users Who Disable SMS or Close Their Account. If users disable their SMS premium feature or close their account, OwnerRez will automatically remove any SMS Brand applications submitted, and assigned SMS phone numbers will be released making the SMS phone numbers available to others.
Expose Property Check-in and Check-out Times on v2 Property API. Property check-in and check-out times have now been added to the OwnerRez v2 API.
Fix Airbnb Payouts if they Include Non-booking-related Funds (e.g., Referral payments). Some users had Airbnb payout transactions with no associated bookings if they included non-booking-related funds, such as referral payments, which was confusing. This bug has been fixed and any non-booking-related payouts will appear as Adjustments in the user's Deposit section.
Fix Airbnb Transaction Sync Issue That Caused Duplicate Payments on Alteration Re-syncs. This edge case occurred when an Airbnb API-connected booking changed and created a duplicate payment transaction. This bug has been fixed and all Airbnb Transaction Syncs will now de-duplicate and match Airbnb payments by amount and date.
Fix Booking Messages From Being Sent to the Wrong Message Thread in Airbnb for Some Guests. Some Airbnb API-connected users were experiencing outbound Airbnb scheduled message failures and were not successfully delivered to the correct Airbnb message thread because it was looking for the most recent communication, using the thread ID rather than the individual booking. This bug has been fixed to now send messages to the specific thread it's using on the booking channel.
Fix Channel Bookings From Showing as "manual" if the API Channel was Subsequently Disabled. When users had an active API-connected channel that received bookings and subsequently disabled the API connection of the listing channel that created the booking, the booking indicated that it was created manually rather than the API-connected listing channel that originally created the booking. It correctly displays even if the API-connected listing channel is disabled.
Fix Hosted Site Blog Posts to Not Show if They Did Not Have a Category Set. When users created Hosted Website Blog Posts but did not set a category for the blog post, the blog post did not display on the blog even though the blog was published. This has been fixed.
Fix Vrbo Channel Bridge Import to Look at "Booking Amount" Too. This was a rare edge case but the Vrbo Channel Bridge (CB) Import was sometimes incorrectly considering the "booking amount" total item as a charge. The CB logic has been corrected to no longer consider the Vrbo "booking amount" total item as a charge and will be skipped.
Fix Vrbo Listing Feed if There are No Amenities Configured for a Property. Properties that had no amenities configured would sometimes produce an error on the Vrbo listing feed. This bug has been fixed and properties that have no amenities configured yet will no longer experience Vrbo listing feed errors.
Improve Hosted Site Blog Post Performance. Some users experienced a blog sort issue due to the blog post content on their Hosted Website causing a lot of simultaneous content sorting. This bug has been fixed and blog post content sorting will occur and display correctly.
Lynnbrook Group Deposit Processing Should Look for Yesterday's Deposits to Avoid Late Day Deposit Misses. Some users noticed that Lynnbrook fees weren't displayed as expected in the Transactions tab of related bookings forcing them to manually add those fees. OwnerRez has adjusted the daily sync to pull in the previous day's settlement instead of today's to catch everything.
We are pleased to announce our partnership with Monthly Rentals by Owner & American Snowbird as a new first-class book-direct channel partner.
Founded in 2003, Monthly Rentals by Owner and American Snowbird specializes in providing vacation rental property managers and homeowners with a quality, cost-effective listing solution, offering a unique platform that focuses on marketing properties available for extended stays of 28 days or more. The company meets the needs of a growing market of vacationers seeking mid-term and longer-term rentals and Snowbird rentals. Our goal is to facilitate unforgettable vacation experiences for renters while providing property managers the tools they need to succeed in the vacation rental market.
$173 per year, per property membership. Pricing details are here.
Get started with Monthly Rentals by Owner & American Snowbird by visiting here and checking out the OwnerRez support article for how to integrate OwnerRez with Monthly Rentals by Owner & American Snowbird.
We are happy to announce our partnership with Webready to allow you to create your own high-quality websites exactly as you want with custom builder tools.
Webready is one of the top website builder tools for vacation rentals. Create a website you are proud of, and customize it exactly the way you want. There are many templates to choose from so you get exactly the style you want. Start receiving online bookings today.
