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I think there are details involved. How many properties do you have total, and will you be using the API? Airbnb is a no brainer since only one property is needed, but you need 5 to use the API for VRBO.

If you aren't familiar with the term, API is a way to directly connect OwnerRez to another software platform that doesn't require any manual intervention.

I did this recently where I had 3 properties on VRBO for a year and then decided to start with Airbnb. My process was to first read in all of the content (descriptions, photos, etc) from my VRBO listings into OwnerRez. Then I went through the Airbnb API setup process in OwnerRez, including using the Listing Quality Analyzer tool. I had the same question as you do, is it necessary to set up the property on Airbnb first, and I believe the answer is no. I think that if you don't already have an Airbnb account, somewhere in the setup process you'll end up at a screen where you have to create one. But I did it backwards, I first made an Airbnb account for one property, with just basic information, and then when I connected it to Ownerrez I ended up overwriting all the placeholder content. As I mentioned, I think it's preferred to handle all of the setup from Ownerrez.

I only have 3 properties so I'm unable to comment about the VRBO API.

(edit - this next paragraph removed since it was incorrect, see Ken's next post, you cannot use channel bridge to push property description content)

I would like to post a widget on Facebook, but I am not smart enough to figure out how to do that. I don't understand how to actually do this in my facebook post. Anyone particularly good at this that would be willing to help me learn?

Can I push from OwnerRez to Air/HA/VRBO as I add a new property? Or do I need to set them up on Air/HA first?

For the ribbon, selecting payment status == paid in full will treat underpaid and overpaid bookings the same.

I noticed this on a direct booking where I accepted a $100 security deposit, which turned the booking to 'overpaid' but it shows the same kind of shading as underpaid.

Not a big deal I suppose.

My question why cannot you set different rates for different days of week. Then naturally if Mondays and Tuesday are priced lower, that is a discount.
A part of me makes me wonder (and maybe it is none of my business, so forgive me) - why would you want to offer discount (other than different pricing for different days of week) on Airbnb? the moment YOU discount something, AIrbnb will just add a bigger service fee on top of your rate, thus negating your discount.

The way I treat this is that I have max occupancy of people of ANY age. if my max occupancy is 10, I do not care how old are they - they can be 1 day old or 100 years old but total should not exceed 10. I think your situation is one-off. Maybe do not include a baby at all in settings but explain in verbiage.

i have been doing it for years an no one is put off by e signing rental agreement. 3 properties. i do not know how it is in UK, but here in the US best defense against chargeback is actual rental agreement signed or e signed, not just tick box. i just won a chargeback because I had all that. renter could not claim that they did not know, missed it etc. You also need to realize that agencies do not have THEIR money on the line in case of a dispute or chargeback. it is YOUR money on the line and they will gladly let it go, no loss for them (maybe no profit, but definitely no loss). Think about it.

Since I began using Airbnb I've had multiple instances of guests who have simply ignored all emails that I've sent to them. So I'm looking for an alternative way (hint-hint need texting support!) to get them the information.

This post got longer than I wanted so here is the key summary:

Problem - I want to CONFIRM that my guests are getting the info I send them, in an automated fashion

a) must include texting, since not all read their emails or have access while travelling
b) needs to have automated confirmation of 'message received' where guests confirm they will pay attention
c) ideally provides booking-relevant information details accessible from a smartphone (a custom, temporary website for example)

That's it, here's more of the details...

I do require a rental agreement be signed, and that is only sent by email, so my issues is not a problem of me using the wrong email, it's just that there are guests who simply will not read emails. One of them said that they thought my emails were spam, and the other said they got a new phone and haven't configured email. So in the latter case it could also be situational, yes they have email, but no they don't plan ahead and while travelling cannot get to their email.

In any case, it seems that texting keycodes would be a great backup plan for all guests, but it would need to be done around noon on arrival day, not 3am in the morning.

But this brings up an interesting problem, if guests don't really read emails then they are missing out on lots of info I send them. And texting isn't a great way to get them all the information they might need because the texts will quickly get large/unwieldy.

