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Good news, it's Friday!
We'd like a moment to toot our own horn. GetApp has ranked us as the #1 vacation rental software for 2020! 😇 They rank the top business apps every year to help people choose the best option. App scores are determined by 5 factors, worth 20 points each, for a possible total of 100. OwnerRez received a score of 99!
@OwnerRez takes the crown in @GetApp’s 2020 Vacation Rental #CategoryLeaders ranking. Congrats! 👑🎉 See the full ranking ➡️ https://t.co/bmDtPq7gvV pic.twitter.com/QEt9M4bz4g
— GetApp (@GetApp) November 25, 2020
We've had a few users reach out to us about Vrbo displaying their hot tub amenities as indoor whirlpools. Sure both have hot water in a tub, but they are very different amenities! Plus, some US accounts are missing the hot tub amenity entirely. We notified Vrbo and verified that this was indeed a bug, but good news - they have already fixed it and your hot tubs, whirlpools and other water features should be showing as they were before.
Earlier this week, we announced our integration with HomeToGo. If you haven't got around to checking them out yet, now is the time! They are currently running a Bounce Back Program with zero fees on all bookings until the end of March. Along with that, HomeToGo released their white paper, which talks about the future of travel for 2021. There are a lot of interesting statistics worth reading about. For example, cabin searches are up +148% compared to the previous year.
If you've ever thought about putting smart locks in your vacation rentals, now is the time! For a limited time, buy any smart lock and receive 25% off your RemoteLock software subscription. Use code UNLOCK25 at checkout. Check out all of their smart locks! Once you installed your smart lock, be sure to check out our support doc on how to integrate it with OwnerRez. Each time a booking is created, OwnerRez will automatically set the door lock code without you lifting a finger!
an SMS question. I have specified "forward to" phone number. I do not see anything forwarded? I only see people replying to SMS under CRM and email. The forward-to number is GV, is that why?
is "SMS Messaging is now available to everyone! " a free service, included in the regular service?
question: can we now set up SMS template/trigger to text link to quote in response to unbooked inquiry? Many of send-quote emails end up in spam folders to inquirer never sees them. I have been doing manually but it is tedious.
Thanks a lot, I've got you now! Regards...
Hi Tarki!
A few months back, Airbnb announced that all parties and events are banned globally. Their press release is here:
https://news.airbnb.com/airbnb-announces-global-party-ban
Basically, this is the setting on your listings where you say:
Events Allowed: [ Yes | No ]
Everyone has to have it set to "No" now. If you mention events in your description (weddings, etc) they will block your listings, and we've seen reports of that.
However, they didn't change their API or control panel to stop events from being set - you can still put in that you allow events, even though they are banned by policy.
To help stop users from getting blocked or banned listings, we changed our API code to automatically set all "Events Allowed" settings to "No" automatically no matter what you select in OwnerRez.
Thank you very much for the updates!
Can you please clarify the following? What events are these?
Airbnb recently banned all events completely, but they didn't change their interface and control panel from showing events as an option. So you might allow events in OwnerRez which would push across to Airbnb but end up getting you in trouble since events aren't allowed. We changed this so that events are set to "no" across the board for all Airbnb API listings no matter if you allow the in OwnerRez or not.
Happy Hump Day! 🐫 We were enjoying some turkey last week, so the product update got pushed back. Today, we're going to discuss two weeks of updates (35 total from 11 this week and 24 the previous week) so buckle your seat belts and let's dive in!
Want to send text messages to guests but didn't get into the private beta group? Now you can! SMS Messaging is now available to everyone! We only provide USA phone numbers for now, but any user can add a phone number and send/receive messages no matter what country you're in. This might affect delivery charges on the recipient side, so read our help section about SMS geographical limitations.
To get started, check out this new video about SMS Setup & Usage. It will walk you through claiming a phone number, configuring it and sending and receiving test messages. It shows how messages look on both the OwnerRez and guest side and how sending files and images work as well as SMS templates and triggers.
After watching the video, read our SMS Common Questions support article which covers a lot of the early questions you might have.