This website is utilizing the OwnerRez integration with Webready:
https://doublediamondrentals.triprentals.net/
30-day Free Trial on Starter Plan. Pricing details can be found on the Webready website here.
You can sign up to Webready from the Register page on the website here by clicking on the Get Started button. To learn how to integrate Webready with OwnerRez, take a look at the integration guide here.
Yes, as I indicated, my website is using the OR plugin and widgets.
The same data and tech that is provided for the hosted websites is supposed to be provided for sites using the plugin and widgets.
I believe what Paul W was referring to only works for specifically OwnerRez Hosted websites, not widgets on third party sites. Do you have an OwnerRez Hosted website? If so I'd recommend emailing in for further discussion so we can take a look at your specific situation.
~Caleb
ok, thank you!
Currently the transaction sync is bringing in the resolution payments to the Bookings>Transactions screen. We are adding an option, in the next release, to allow an automatic charge, or choose to manually create it. Until that release, you'd want to manually create the charge.
Since I've enabled transaction sync, resolution center payments no longer show up in charges. They used to show up after I did a channel bridge sync. How do I get them to come over now?
Jake and Erin, did you run the Channel Bridge process prior to enabling the Transaction Sync as suggested? Please contact our Help Desk with specific details so we can figure out what is happening.
Join us on June 6th with the team at Breezeway to transform your housekeeping and cleaning operations.
With so many tools on the market for cleaning operations, it’s hard to determine what software is best for your STR business. If you’re looking to scale, you probably want to implement processes that can adapt to your changing needs. Koryn Okey, VP of Client Success, joins OwnerRez to discuss the usability, support, and robust features that Breezeway has to offer. We’ll uncover why you need to automate the turnover process, the elements that differentiate Breezeway from other tools, and how to create a trustworthy system in all stages of your business.
The session is free to join, but you must use the Breezeway webinar link to register.
You can find all our upcoming and past webinars on our Webinars page.
Since I've enabled transaction sync, resolution center payments no longer show up in charges. They used to show up after I did a channel bridge sync. How do I get them to come over now?
Hi Bri,
I am referring to this OwnerRez blog post by Paul W. on September 27, 2021:
I have a Reviews page on my website using the OR plugin and widgets, and my ratings are not transferring over to Google.
Hi Yavuz,
Thank you for taking the time to share feedback on your initial experience with the OwnerRez/bnbfinder integration.
Since the original announcement, updates made to the integration have resolved some of the key concerns you mentioned, including ‘date search’ support. The API will now automatically pull your calendar availability, allowing travelers to include dates in their original search.
Additionally, we wanted to mention that static content is synced daily and the API will automatically pull supported data without the need to unpublish/republish your listings. This will ensure that your listing content is kept up to date on bnbfinder.
Static content that is not currently supported can be manually updated through the bnbfinder dashboard and as we add more functionality to the site, we hope to support additional features like rates and other amenities in the near future - all of which would automatically sync.
We know how important it is to have a seamless experience for users on our site and we will continue to drive improvements that provide more functionality to you.
We’re so excited for the opportunity to work with you and if you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at support@bnbfinder.com and we will be more than happy to assist.
Hi Scott,
To the best of our knowledge, Google will only allow for native reviews to be displayed. I found a Google Community thread that touches on this topic, which you can view here.
We send all of our guests a survey via RueBaRue after checkout that has a link to leave a Google review.
That's great, Patricia.
I thought maybe you were getting your website's reviews to get published on Google, as almost two years ago now Paul had said was then finally possible. But I could never figure out how that was supposed to happen and my questions on that were never properly answered.
Short of getting those hundreds of reviews to show on Google, asking guests to also leave their new ones on Google seems to be the only way.
@Scott - I have an email that goes out to guests the day after departure and I ask them for a review. They can leave a review on the platform they booked through and I also provide a link to my business Google profile and say they can write a review there too. I've had several guests leave me reviews on Google already.
On Thursday, 6/1, join us live with the team at bnbfinder to discuss how you can drive more commission-free and direct bookings.