So how about having a personalized, per-booking web accessible link for each booking. Maybe it's only valid for a few weeks ahead of a stay and maybe a few weeks after, then it can disappear.

Would OwnerRez consider doing something like this? It would be similar in concept to a booking landing page controlled by content from OR. So if I make an update to a custom field, it would appear to the guest in their page. Would have a unique url of course.

If this existed in an automated fashion, I could simply include the url and be confident that guests could follow it from their smart phone and access all the key information relevant to this trip.

I'm not talking about sending a link to my website - this would need to be a specialized page that is simple to use for finding critical information at the time it becomes critical.

As a final thought, what's needed to tie all of this together is a type of positive confirmation by the guest, some time (days or hours) ahead fo their stay, that they are getting the information I am sending them. For instance, 2 days ahead of a stay I'd send a text that requires a return message like "YES" to confirm this is the phone number they will have access to on the trip. If that confirmation isn't received, the fallback could be an automated email which also asks for confirmation. If both fail, I'd get an alert which tells me to manually intervene by calling, texting, etc so that I don't end up with guests arriving at 10pm at night without having read my keycode emails.

There currently is no way to switch to a checkbox -- right now, the only supported signature is a typed name. We do have plans for a renter agreement overhaul in the future which will add additional types of fields etc., so I'll note this idea down in our planning documents for that.

I'm not sure about that side of the pond, but in the US a checkbox is considered pretty weak in terms of intent, almost not an agreement at all and certainly not a solid basis for arguing in court. That's why we ask the guest to type their name -- to show that intent. OTA's aren't in the business of enforcing your agreement, so they just do whatever is quickest, but to be honest typing a few characters isn't that much of a roadblock. It makes the guest take a second to read the agreement and think about it, which is the primary point of having an agreement.

If you don't really need a binding signature for legal purposes, I'd suggest just turning off the legal agreements entirely. Instead, write your language in to the booking confirmation email template, or into another T&C email template.

Every single booking site and Agency and booking system based in the UK just has a tick box saying "Accept terms and conditions" with a link to the terms and conditions. I'm concerned that guests will be put off bookings at all by having to write their name down in this non-standard way and drawing so much attention to it that guests will think I'll be there with a checkbox checking up on them during their holiday.

There doesn't appear to be any way to insist on a ticked box in custom fields so that I can make it the same as the industry standard?

You can do a percentage based discount but Airbnb has no way to limit it by departure day of week.

If you set a discount from Monday-Friday with no number of nights (LOS) criteria, it'll just reduce the nightly rates of those nights.

You could do a Monday-Friday LOS discount with minimum 4 nights, but that will kick in for 4+ nights that arrive Monday-Friday (i.e. it would kick in for 4 nights starting on Friday as well as Monday).

Another option would be to do a 4+ night discount arriving on Monday. Then they would have to arrive Monday. But they could stay longer and it would still apply (Airbnb has no way to cap off the departure -- it's a "stayed at least" criteria). That's probably the closest way to do it.

To do this, add two booking criteria on the discount:

1) Number of Nights >= 4
2) Arrival day of week = 2 (Monday)

Or you could just do a 4+ night discount applicable any time.

Any way you do it, I highly recommend testing on the Airbnb guest side to make sure you're getting what you want -- they don't make these sorts of discounts too easy to do, unfortunately.

I was thinking of giving a percentage based discount - ie 10% for bookings starting on Monday and ending on a Friday. My question was can I do this or do I have to give a 10% discount on every 4 day stay regardless of the start day.

I don't think this will work exactly the way you want. According to our documentation:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/channel-management-api-integrations-airbnb-common-issues-questions#discounts

Airbnb only supports percentage-based per-stay discounts. Flat amount discounts must be per night. It is not possible to do a $100-off-your-stay discount, you'd have to do it as $20-off-each-night.

You can change this in your Profile. That's in the dropdown-arrow menu in the upper right corner of the OR screen. It should be automatically used throughout OwnerRez if you are using the field codes correctly.

