General Help and Questions

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Hi Chris,
I just set up booking.com for 1 of my 7 properties so far. I've received 4 booking from them in the last 2 weeks with no credit card information. When I call and speak to booking.com, they tell me that I have to collect the payment from the guests upon arrival until they validate my property which may take a while because it's already been over a month since I set up the account. They won't pass guest credit card info to owners until they do some sort of verification.

So, here's what I was thinking. When a booking comes in, I would set up a trigger email in OR for booking.com guests that would send them a link to pay for their booking following my OR rules which would be 50% at the time of booking then the remaining balance collected 15 days prior to arrival, then have them sign the rental agreement and then collect the security/ damage deposit the day prior to their arrival and send them the eRentalock email along with the confirmation that the security deposit was charged.

1. Is there a field in OR that I can use that will take the guest through the whole process after the booking has been received by OR?
The same process that they would have to go through to book a property (but after the booking has come in)
For example: Select Trip Protection, Pay for the Booking, eSign the Rental Ageement, Schedule the security deposit.

Nope. Oops. :-0

We've made a note of that to get it looked into.

Unfortunately no it has not - but I don't think it was ever due out in 2012. It was hoped for last year, but the Airbnb API integration got priority. We're hoping to have it this year.

Actually, we have a special tool that can import the listing data from any Airbnb or VRBO listing, without having to log in to the channel:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/listing-content-import

For my chukar property, chukar – ORP246282, I set up a season "fall and on" and used the Length Restrictions with a 6 night minimum required if Friday or Saturday is included in the stay. Thus, for example, if a guest tried to book Thursday October 1st to Saturday October 3rd, the system should say a 6 night stay is required.
It does it correctly in your system here:
http://heavenlylodges.hosted.ownerrez.com/heavenly-lakeview-lodge-orp5b3c20ax#availability
But I set up an API integration to a new AirBnB listing and it didn't work correctly. It applies the 6 night minimum stay to the arrival day of Friday or Saturday, instead of if a Friday or Saturday is included in the stay.
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/42223715?

How can I fix this so it works correctly in AirBnB?

https://www.vrmintel.com/otas-take-on-google-vacation-rentals-asking-eu-to-investigate-anti-competitive-platform/

SMS yes, so many emails end up in spam. I have been texting manually after email is sent, but hey, I do have a day job!

I renamed my website, so now I have 2 items listed under Custom Sources for the same thing. So when reports are run etc it shows extra entry . Any way to remove no longer used custom sources (other than asking support to do so?)

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/requests/refundable-damage-deposit--how-it-is-displayed-in-quotes

I have same dilemma, Been discussed https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/general-help/secdep-via-cc-hold--insurance-vs-traditional-damage-deposit

The direct text option that was due out in 2012 has it been released yet and if so how do I use it

Airbnb guest just told me my listing shows a disabled parking spot and he asked if it had regular parking. I don't see many controls in Ownerrez that address parking, so how do I add to a better description in the amenities section?

First I disconnect from my current channel manager. But I don’t think I turn on my new channel manager API yet. I need to PULL the Airbnb listings and get them into OwnerRez first. I understand once connect OwnerRez pushes out to all channels. But I need them to be pushed the other direction...just once. In order to setup my account. Do I use that Bridge tool they suggest? To pull all listings, calendar, and photos? Or in other words PUSH my listings from Airbnb to OwnerRez. Or do I just change my channel manager and connect through API and like magic all those Airbnb listings will be imported.

Thanks, both link were helpful.

Go to support section and search on refundable damage deposits. Or look for a recent post by me on same topic.

I am outside the norm as I don't require any portion of rent at the time of booking. I only require the $250 deposit.
However, I do NOT want the deposit in the total, as it looks like the vacation is costing the renter $250 more. It would make me lose renters.
I tried excluding the deposit from the quote...but then I couldn't ask for the $250 in the first payment, or if I did it looked like it was $250 out of the rent, not the deposit.
Is there a way to include a damage deposit AFTER the big total is shown to the guest? Or can I set a payment to ask for the damage deposit and not show it in the quote at all? I am actually not even taking credit cards...only checks and Apple Pay....but I still need to get this correct for the quote.

Mmm... that's a lot to unpack. Definitely food for thought!