For a long time, users have tried to include links to the signed renter agreement when sending booking emails, and it makes a lot of sense. If you're sending a summary email of everything the user has been charged or paid, you probably also want to include a reference to their signed renter agreement PDF. But our signed renter agreement links only worked on renter agreement templates, not booking templates, because bookings can have multiple signed renter agreements. We changed this to add some additional field codes at the booking level which are:
Notice that the first two fields codes are "links" which mean they render a URL to the PDF directly. If you're styling your email, you might use these as links that wrap around a piece of text that the user should click on.
If you don't know what field codes are or how they work, check out our Field Codes support article or watch the Field Codes walk-through video.
Did you know that you can import expenses from Excel? No? Neither did anyone else, so we added an Import button next to the existing Export button above the Expense grid in the PM area. This follows our pattern of showing import/export buttons in the areas where features are used.
We updated our Vrbo listing import code - the one that looks at your live listing on Vrbo and sucks in all the photos and data - to also import smaller photos from Vrbo. This was confusing for some users, so we're now pulling in smaller vertical photos as well as the normal size and ratios.
Have you ever looked at OwnerRez on your smartphone and wondered what the booking # (ORB...) was for a booking? We hid the booking # because of the lack of screen real estate on small devices, but users kept asking how to find it. We updated the yellow header to show the booking # - but a smaller version - when on a small device.
On the reviews widget, we now show the company name as who is responding for added context. The company name will show the correct name based on the theme for that property.
We noticed that our logos and icons for RemoteLock were old, so we updated them to the new ones. Little things like this bother us.
We also added a Houfy Instructions tab in the API Integration settings, so check that out if you were previously confused. Additionally, you can read our Houfy Setup & Connecting support article for more information.
Have you noticed the Feature Requests forum and how you can up-vote topics you want us to work on? We recently added a new sort and filter drop-down so that you can watch what is trending instead of just what has the most votes across all time.
This will show you an active interesting feature board, so keep your eye on it! You can also change it from Active topics to All if you want to look back at what has been closed or released. For all the nerds that are curious, "Trending" is calculated by placing a higher weight on votes placed in the last 14 days.
We noticed that Vrbo inquiries were creating guest records that had the inquiry email address (ie. the proxy email created by Vrbo for messaging purposes) stored as the guest email. This is somewhat logical because Vrbo doesn't provide a real guest email address on inquiries, but it was messing up CRM with lots of proxy email addresses. We changed this so that Vrbo inquiries now store the proxy email on the inquiry record only. Also, we changed the inquiry logic for "Missing Contact Info" to check the inquiry for a proxy email. Even if the guest doesn't have a real email address, the inquiry is answerable if there's a proxy one.
Airbnb recently banned all events completely, but they didn't change their interface and control panel from showing events as an option. So you might allow events in OwnerRez which would push across to Airbnb but end up getting you in trouble since events aren't allowed. We changed this so that events are set to "no" across the board for all Airbnb API listings no matter if you allow them in OwnerRez or not.
Speaking of channels, we updated our TripAdvisor API code to force-validate if your second payment rules are less than 15 days. TripAdvisor requires 15 days or more for the second payment rule, so our API integration now checks for this and gives you a friendly message before allowing it to fail when the push happens later.
To reduce guest confusion, we used to never send the booking confirmation email for channel bookings. This was hard-coded across the board because we felt like it would be confusing for guests to book on TripAdvisor or Airbnb and then get a direct email from you, the owner or PM, with confirmation information that had (possibly) wrong amounts or information. However, OwnerRez users are clever! Many of you adjusted your triggers or settings or email language with this in mind and you want you confirmation emails to be sent to all bookings, no matter if they are channel or direct! So we added an email option to Airbnb and TripAdvisor channels so that you can decide if you want the confirmation email going out or not.
The conversation history shows dates and times, and we updated it to show those dates and times in your timezone. Now you should be able to see exactly when the guest was sent a message in your own time zone.
Night and week rules on small rate tables. If you've ever looked at the rate table for your listings on a small device (eg. smartphone), either in a rate widget or property page on a hosted website, you'll notice that the night/week/month columns collapse into a single column for easier viewing. We noticed that it wasn't showing the right night and weeks, based on your settings, on those small devices, so we fixed that to be consistent with larger devices.
Dutch words in widgets. If you don't speak Dutch, you may not have noticed this one. The word "for" in our widgets was using the wrong word for users with Dutch settings, so we fixed it!
