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Yes! Each property can have a different level of protection. Go to Settings > Damage Protection. That'll display a list of all your properties and the selected level for each, which you can change as desired.

Note that if you change the level of protection for a property, that will change the level for all new bookings / policies purchased going forward. It will NOT change the level already purchased for existing bookings.

question: is it possible to select different coverage amount for different properties?
Such as , for my smaller property I may want $500 coverage; larger property $1500. Can it be set up that way?

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Cathy, you can turn it off on either API integrations or calendar imports in OwnerRez, specific to those channels. Go to the Damage Protection section in OR > Settings to get started and select a plan level.

We (OwnerRez) can submit a claim for you at any time electronically, so no worries on that. We hope to have the full claims process be self-service in a couple weeks. Remember that, right now, any claims you have would still be TravelGuard based since those are the policies already purchased and filed. Practically speaking, no one should have RentalGuardian claims until a new booking that was created after Monday arrives/departs in the future. All your pre-existing bookings will continue showing TravelGuard ARDI information.

I see the new rental company is now the one that is listed on new reservations coming in but is says there is currently no link to submit a claim. What is the timeframe going to be on the link being done?

Marcy

#2 go to settings> Surcharges and Discounts > Add a surcharge. Call it maintenance fee or whatever you like.

How do we turn it off for other channels?
How do we add a surcharge (Maintenance Fee)?
We the host pick which plan we want?

Hi Cathy,

Answers:

1) Yes, and also on bookings from other channels unless you turn that off.

2) The fee is shown in the table above where it shows the "Premium" amount

3) Yes

4) Yes if you want. You can turn it off for those channels, but we encourage it for all bookings including platform. The advertised coverage that VRBO and AIrbnb claim is different and not the same type of protection.

These answers and more can be found here:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/damage-protection-overview

I’m a little confused.
1. We don’t need to do anything it will be placed on our listing that we get booked direct from us. (Not other platforms)
2. We the host will be charged a fee and how much?
3. But we can put it as maintenance fee and have guest pay for it.
4. Do we get charged for the bookings from AIRBNB and VRBO?

For others that are wondering, yes you can do that. On the API channel settings (under Settings) you can drill in and set each API to have specific time from now settings to limit when that channel takes bookings. There are some other rules there on the channel level as well.

I figured it out. I was able to change the Aribnb Channel rules. Fingers crossed this works.

I am very new to the API system. Airbnb is our least favorite platform because of the payout after guest check-in, lack of real security deposits (and many other reasons). I usually controlled bookings by reducing my booking window to 3-6 months into the future. But now that I have Airbnb integrated to my OwnerRez account I think I've lost that control. Is there a work around that? Thank you for your insight.

Agree with Blue about the questionable value of these pricing engines. If you manually adjust for holidays, weekends and recency (eg. way far out or way close) with stuff going up and down accordingly, you don't need the dynamic engines. I thought they were based on supply at one time (eg. PriceLabs would actually crawl sites and see what dates are taken) but that's not the case. They are just going up/down based on factors I can come up with myself. Then use the import from Excel in OR to bulk load a year or two at a time and you can update all your properties quickly for a year or two at a time. Adjust the spreadsheet and load again. Use discounts to make last-minute time (30 days, 14 days and 5 days from now) have automatic drops and you're covered.

Yes, all our price-pushing functions have a price escalator % setting. So you can indeed raise your Airbnb prices by 5%.

What I did not like with pricelabs (and I did do a free trial) that you have to pay whether you have bookings or not in a given month. For 3 properties it was something like $42. I like Wheelhouse's pricing better- only the bookings processed through them are billed a percentage.
Overall still on the fence about benefits or dynamic pricing( and I have done it for 2+ years on some platforms) . yes it can make some holiday rates higher. But I do not think that I had a significant increase in revenue vs doing it myself overall.

Another question is whether we can "pad" rates with higher % before pushing to Airbnb. (such as pricelabs suggests $100 per night but I want to up the Airbnb rates by 5% due to higher risk). ?