We’ll be focusing on strategies to help increase your direct booking revenue and conversion as well as how you can track the sources of your direct booking revenue. Learn how you can add more revenue to your bottom line by decreasing costs for you and your guests by acquiring more direct bookings. The folks at bnbfinder are offering all OwnerRez users free property listings for the rest of 2023 to help you capture as many direct and commission-free bookings as you can while you try their platform. We hope you’ll join us to learn more!
The session is free to join, but you must use the bnbfinder webinar link to register.
You can find all our upcoming and past webinars on our Webinars page.
We are pleased to announce our partnership with MovingLake to allow your OwnerRez data to flow in real-time to your backend, ERPs, CRMs, as well as to your databases, data lakes, data warehouses, and message queues!
MovingLake is a Data Replicator and Data Centralization service with which you can get all of your business' data in a single location. With MovingLake you can also get Data Consultation Services with which you can create custom dashboards to power your journey to be a data-driven company.
Data Connector Subscription scales logarithmically with usage. Take a look at the pricing details here.
Get started with MovingLake by visiting the MovingLake website and checking out the OwnerRez support doc for how to integrate OwnerRez with MovingLake.
How do you get your reviews on OwnerRez to publish on Google? I've never had it properly explained to me.
Stay Better Vacations is doing something (actually, pretty much everything) right, maintaining a 5 star rating on Google and a near-perfect 4.9 rating based on close to three thousand reviews on their website! The same meticulousness co-owner Stacie employed as a teacher for 18 years is serving her well as a property owner and manager.
In my previous life, I was a school teacher for 18 years. The last few years of my career I started dipping my toes in owning and managing a few vacation rentals. Soon my portfolio grew, which made me realize there was a strong market for a boutique-style management company and I should explore doing this gig full-time. I then retired from teaching (my resignation letter was one sentence) and began growing the business by bringing onboard my friend Pam who had experience with real estate, marketing, and hospitality. From that moment we became a guest-focused business aimed at providing the best experience for both our guests and owners.
Teaching, which requires juggling many balls and demands!
Variety - one day is never like the previous or next. Constantly adapting, reinventing, and being creative on how we approach new challenges or how we can do things better!
Staying consistent with whatever is thrown our way - creating a happy experience for all types of travelers and accommodating all our owners so we are meeting their expectations. Ensuring our cleaning team meets our standards to ensure good reviews and guests satisfaction.
It touches all moving parts! Integration has been key...Operto, RueBaRue, Lynnbrook, Point Central, Calendars syncs. It's a one stop shop that we'd be lost without.
Website and API Integration with Airbnb and Vrbo. We get so many compliments on our website - we love this feature and are always so excited when there are updates or new tools being offered.
Thanks, Stacie and Pam - first for educating our future generations, and now for providing them with amazing vacation rental options!
We hope you have guests enjoying National Road Trip Day on their way to your properties...
Before they arrive, squeeze in some time to peruse our latest product update, providing comprehensive details of this week's May 24th release with 13 updates.
As we continue to improve the SMS Brand Registration process to work within the ever-changing regulatory environment, we are now in beta with a new Sole Proprietorship Campaign option. Not everyone operates as an LLC or Corporation, so Sole Proprietorship is becoming another option for users who operate as one, allowing them to properly register their SMS Brand for approval with The Campaign Registry (TCR). The TCR works with North American mobile operators and companies in the messaging carrier business to register Application-to-Person (A2P) text messaging Campaigns.
If you're a sole proprietor and have previously been unable to utilize SMS messaging and have questions about this option, contact us for assistance.
Learn more by reading our SMS Overview support article.
Many partners and prospective partners alike work to provide solid API integrations for OwnerRez users through our APIs, particularly the newer OwnerRez v2 API. One upcoming partner asked if we could include latitude and longitude geographic coordinates in the v2 API to provide property locations (depending on OwnerRez user preferences). We obliged and that info is now available!
Learn more by reading our API for Apps Overview support article.
Don't Generate Door Lock Codes for Quote Hold Blocks. This edge case occurred when a user sent quotes using the hold dates option to block the calendar, holding it for guests to complete the booking, and experienced door lock code failures (and received corresponding OwnerRez system alerts) for each quote. We have fixed this bug to no longer generate door lock codes for quote hold blocks.