Rate widget calculations from the past. The rate table widget does a lot of heavy lifting. It figures out night, weekend, week and month rates, within the context of season, based on dynamic pricing, LOS discounts and other settings that can be very difficult to figure out. To be as exact as possible, we calculate numbers across seasons and then examine the result. We noticed that we were calculating this on season too far in the past (for current seasons) so we capped it to 31 days in the past which allows current "Monthly" rates to be correct relative to the current season.
Pending emails on disabled properties. Did you know that you can have bookings at disabled properties? Well you can. You might have created some bookings then disabled the property to hide it for awhile. The bookings at the property are still there, just hidden! We changed our email logic to skip pending emails if the property is disabled. Once you reactivate the property, the pending emails will work again but only for new bookings.
Payment reminders on disabled properties. Likewise with financial reminder emails.
Payment methods on disabled properties. Likewise for payment methods. Let's say you have Stripe connected and configured to work for 3 of your 5 properties. You then disable one of those properties - what happens with the Stripe payment method? We now clear that property from the method. When you reactivate the property, you will need to reset the payment method to be used on that property.
Stripe capture error. When trying to capture Stripe funds (ie. keep money from a security deposit) there was a rare situation where an error would occur. This is now fixed
Export CC history to CSV. Just like it sounds. If you ran the CC Processing History report and tried to export it to CSV, you got an error. Not anymore!
$0 charges and TripAdvisor. We allow you to create charge line items that say whatever you want including $0 amounts. TripAdvisor unfortunately does not. TripAdvisor requests quotes from our system in real-time all day long which means OwnerRez might generate an automatic quote with a $0 amount in an "information only" charge line item which will make TripAdvisor choke. We fixed this to ignore $0 lines when communicating with TripAdvisor.
Quotes having quotes. We fixed an issue where creating a quote will crash if you're copy the quote from another quote and doing it from the guest conversation sidebar.
Search widget and disabled tab groups. We fixed a bug where the search widget might link to tab groups that are disabled. Don't remember what tag groups are? That went out recently, so read all about it.
Holidays showing on other owner's properties. When owners access OwnerRez, via the portal access feature in the PM area, they see the same calendar that you do only stripped down. Those calendars show holidays, only some holidays don't apply to some properties, and owners might wonder why they're seeing those holidays. We fixed this to take into account which property is being viewed and which holiday lists apply.
Airbnb rate/listing import and channel tester. Airbnb made some updates to their website and systems that blocked old HTTP methods from being used. We updated our crawling logic - the code that imports listings, imports rates and runs live rate checks - to use the new HTTP methods.
Template preview options being cut-off. When previewing templates, you have the ability to select live properties and bookings to test the template against - this gives you a way to see your templates against live booking data. We noticed that those property and booking lists were getting cut off so we fixed it.
Selecting taxes on channel booking charges. We were checking listing site applicability when showing taxes on bookings in the charges editor. We changed that so that listing site applicability is no longer checked. You can select taxes regardless of the channel.
Calendar dates on rate editor advanced mode. When using the calendar date pickers in the rate editor "advanced" selection mode, we noticed that the advanced window would close when the user typed in the date boxes. All fixed!
Confirm message on quote acceptance check payments. When a guest accepts a quotes or goes through the Book Now process, they can select optional add-ons and use different payment methods. An eagle-eyed user noticed that selecting a check payment method and adding optional add-ons (both) would result in a wrong check total on the final confirmation instructions after booking. This is now fixed.
Rate table season ranges. We fixed an issue with the rate table where season ranges were ending too early when calculating LOS discounts.
This week, our latest video is about setting up and using SMS Messaging:
Sure, so HTG gets paid by its affiliation with those other sites - Vrbo pays them for those redirects. I believe that's how it works. I don't want to speak for HTG, but I know there are distribution agreements like that in place for others, so I assume it's the same for HTG.
In terms of why your Air or Booking.com listings aren't showing on there, you'd have to ask HTG. They may simply not have mapped that one in for your property. They have a pretty huge index of listings worldwide but I'm guessing that some of those haven't been fully mapped to every OTA. Or they simply may not want to show every OTA if the Expedia ones are more lucrative/easier to use.
Agree mostly VRBO and Expedia. I did find my property pulled in from a local French site and Get a Room.
