General Help and Questions

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I'm still testing it out on 2 of my 8 properties, but it's been a weird channel for me.

I use Payments By Booking (I guess I could try to call them and convince them to let me run payments myself, but eh). One nice thing: they don't seem to pass along any kind of credit card transaction fee, so that's an extra ~3% I earn.

I was optimistic, because in my market, there are many hundreds of condos on Airbnb and HomeAway but only (AFAICT) 60-ish condos on Booking, so being a big fish in a small pond held appeal.

I had four or five Booking.com stays in our fall season that went well, which got my hopes up, because they came pretty quickly after I turned on the channel. However, now that we're in our deader-than-a-doornail post-holiday season and rates are in the toilet, Booking.com seems to be attracting some not-so-desireable customers. They do absolutely no screening of people, unlike AB/HA, and so anyone can just go to Booking.com and book. So I've gotten two Booking.com guests in a row that have caused a giant mess for my housekeeper (she actually billed me an extra 2 hours of work on the second) and also stolen things from the property (towels, cups, etc.) and left some minor stains and damage (nothing major, but still annoying).

Earning 3% extra on a $50/night rate for a 2br condo doesn't make up for that. I did keep the security deposit on the second guest (praying for no chargeback); for the first guest, I didn't realize I didn't have my system set up to enforce not emailing the door code prior to receiving the security deposit, so I didn't even get a security deposit I could keep. Total damage/loss cost between the two guests was about $350 (although I really could lower that to about $200, since my housekeeper worked really hard and got the stain on the quilt 90% off, so it doesn't really need replacing, and the melted carpet is in an invisible place, lol). I did earn more than that in rent, so at least I didn't lose money, and both were last-minute bookings that might have otherwise gone empty, so I think I'm still actually (slightly) money ahead, but it's been more stress than I would rather deal with.

I've added a big surcharge to my Booking.com channel, at least for the winter season, just to sort of scare away the bottom-feeders, and I've tightened up my email triggers to not send guests the check-in info until they've signed my RA and added a security deposit. I've also finally decided once and for all (maybe...) to disallow same-day bookings, because they are often more trouble than they're worth; HomeAway doesn't support them, anyway, and I think my settings still allow Airbnb guests to *request* (but not instant book) same-day check-ins.

I'm still continuing the experiment, but we'll see how it goes. It's always a balancing act trying to grow revenue without making things worse. Experience has taught me not to get greedy and allow one-night stays (even during 1-night gaps) or let rates drop below the $50 mark (Pricelabs was suggesting $33/night this time of year!), and maybe experience is now teaching me not to go after same-day bookings and maybe not even to use certain channels. We'll see. :)

From what I've heard, OR is working on getting channel messaging (i.e. replying through Vrbo, Airbnb, etc.) implemented, so once that goes live, we'll be able to send some stuff there, although rich content like PDF welcome packets and things might still have to go via email, and URLs might get censored (TBD).

I signed up for Touch Stay (they were a vendor at the Scottsdale Vrbo conference). It was about $300 for a year for my 7 properties. It allows you to set up a very nice-looking and easy-to-use digital guidebook and then send a URL to guests they can use to access it. They have an option to do booking-specific URLs (so info can be customized per guest and some info, like access info or directions, can be hidden before or after their stay); however, the system to manage this would be pretty cumbersome to use to manually input every stay in. I had a call with the CEO the other day and asked him about integration with my PMS; he said they've actually talked to the OR guys and have found them very friendly and open, but they have to prioritize the big guns like Escapia and V12 first before they can get to smaller players (but they are interested). I guess it's a race to see whether they launch their integration with OR before OR can get their guest portal built. ;)

That said, I've had decently good luck by emphasizing in my post-booking Airbnb message multiple times and very clearly that my system will be *EMAILING* them *VERY IMPORTANT* documents to their EMAIL, not their Airbnb inbox, and that these will be delivered to whichever email account they used when signing up for Airbnb. I have a pretty good open rate and haven't had many issues with people not finding their codes. I also send the welcome packet and door code immediately after booking (I integrate with RemoteLock, so the door code doesn't start working until their check-in time anyway) and again 7 days before stay and once more 1 day before stay.

I do kinda wish the emails didn't go out at 3am...something more sane like noon Eastern time would be more logical, or even better, allowing me to specify the time as part of the trigger...

Posting this because I haven't thought to do this before.

I just created a trigger using booking criteria of 7 or more night stay, and using it to send an email to my cleaner with a request to plan for stocking extra consumables (toilet paper, paper towels, dishwasher pucks, etc.)

This saves me having to notice/remember to tell the cleaner manually.

The only difficulty is that this kind of message would ideally be sent on the day before departure of the booking previous to a long booking. , because that's when the cleaners will be at the property. If there were a gap of multiple days ahead of a week long booking the reminder could be too late. Triggers don't currently allow something like "1 day before departure of the booking previous to this one" but in this case it would be helpful.

Trying to make sure my direct website rates have a larger discount than my other channels. So I set up different rates...a series of monthly rates for my channels. Then I set up monthly rates for "My Listings - Phone In". But the only selection I see as an option is to classify the rates as applicable to "Phone In". There is no category to apply these larger discounts for "Direct Inernet/Web Booking". Is that possibly the same thing?
So if a guest comes to my website...uses the OwnerRez widget...will it show the largest monthly discount? The "Phone In" discounted monthly rate? Because one monthly rate rule was associate with the "My Listings - Phone In"? I would attach picture but I can not.

Don't worry. They will likely cancel anyway or give you a bogus credit card. in 1.5 years with 2 (last few months 3) properties I had maybe 3 or 4 total reservations that actually paid and stayed, and one charge-back. Not worth the hassle. Pulled the plug last year.

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