Don't Include Autogenerated Range Descriptions for Surcharges on Long Stays to Avoid Description Limit Issues. This was an edge case where a user received a "The field description must be a string with a maximum length of 384." error. Due to the length of stay duration of this quote (over six months), the generation of the Rent description field exceeded the character limit of 384 characters. We fixed this bug to truncate quote description fields so that they no longer exceed 384 characters.
Don't Try to Create Door Codes for a Booking That Will Be Canceled. One user experienced a door code being generated even though the booking was already canceled. We have fixed this bug to no longer generate door codes for canceled bookings.
Fix Broken Link in Card Processing History Deposit Column. Some users experienced links not working correctly when they clicked on the link for credit card processing information in the Deposited On column in the Deposits section of OwnerRez. This bug has been fixed and in-app links in the Deposited On column in the Deposits History section now work correctly.
Fix Guest Selected Check Payment Method Isn't Saved. This impacted users with offline payment methods, such as check or custom payment. For a while, if a guest chose one of those options as payment during the checkout process, the payment method selected did not save property on the Booking overview tab (i.e., the offline payment method was set to None). It didn't affect payment processing because that was handled offline as usual, but the type wasn't stored for reference by the user. This bug has been fixed to carry through the selected offline payment type by the guest on quote acceptance.
Fixed Host Fee Display on Booking Overview Tab Wasn't Updating. After enabling the Airbnb Transaction Sync, the Airbnb Host Fee was correctly displayed in the Expense tab of bookings, but the Host Fee was missing from the My Net Financials section of the booking Overview tab. This bug has been fixed and Airbnb Host Fees will now display correctly on both the My Net Financials section of the booking Overview and the Expense tab of bookings after users enable Airbnb Transaction Sync.
Fixed Unicode Characters In Messages Could Cause Guest Body Snippet to Fail. Some users that included Unicode characters (An international character encoding standard providing a unique number for every character across languages and scripts.) in their SMS and Airbnb messages experienced message display issues. Unicode characters are now validated, and SMS and Airbnb messages will be displayed correctly.
Handle Case Where Airbnb Property is Disconnected From API But User is Still Connected. An OR user disconnected and reconnected their property on the Airbnb app but could not reconnect fully and experienced an Airbnb permissions error while attempting to reconnect the property in the OwnerRez app. We have fixed this bug to trigger a full sync allowing the property status to change to Inactive and allowing users to change the property mappings to reconnect the property to Airbnb in the OR app.
Remove Yahoo Maps From Property Location and Field Codes/Messaging. Yahoo Maps service closed a good while back, and the option to link to a property location in Yahoo Maps has now been removed from the OwnerRez property location page, field code options, and message templates.
Respond to API Quote Tests With a 400 Error Instead of a 500 Error if the Details Are Not Quotable. To return more useful errors, OwnerRez is now responding to API Quote test errors with 400 Bad Request response status codes (The server cannot or will not process the request due to something that is perceived to be a client error.) rather than 500 Internal Server Error response codes (The server encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request).
Skip Surcharge/Discount in Houfy Rate Feed When It Should Never Apply Based on Criteria. To enhance the Houfy rate feed speed, OwnerRez determined that property surcharges and discounts could be skipped in the rate feed if they have never been applied.
I've been using them since I started hosting two years ago and I am extremely happy with their service. Thanks for getting the API integration up and running.
Hi Steve,
Files that are uploaded manually by yourself to your account are able to generate a public link and send to guests via templates. We have a small guide on that process here - https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/email-templates#files
However an important note is that files a guest uploads through POC that is in a booking's Files tab won't have the button to generate a public link.
~Caleb
Do guests have access to the uploaded files?
The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.
Vidal Sassoon
Sassoon's quote reminds us that there is no substitute for hard work in this world of ambition and dreams. As many vacation rental owners and property managers head into their busy season, this powerful quote serves as a reminder that success is born from relentless dedication, perseverance, and the willingness to put in the hours. But before you get back to work, take some time to read our latest product update detailing our May 17th release with 15 updates that includes a new Airbnb Message failed alert and updated property search widget!