It would be useful to understand the business model of how HTG get paid if a guest clicks through a VRBO or other link? That could impact our pricing decisions for HTG and offer a few percent lower in order to get the guest booking direct. I'm still not clear on the cost for our direct listing. The sign up form suggest the offer is only until end Dec 2020. Its also states after the offer that its 2.5% for full integration and 14% for partial integration.
With the Owner Rez connection are we not fully integrated?
Just checked out HTG website and did a few searches. It appears most of the listings are from VRBO, like 95%+ . Can you dwell on that since they advertise to search all sites. I did not see one AirBnb listing, only a couple of Expedia. I searched big and small markets.
If the traveler does not book direct on HomeToGo, and chooses to redirect through to Vrbo/Booking/other OTA, than there is no cost to you for that other than on the OTA side. When they redirect through, they go to your OTA list, so they are essentially using your other listings.
When the Free part is over, and a guest chooses our property, through HTG, listed on AirBnb, is there double commission? If not who gets paid what?
Hi Le Touquet Holid!
HomeToGo has a brilliant model - they do have partnership with the OTAs where they pull in listings automatically but they're also working with PMS systems (like OwnerRez) to integrate property owners directly. In this way, the traveler can pick between going OTA and direct with the owner. It's an ambitious idea, but pretty cool.
After the No Fees program is over, their fee structure aligns similar to Vrbo's PPB and Booking.com commission rates. It's 14% so a tad lower than the others.
They also have pretty wide exposure, so consider that angle as well. When we started working with them, we noticed how far their reach is worldwide - lot of sister websites and international variants that they operate.
I'm still
My properties seem to be already on home to go via vrbo and other sites. So will my properties be listed effectively as book direct at a lower price than the big otas? What are the charges for Home To Go after the offer expires?
Go to settings, scroll to the bottom and add custom tags.
Going to set up a demo. Interested. Any other feedback on it?
We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!🦃
On Tuesday 12/8, OwnerRez will be hosting a webinar with Touch Stay to discuss guest communication.
Touch Stay offers digital guest welcome books that provide guests everything they need to know about the property and surrounding area. Ken Taylor, Head of Operations at OwnerRez, will discuss with Andy, CEO, and Tyann, Community Ambassador from Touch Stay about the benefits that make guests’ stays more relaxed and more informed.
The session is free to join, all you need to do is sign up using this link: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/webinar-ownerrez-touchstay
You find our previous webinars on this page: https://www.ownerrez.com/webinars
We're happy to announce that we've partnered with YourWelcome. This will enable OwnerRez users to install YourWelcome Tablets into their vacation rentals.
The Tablet enables property managers to offer contact-free check-in, property video guides and a simple way to up-sell services such as late checkout, equipment hire and more.
Once integrated all of your guests will get a personalized welcome on the Tablet when they enter the property. YourWelcome provides the opportunity for property managers to increase the revenue from every booking.
According to YourWelcome, they have their tablets installed in over 18,000 properties and are the leading guest engagement platform. When you sign up you'll receive a free tablet which is offered with every subscription. Check them out here: https://www.yourwelcome.com/
Once you sign up, check out our support doc here: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/yourwelcome
Happy Friday! We hope all of you have a safe and healthy Thanksgiving next week.🦃
Yesterday, we had our first webinar with our partners over at ASTRHO. Ken gave a live demo and answered some pertinent questions about OwnerRez and the industry. You can watch the entire session here. We plan on doing more webinars in the near future, so be sure to keep up with our blog to stay informed and sign up early for future events.
We’ve heard through the grapevine that Stripe has seen an uptick in refunds and chargebacks. Because of this, some accounts may have negative balances or a large number of disputes. This leads to slow payouts or a portion of your balance set aside as a reserve to process refunds. Our advice is have patience with Stripe, but if you need to switch we recommend looking into Ascent, Bambora or Lynnbrook.
Booking.com has launched a new (and required) Minimum Cleanliness Score Commitment for all listings. In order to remain on the platform, homeowners and rental managers must maintain a minimum cleanliness score of 6 out of 10. Your score is based on an average of all your guest reviews, so hopefully you’ve been keeping your rentals clean! Booking.com says that anyone who does not meet the cleanliness standards will be put on a warning list and notified.