I'm not sure about the APIs though, since you have to have your own accounts with those companies.

The purpose of making them enter their name, is so they can't later claim, "Hey, it was just a checkbox, nobody ever reads those." They have to actually manually type their name in, and we record that they did.

We have had suggestions about a more convenient side-by-side display of the name of the guest as booked, the name used to sign the rental agreement, and the name on the credit card, so you can eyeball them and see if they seem plausible. That may come down the road.

Where do I control what phone number is visible to guests for communication on Owner Rez? Will this update automatically in AirBNB and VRBO if I have integration?

If I give a discount for guests arriving on a Monday and leaving on a Friday (the days our cleaner works), will the Airbnb channel integration support this or does it only allow discounts based on the length of the stay?

Thanks Chris. If I set "No Renter Agreement" then the guest doesn't have to agree anything at all. I cannot have a tick box on the booking form requiring them to tick it to confirm they agree to the terms and conditions. I can have a custom field, but there is no checking that they fill it in correctly (they can put "No") prior to paying.
It is the having to fill in the name that is a waste of time as they have already entered it earlier on in the booking process. Am I really going to have to manually check the name they have written down matches the name they put on the booking form as the system does not verify it all?

Our cottage sleeps 4 + 1 baby. As far as a guest is concerned a baby is a child and should therefore be included in the number of children, but the system makes no distinction between children and babies in the capacity of the property. If I say the the property sleeps 4 + 1 child, it certainly won't fit a 10 year old child who requires a bed. If I say the property sleeps 4, then the system says that the number of guests exceeds the capacity of the property.
Is there a way around this?

With Airbnb, all bookings will still run through Airbnb and payments will be handled by them just as they are now. Nothing changes except you're now pushing content, rates, availability from OwnerRez automatically.

With HomeAway, they require you to process the payments as part of the API integration. They'll take the booking on their end, and then securely send it over to OwnerRez and we'll process it on your Stripe account. Their integration is all or nothing, there is no way to go halfway, unfortunately.

I want to use this feature for pushing content to our Airbnb and HomeAway listings, but I don't want to run all bookings through OR instead of those channels. Is this possible?

FREAKIN' PERFECT!!!!! Exactly what I wanted. You da BEST!

You can turn off renter agreements entirely by going to the Rules section of the property and setting agreement to "No Renter Agreement".

Instead, though, I would recommend going to Settings > Legal Agreements and making a very simple template with the guest name, occupancy, and dates. That way you've at least got something simple on file in terms of an agreement, but the guest still doesn't have to read through a bunch of legalese.

Yes, if you go to Settings > Culture: https://app.ownerrez.com/settings/culture you can set the date format there.

That will show for all guest facing things, but the internal management side will still have some things in US format.

There's no way in the site to do part of that -- if it's going to show the amenities it also shows description together. Usually you want the description on the home page -- looks like your description is already duplicated on there. Could you just remove the content part from the site and then let the normal description come through?

Other option is to turn on the amenities and description, but hide the description using this CSS in the Theming/Layout section:

.singlehome .amenity-description { display:none }

Richter, I felt the same way until I realized using the API gives you the chance to do Instant Book with major restrictions. You can say you don’t instant book unless the person has verified ID, has used ABB before, has positive reviews and no negative reviews. That cuts out a lot of folks, particularly the ones you may not want in your place.

A lot of our guests are actually businesses booking last minute for their employees who are working away from home doing installations. They want a quick and easy checkout process with a tick box to say they agree with the terms and conditions - just like if they book on one of the OTAs. I am concerned that for this type of guest/businesses, forcing signing of rental agreements is not expected and will result in lost bookings but there doesn't seem to be any way of turning it off.

Don't be too hasty... read this first:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/channel-management-api-integrations-airbnb-common-issues-questions#book-now

Ugh, I just read that if you use the abnb API you must do "instant book" and for one property I will NEVER do instant book. So back to manually changing things...sigh...

The AirBnB API integration will push your changes. If you are not API integrated with VRBO you will have to go to VRBO to update descriptions/titles.