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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.

Yep, we're monitoring Google Travel and will develop an integration when it coalesces into a viable source of traffic. Like that article mentions, the vacation rental side of Google Travel is in the nascent stages and they're still changing a lot of things all the time and haven't solidified an offering or pricing model.

Right now, if you have channel integrations like VRBO/Airbnb/TripAdvisor/booking.com, you're already listed on Google Travel via those channels.

The list of other PMS's you mentioned from the article is a list of PMS's that haven't yet started building Google Travel integrations.

Just read an interesting article on VRM Intel: SEO/SEM Disrupted: How Google Travel is Shaking up the Marketing Funnel

https://www.vrmintel.com/seo-sem-disrupted-how-google-travel-is-shaking-up-the-marketing-funnel/

I'm wondering if the folks at OR are thinking about an integration with Google Travel API like the other PMS systems mentioned in the article ( MyVR, Guesty, Streamline, and Direct.io.)?

Hi OwnerRez partners!

Are you using Quickbooks intergration and have over 40 properties? Do you have time to help me with some set up questions to make a nice accounting flow? I would love to connect with other partners that are already using quickbooks intergration and HAPPY! OUr last software was an accounting headache and I want to set this up right to prevent accounting issues.

If you can provide a phone number or email, I would love to connect and ask a few quick questions while I set up the quickbooks.

Thank you for your time.

Cheers,
Toni LeGras

2 of my 3 pages have 2000+ followers. And I have widgets embedded. issue is, most people use mobile, but custom tabs (as the one where widgets are) do not show on mobile. So it has very limited usefulness. You can see my page and embedded widgets on desktop facebook.com/AppalachianEscape

Does the Airbnb integration support Length of Stay Discounts depending on time of year, and can it be combined with an uplift in prices to cater for the Airbnb service fee? I'm testing 2 different booking systems at the moment and they handle everything differently which is very confusing!

Has anyone tried using channel bridge in the new Edge?

Seems like it should work.

Nice - this is actually a really useful approach but looks like a Facebook Page would need 2,000 followers before it can be used. So I imagine most owners cannot take advantage of this. Too bad, I'd probably do it if it was as easy as dropping widgets onto a Page.

I take it you've followed our instructions here?

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/channel-management-calendar-import-export-houfy

If it still isn't working correctly, please take screenshots of the bad Houfy calendar, and specify the ORB numbers of the blocks in OwnerRez that aren't appearing in Houfy, and send in a support request to our Helpdesk email.

Actually, under certain circumstances, you *can* put a widget on your Facebook page:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/facebook-widgets

Just to clear this up -

1. If you are using an API connection, then yes, all property listing data is pushed from OwnerRez to the channel, overwriting whatever may already be there. If you want to add a new property, don't bother to do that in the channel; do it in OwnerRez, and then let OR push all that stuff to the channel when you turn on the API connection for that property, which is what it's going to do anyway.

2. If you are *not* using an API connection, you can import property listing information from Airbnb or HA/VRBO into OwnerRez, but not the other way around. Channel Bridge doesn't do that kind of data, just bookings, guests, rates, (some) rules, and reviews.

I keep my master calendar in ownerrez and I just exported my calendar to Houfy. However, not all of my blocked dates are showing up in my Houfy calendar. Dates after 4/6/20 are showing up as unavailable, as I would expect, but any blocked dates before 4/6/20 are showing up as available. Anyone have an idea of what could be going on here?

Joe - I don't think you can post a widget on Facebook. Maybe I'm mistaken, but to me a widget is code (software) that runs on a website, whether it's one that you host using Ownerrez or elsewhere.

If you want to include a link in a facebook post, the most common way is to link to a page within your website. But Ownerrez does offer the ability to create a link that will display a basic availability (booked or not) for each property, and it looks just like any other widget would, but it would be 'hosted' by Ownerrez itself, no other website needed. Not sure if that's really what you want though, because once people click on your link they wouldn't have anything else interesting to do, like see photos of your property, or do any booking, etc. OwnerRez might have add a similar capability for other widgets besides the basic availability, I haven't looked too closely because it seems to me that they really all need to be kept on a website where folks can get all the information they need and then book.

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.