On Tuesday, Henderson, Nevada implemented stricter regulations for vacation rentals. This included a requirement for newly registered rental homes to be located at least 1,000 feet away from other short-term rentals. Also any complaints must be dealt with quickly and guests must use onsite parking before parking on the street.
Palm Desert is expanding its ban on short-term rentals which will affect 69 properties but doesn’t go into effect until the end of next year (December 31, 2021). Many owners urged the council to remove the ban. “People are losing their jobs, unable to put food on their tables, questioning if the roof over their head will be there tomorrow,” said Cody Carlson, short-term rental owner.
This Thursday 11/19, our very own Ken Taylor will be presenting during the Association for Short-Term Rental Homeowners (ASTRHO) partner education session. ASTRHO was created so that short-term and vacation rental homeowners can easily access education, community, experts, perks and benefits; and quickly solve problems and be more profitable.
The webinar will last about an hour and include a live demo of OwnerRez. If you've ever been inetrested in learning more about ASTRHO, now is the time!
The session is free for anyone to join. Sign-up to join the session using this link!
In collaboration with ASTRHO, they are offering a limited-time promotion for OwnerRez clients to receive 3 months free if they sign-up before December 31, 2020.
Is there any roadmap item to actually receive back into OR a status of the unit? IE we would like to be able to see in OR that the Unit is Cleaned. Of course that would probably mean there would need to be a place to put that status - Cleaned/Occupied/Vacated... etc...
Happy.... end of week?! It's not Wednesday, but we're rolling into the weekend with a Product Update post anyway! We had 21 updates with Stripe, blue message editing, expenses, API and quote changes leading the way. Let's get to it. 🚀
In the very-near future, something known as 3D Secure 2 ("3DS2") will become common for our European users. It might take a few years, but we expect that 3DS2 will eventually become standard in America and most other countries. If you're curious, Braintree has a technical summary on what 3DS2 is and how it works. In a nutshell, 3DS2 provides an additional layer of security for online credit card payments by forcing the merchant and cardholder to stop and get an authentication from the cardholder prior to the transaction going through. It's complicated to build and support, but European laws have made it so that European banks are now required to support it. Again, we believe that America and other regions will require it in the future as well.
To pave the way for 3DS2 compliance, we've been working on setting up 3DS2-compliant payment processing with the processors that support it. The first processor we're working with is Stripe as they started supporting 3DS2 earlier than others and have a decent process in place.
It's more than just the processor though. As you know by now, OwnerRez is the world's best vacation rental channel manager which means we take payments from front-end channels like Vrbo and Booking.com and do the payment processing on their behalf. This makes it even more complicated because it means that the front-end (eg. Vrbo) has to work with the same processor that our merchant (eg. you) does and get authorization "tokens" that are verified by the cardholder and then passed to OwnerRez for processing and storage. The guest's card info alone is no longer sufficient.
Don't worry about 3DS2 though - we know about it and we're on it!
So why am I bringing this up now? Our weekly Product Update blog is not just about what we've done but also what we're working on in the near future and the overall direction of things as they shift. As we work on 3DS2, we want OwnerRez users to know that (a) it's a thing, (b) we're taking care of it and (c) how it related to other work we've released. That's where Stripe Connect comes in! In order to get 3DS2 compliant with Stripe, we needed to support the "connect" side of Stripe so we went ahead did that. When connecting a Stripe account to OwnerRez now, you'll notice that it immediately takes you to Stripe's website instead of asking for the secret key.
After logging into Stripe, they'll show you an OwnerRez logo and ask if you want to authorize OwnerRez to work with your Stripe account. This is the normal type of authorization process that you've probably done with many other online apps.
After authorizing, you'll be taken back to the OwnerRez payment method page where you can continue finishing the process. For full instructions on how this works, read our support article on Connecting Stripe to OwnerRez.
If you have an existing Stripe account, nothing will change at the moment. The coming 3DS2 upgrades and other Stripe changes will be launched in future weeks, so watch for Product Updates on that.
Another new thing this week is editable guest form messages. If you don't know what that is, think of the "blue message at the top of the form that guests use".
Okay, so technically this isn't a new feature because it was there before, but it was never fully supported across all guest forms. It only worked on the quote acceptance forms. We have now built this out across all guest forms and guest pages, even confirmation pages. Go to Settings > Form Messages and create one to get started. At the top, you'll see a long drop-down of options. The names should be self explanatory.