We have tossed around the idea of a central guest portal accessible by link that you can customize with info about the property, lock codes, etc. If we want to get fancy it could have areas for requesting date changes, updating credit cards, all that sort of stuff that'd be nice to give more self service for the guest. Some of those things are already done by channels and we'd have to direct them to the channel on those bookings, but would work for direct bookings at least. Useful for a lot of different things and could be shared in a link with the guest via SMS vs the long and windy welcome email.

The confirmation is another interesting concept. The only way I could see it truely working is if you made them reply to get the door code and entry information. "Your stay is coming up soon... reply to get your door code" or something. Otherwise you'll still get people that don't.

These are all things we've been thinking about and will do eventually, but we don't have any near term plans yet. Well except for SMS. That's actively being worked on, although I don't have an ETA yet.

Yep, security deposits are a bit of a strange beast right now as they're not recorded normally in the charges. We've got a planned overhaul there to fix some of these things.

I haven't tried, but it should work -- it's all Chromium under the covers so the API should be the same.

Let me know if it does work :-D

Hey Toni...glad to see you made the decision to switch! Yes, our last software's accounting was literally unusable. I would love to be included in the setup process - I want to set it up but am afraid after the last experience - maybe you can help me after you're set up - LOL!

Hey there! We've replied several times to your questions over the past 24 hours, have you not gotten any emails on your end? Can you check your email to see if they're being spammed or filed away somewhere else?

NOPE! Not resolved. One of our properties is blocked -HA send to their software team (again)! On another note - still waiting for a reply on my previous emails to OR help/support.

You can do an overall escalator for all rates pushed to the entire channel. So your Airbnb rates would be, say, 15% higher than your regular rates in OwnerRez.

The discount would be calculated independently of that, against the total rate including the escalator.

And yes, LOS discounts can be aligned with Seasons so they are only valid at particular times.

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/general-help/google-direct-booking

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/requests/refundable-damage-deposit--how-it-is-displayed-in-quotes

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/general-help/secdep-via-cc-hold--insurance-vs-traditional-damage-deposit

I have only done a few direct bookings outside of vrbo or airbnb, so haven't paid much attention to security deposits. After reading the help documentation (which is quite well written by the way!) I think I understand it, but would like to be certain.

By the way, I do not handle credit/debit cards in any manner, all of my direct booking is by guests mailing me (or venmo) checks. And I do not use the VRBO api, however I do use the Airbnb API

I *think* that I should change my settings regarding Security Deposits (in property rules) to have "No security holds"
And instead I should be using a Refundable Damage Deposit configured as a surcharge

This all makes sense, just double checking that when using RDD's only I should turn off Security Deposits.

And finally - I want to make sure that doing this is safe for the Airbnb API I'm using. In that API I have "specific amount $100" set.

Yes, looks like it Chris. I already talked to Caleb from Lynnbrook. I guess it was good while it lasted. Here is the email.

Hello,

We'd like to let you know that we're making some updates to your Stripe fees.

In 2017, we updated our fee handling for refunds and international payments to account for changes in our underlying costs. Because you were an early user of Stripe, your fees did not change at the time. Beginning March 6, 2020, we’ll be updating your Stripe fees to bring them in line with our current pricing.

What changes you’ll see

Refunds: We’ll no longer return Stripe’s fees from the original transaction when you refund a customer.

International payments: All payments from non-US cards will be charged an additional 1% fee.

Currency conversion: Foreign exchange fees on your account will be lowered from 2% to 1% for any payment that requires currency conversion.

All other pricing remains unchanged. You can always find our current pricing and fee details on our pricing page, and you can read more in the docs about refunds and currency conversion.

Best,
The Stripe team

Hmm. So they're un-grandfathering all of the grandfathered accounts, basically?

Most CC processors do have a model where they return fees on refunds if you're doing "interchange plus pricing". They may not return fees on refunds on a flat rate plan like Stripe's default plan, but even Stripe has plans that do return fees on refunds (of course, for Stripe, ya gotta be pushing a good chunk of volume for them to negotiate a custom plan with you).

I know Lynnbrook Group has an interchange plus plan where they'll return fees on refunds, so that might be worth checking into -- make sure to mention the refunds when you're getting the plan set up. They have a monthly fee, but they also have a lower rate so it'll end up cheaper overall if you're doing mid 5 figures in volume.

I guess Stripe has followed suit of others- no refund of CC fees on refunds.