That's fine -- set the HomeAway calendar imports in OwnerRez to only import bookings (so that they don't import blocks).

Then go to HomeAway and create the blocks there.

That way OwnerRez won't update with the block because the calendar import is now only importing bookings.

Yes, the rates, rules and availability sync are a fundamental part of the Airbnb API push. You can set the API to "Limited" mode instead of "Everything" but rates are still part of the limited sync. It's a very powerful API integration - we are recommending everyone get onboard, particularly since the Airbnb calendar import (iCal) is changing in a few weeks to strip out all the guest and booking information. Time to look at PriceLabs? 😜

I don't want to rent the summer months through HomeAway. I am sure I can book them directly through other sites. I only want to block the dates on HomeAway for the summer and not on Ownderrez.

Thanks,
Cheryl Hughes

Right off the bat, question. is pushing rates from OR to Airbnb mandatory? reason I ask is because I have Wheelhouse set to manage my Airbnb rates.

It has arrived!

We are officially announcing that Airbnb API integration is available to all users.  Whether you have one property or 100, you can now connect OwnerRez directly to Airbnb and enjoy direct integration.

We have prepared support articles for the Airbnb API integration. Please click the following links to get started:

• Preparing to go API
• Airbnb API integration - Overview
• Airbnb API integration - Setup & Connecting
• Airbnb API integration - Common Issues & Questions

If you have questions, feel free to shoot over an email and we'll take a look.

Enjoy!

Yes, it uses an online dashboard, not a manual PDF.

Will there be a link somewhere for submitting?

Marcy

Marcy, yes - on the paperwork being tiresome. The new RentalGuard system has an online digital claims process. Much easier to use.

I may be reading the question wrong, but I'm not sure this is the right solution.

If your calendars are syncing in both directions, and you don't want what you block on HomeAway to be blocked on OwnerRez BUT you still want the rest of your actual booking information synced, then you want to keep the calendar syncs in both directions. But, in OR, go to that specific calendar import from HomeAway, and change the settings for "Import Events" from "All Events" to "Bookings Only." That way it will import bookings, but ignore blocks that are created on HomeAway.

You do it on vrbo end. Go to calendar, reservations, import/export, click on OR calendar, click remove; other option instead of remove, is to specify "do not clock dates". That way OR calendar will be visible only to u within dash but it won't block dates to guests. However I do not know why would anyone not want to have all their calendars ion sync automatically

I agree with Paul. I use this insurance all the time. Linen costs alone from stains and rips is huge and it allows me to have linen that is in tip top shape and my owners have had zero linen replacement costs this year. I manage 33 properties and believe me I got a lot of use out of the insurance. The best part is that you do not have to deal with the guest because no matter how many times you tell them it is covered, unless they reported it to you, they will deny they did it. I think they think that if they admit it and it costs more they will be on the hook or something.

We inspect all of our properties before arrival and take pictures so many times we can prove it was not like that. But who wants to get in a argument with a guest and "prove" they did it. This saves us lot of trouble. And for me, things that I would have to go and repair myself I can now send my handyman to do it knowing that it will be covered.

I have thought of self-insuring because of all the work involved in doing the claims. It would be wonderful not to have to pay someone to do all that paperwork. But at the end of the day it is close and as of now I don't really want to take the risk. I did have 3 claims for the $1500 max that were paid effortlessly so for now I will stick with it.

I was very happy with Ardi and I hope the new one is just as good.

Marcy

How do I unconnect HomeAway/VRBO calendar sync. I don't want what I block on HomeAway to be blocked on ownerrez

How do I unconnect HomeAway/VRBO calendar sync. I don't want what I block on HomeAway to be blocked on ownerrez

@BlueMtn - I fully agree, I've kept my refundable deposit at $100 to avoid scaring people off, but it's low enough that it really isn't useful when damage occurs. I'll probably just keep doing what I have been..