After selecting one, you'll see the Message Content fill in with the system default message that shows if you have nothing. Make your changes and save!
If you don't want the blue message to show at all, just empty out the box and save.
Notice that you can also use field codes here which is a really cool way to personalize the message to the property. For instance, you can add the property name by writing that field code (or inserting it from the fields windows) directly into the message. You can also use custom field codes that were configured on the property.
Then, when the page loads for the guest, they'll see your custom message including any field codes.
If you want the default message to be displayed again, simply delete the form message you created and the page will go back to how it was. Form Messages should now be editable for guest forms, and each of their pages, including:
Our property manager users will be happy to know that we'll be rolling out a lot of PM-area updates over the next couple of weeks and months. The PM area has been collecting feedback for a long time. We've done some recent things like custom statement views and portal updates, but a lot more is needed (and on the way!). This week, we squeezed in a couple small PM updates.
The first PM update is the ability to import Expenses via Excel. This is small but something PMs have asked for for a long time. Check it out by going to Tools > Import/Export and look at the import option under From Excel. Make sure to read the intro and top steps so that you know how to use the Excel template.
The second PM update is the addition of Expenses to our API. If your website or services interact with OwnerRez via API, you can now create expenses programmatically! Check out the API area to get started or go right to the spec and scroll down to the "ExpensesController" section. You can read, add, update or delete OwnerRez expenses all with custom code from third party systems.
The last new PM feature we added was an upgrade for our mapping code and location settings to allow "exact" versus "approximate" locations on properties. Technically this isn't a PM-only thing. Anyone with a Hosted Website will benefit from this as well. I refer to it as a PM thing because it was typically users with many properties (20+) that kept asking us for property-by-property location settings. You might have a map on your website with 35 properties on it. In some cases, you want approximate bubbles and in other cases the exact pin. Now you can! The preference still shows on the website but you can override it with a setting on each property as well. Go to the property, click the Location tab and find it there. While we were in there, we also added a setting to the Airbnb API integration to show exact listing location there as well.
One of the things OwnerRez is known for is our commitment to updating old features with new settings, options and ideas over time. We don't just build new stuff, we watch and maintain the old stuff too. This past week, we added a set of new quote-based field codes to our field codes list which are as follows:
We noticed that these three field codes were missing even though bookings supported them. You can read about all of our field codes by going to the Field Codes support article or by opening the "Insert Field" window when working on a template or renter agreement. Or watch this cool walk-through video on using Field Codes.
Using our APIs to check for availability? If so, you will now notice that the booking "key" comes back in API results. This will allow you to link specifically to forms and booking information from your API searches.
Those of you that use Parakeet know that they were recently purchased by and changed their name to Brivo. So we updated all of our docs, integration options and settings for Parakeet over to Brivo. We like to keep a clean house!
Speaking of which, we're working on cleaning up all the Vrbo and HomeAway naming differences so that it's "Vrbo" everywhere. That's not out yet, but it will be soon! In case you live under a rock, "HomeAway" is no more - websites, logos, documents have all been purged from the earth by the Expedia mothership.
For Airbnb, we now support "keyword fees" that are charged per night (ie. fees like maintenance or resort or linen that we search for by certain names). In the past, we only supported them if they were per stay, but now you can have your per-night fees get synced with Airbnb as well.
Speaking of Airbnb, the House Manual field has had its max size updated to 20,000 characters so that can cram more stuff in there. This should make it a bit easier to add your content given that OwnerRez counts all the rich-formatting as characters too.
We also reworked the listing imports for both Airbnb and Vrbo to be simpler and more reliable. We noticed that users would routinely create duplicate properties by accident because they would use an add option instead of update when importing listings from Airbnb or Vrbo. We eliminate this problem by moving the import options to separate add versus update pages and buttons. It's now no longer possible to add or update by accident.
Ever want to change the stuff "Info" tab on a canceled booking? There are plenty of situations where you might want to, and now you can.
Over in Vrbo land, we've made a couple of tweaks to make your Vrbo life easier. If you're hooking up the Vrbo API, the on-boarding forms are now prefilled with values to make it easier to get started, and we updated the Channel Bridge code for Vrbo to use Vrbo's new GraphQL data. Don't know what GraphQL is? No worries - it just means that Channel Bridge will now find some stuff easier and more consistently!