For those API-connected with Airbnb, ever experience an Airbnb message failure and do not know why? That's frustrating! Now it's clearer! Similar to the system alert message for SMS message failures, we have added a system alert message notifying users of Airbnb message failures.
If an error occurs when sending an Airbnb message, OwnerRez will send a system alert detailing the Airbnb-provided reason for the failure allowing users to correct their original message and resend if necessary. Note: users can disable (or re-enable) the alert under system alert settings at any point.
Under the Guest conversation, we now display the Airbnb message failure reason instead of just "Failed."
As well as under the message in Communication History (Tools > Communication History).
Learn more about Channel Messaging by reading our Channel Templates support article.
Our users understand the power of direct-booking websites, whether it's an OwnerRez Hosted Website, a website that uses OwnerRez-powered widgets, or a Property Sharing website. Well, we have made three improvements to the Property Search Widget to make it more powerful (er, smarter):
Learn more by reading our OwnerRez Hosted Websites and Property Sharing support articles.
Add Breakpoint for TinyMCE Toolbar on Mobile. An intrepid OwnerRez user alerted us to a bug in the rich text template editor menu bar layout that occurred on the OwnerRez Progressive Web App (PWA) on a mobile device only. This bug has been fixed, and the rich text editor menu bar will wrap and display correctly.
Clarify Team Member Edit Requires Primary User Login. We clarified the wording of the permissions banner in the Team Access area: "Team users may not create or edit staff members. You must log out and then log in directly as the primary user: [email address]."
Don't Allow Bookings to be Deleted With Voided Expenses. The system allowed users to delete bookings with voided expenses, which could cause future problems. We have fixed this bug to no longer allow users to delete such bookings and show an error explaining why.
Don't Error in Cases Where We Have a Door Code for a Deleted Mapped Property. In this case, a user experienced a door code error for a deleted yet mapped property via RemoteLock. This bug has been fixed to no longer produce door code errors in these instances.
Fix Booking Channel Page Grid Caching Bug. This edge case occurred for a user when they reviewed a booking's channel tab and clicked the link to see the details. It was missing information because it cached the grid item, which didn't have the requested details. This bug has been fixed to correctly display the booking's channel tab details.
Fix Case Where Invalid CSV Parameters Sent to API are Generating 500s Instead of 400s. This edge case occurred when a GuestView Guide integrated OR user experienced non-useful 500 errors, "An error has occurred." when attempting to connect their guide with GuestView. We have fixed this bug to return the more useful 500 error message, "Invalid format for "propertyIds'. Comma separated values of Int32 expected."
Fix Hosted Site Page Grid Disable/Delete/Enable Buttons. In a recent update, we added Edit mode to more grids around the system. We found that the Edit mode buttons (Disable, Delete, Enable) weren't working correctly on the Hosted Websites grid and fixed them.
Fix Regression Where Custom "File" Fields Didn't Allow Uploading New Files. There was a regression where users could not upload files to their owner, property, or account custom fields. This bug has been fixed.
Handle Case of Airbnb Reservation Change When Tax Rate No Longer Applies. This was an edge case where an Airbnb booking reservation criteria had changed, but no tax rate was applied to the booking. This bug has been fixed, and the system will calculate and add the correct tax rate when Airbnb booking changes are made.
Increase Field Definition Description Length. The character length max for Field Definition descriptions was 256, but in some cases, some users required more characters, so we have increased the Field Definition description maximum length to 2048 characters.
Show Friendly Error on Portal When Owner Has No Properties. When an owner was granted portal team access but the OwnerRez user failed to map properties for that owner, the owner received a "no access to owner dashboard" error message with a link to contact OwnerRez. We have updated the error message to display the more useful and friendly "Looks like you haven't been granted access... contact the person responsible for access." message.
With sync turned on to AirBnB does that also change the processing of the payment to our processor, or does AirBnB still control that part?
Jim,
Even after you enable the Airbnb Transaction Sync, Airbnb continues to be the payment processor and controls all Airbnb transactions.
With sync turned on to AirBnB does that also change the processing of the payment to our processor, or does AirBnB still control that part?