API 'sinceUtc' parameter. One of our awesome partners pointed out that they couldn't find updated bookings via our API, even when a guest's contact info changed, because the booking's Last Updated flag was not correctly. Found and fixed!
LQA property maximums. Sometimes, Listing Quality Analyzer would show spurious property maximum and excluded fee warnings in complex cases that were actually okay. We found and fixed those spurious warnings.
Airbnb channel bridge advanced link. We fixed a situation where the "show advanced" link on channel bridge was not being shown.
PayPal Pro gets real TLS. Very few OwnerRez users use the PayPal Payments Pro gateway. This isn't the normal vanilla PayPal that zillions of people use. This is the advanced business gateway in the background that very few people even know exists. We found and fixed a security issue where PayPal Pro started rejecting payment requests.
Multi-month Damage Protection billing. Can Damage Protection cover long-term bookings? Yes, it can! However the DP policies are charged at a 30 day rate, so every 30 days the booking continues, the product increases in cost. This was working with RentalGuardian, but we were not billing you for the longer policies. That is now fixed.
TripAdvisor inquiry parsing. TripAdvisor sends OwnerRez inquiry emails, OwnerRez parses them into inquiry records, you deal with the inquiries and send the guest a quote - this has been going on as long as OwnerRez has been a thing. However, sometimes those inquiry emails fail and we have to fix them, and that just happened with TripAdvisor.
This week, make sure to check out our new 10 minute video on how to set up a Book Now website from start to finish. We start with a fresh empty OwnerRez account and go all the way to the point where a guest is using a credit card to pay for their booking. Check it out!
Thank you for the heads-up, and thank you for a wonderful system! I still think it is a bargain at this price! ;-)
I could not believe the $20/mo price when I was first referred to OwnerRez. From where I stand, you don't even need to justify the price increase. It's a bargain at triple the price!
Thank you for making sure we all understand your price increase. I love OR and couldn't run my business without it--and I have only one VR! Keep up the great product and excellent customer service that I have come to rely on.
fred s said:
All of these 3rd party vacation rental conglomerates...VRBO, AirBnb, etc. have nothing but a financial incentive for how they do business. Instead of charging properties / property management companies a fee to list on their sites (their original business model) they went into selling travel charging both properties and end users commission fees. All of their technological advances are designed to force consumers to make payment through them and restrict direct communication between travelers and the vacation options available...a real dis-service.I just wanted to step in and address this. You're not wrong - which is precisely why OwnerRez' services are so valuable. We have a multiplicity of ways for you to obtain direct contact information for your channel guests, which can be used completely independently of those platforms.
And with VRBO specifically, our API partnership with them allows you to directly collect payments from their guests, so you are in full control of the credit card charging, and get your money according to the terms of the credit card payment processor you have chosen, that VRBO has no control over.
Is it perfect? Well, no, nothing in life is. :-) But it's pretty decent, and getting better all the time as we work to meet the obvious needs you've described.
Just my .02 - I have been in the Vacation Rental biz for over 30 years and you guys had the best and most comprehensive booking engine out there. I fully understand your need to update technologies, compete in the ever changing marketplace and offer new options to your clients...just sorry your doing so at the expense of why some of us chose ownerrez in the first place. All of these 3rd party vacation rental conglomerates...VRBO, AirBnb, etc. have nothing but a financial incentive for how they do business. Instead of charging properties / property management companies a fee to list on their sites (their original business model) they went into selling travel charging both properties and end users commission fees. All of their technological advances are designed to force consumers to make payment through them and restrict direct communication between travelers and the vacation options available...a real dis-service. That said you can't fight City Hall. Just wish you could have left your original booking engine as an option - it had the best pricing options one could hope for. The original format took into consideration some of the unique aspects of Vacation Rentals...not just how to grow, grow, grow revenue. Look forward to continued success working with guys either way!
This software is gold and worth the extra fee. Thank you for the thorough explanation.
Paul,
Your customer service is above and beyond. Walking me through the initial start-up I'm sure was painful but it is so nice to have OwnerRez dial us in with our integration with the reservation websites. These sites have some of the worst customer service out there. Love that you guys are staying true and hope that others will take a step back and realize the value they are getting.
Mark
