General Help and Questions

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Chris - I see what you mean, when I look at a 'refund' type of email template there is a special grouping (under insert fields) for refunds which doesn't appear otherwise.

Could y'all create an email template that has all possible insertable fields? That's the only one I'd ever want to use... For instance, when I'm playing around with a template it would be a shame if I were looking for a particular kind of field and I didn't see it just be I always start with the 'booking' template.

Not a huge deal now that I know it.... And another question, as long as I know what the shortcode is, will any field work in any template? I would imagine it does, and that the 'insert field' menu is just a convenience.

The difference between the types of templates is what fields are available and what events they can be triggered on. Booking type works for all of the custom booking triggers. But if you want to create a template for a payment receipt, that's got to be a Payment type of template so that those fields are included and can be referenced. And conversely, if you go to set a template for a payment receipt, only the Payment type of templates will be available there.

you can search forum for BDC or booking.com . I have recently posted my experience.

Hi. I’m just wondering what everyone’s experiences have been with CanadaStays.com and Booking.com? Pros and cons? I admit I didn’t even know they were options until becoming involved with OwnerRez. If you are listed with them do you feel it is worth it? If you are not listed with them, then why not? TIA

Yeah, so for I've never used anything except for the booking template. I'm still curious if OR considers them different in any way under the covers... I suspect there is no difference, meaning that I could choose any template as a starting point, and then after modifying all the information (email addresses, subject and body) and it would be indistinguishable from any other template I might have chosen as a starting point.

Booking templates usually pertain to anything to do with booking. You may want to define those for property and booking (guest) specific communications such as Welcome email, Door codes etc.

Payment one pertain to payments.

Most of your templates will be centered around booking.

Joe, there are services that will design a logo for you online. Fiverr is one, but there are others. Typically you can get something passable for as little as $5 but I've spent $100 or more when it mattered.

I'm not using a logo myself, I keep pestering my daughter to design one for me but hasn't been happening ;-)

Looking for somebody that can help with a logo. I have the idea in mind, but I have not worked in Photoshop for 20 years, let alone any other editor like that. If you can help, please let me know.

If you have a logo you are using in OwnerRez or with your STR - how did you create it - are you happy or sad with it?

Inquiries from VRBO and Airbnb are best handled in their own websites/apps, because they do not send us enough contact information for OwnerRez to be able to respond to the inquiry. Once the guest makes a booking, then more information is made available and OwnerRez can take it from there.

You can set up last-minute booking discounts in OwnerRez that can be passed through to the channels.

OK. So understanding "inquiry" is not an option with the ABB API, would be interested to hear from other ABB users about what booking option they've picked with the OR API and if they've had long enough to understand the results.

I'm trying to avoid a double booking between ABB & VRBO. Had one earlier this year and it was not fun to clean up.

I am currently using IB on VRBO. I'm wondering if anyone has picked the OR option for "only guests with verified government-issued ID and who have traveled on AirBnB, are recommended by other hosts, and have no negative reviews...." Seems like that would eliminate most instant bookings. Wondering if that would also make me appear as accepting IB in AirBnB's eyes, which would help my placement in results.

Definitely not. My January & February rates are the lowest, except for things like holiday weekends or Valentines Day. I use the rate calendar to set rates and minimum nights. If most of the month is the same, I'll highlight the entire month and put in the rates. If there's a holiday weekend I'll then go back and change just those 2 or 3 nights. Same for setting minimum number of nights. Just make sure you use the "range" button at the top right if you want to highlight a number of days. Or, if you just want to change all your Saturday night rates, use the "columns" button from the top right. You just have to play with it a bit. Hope that helps.

This confused me when I first started, too. There actually is a difference. If you do some dummy templates you'll notice the choices of who to send an email to under "Blocked Off Time" are different than under "Booking". There are other options also that would affect your ability to send emails to guests. Normally, if what I'm doing involves a message to a guest I always choose "Booking." Seems to work the best for me.

The first choice you have to make is the type of template, there is a list of a dozen choices including Booking, Payment, etc

Seems like all email templates are the same, except that depending on the choice you make you might get some helper text, such as in the subject line for the Payment email template.

Just want to confirm that any choice will work as long as we configure the subject line and content as we want them to be, right?

@Lydia B
Do you use the same rates year round?

I received an inquiry in VRBO but I don't see it in OwnerRez. If you have integration, how do you see initial contacts? I am trying to figure out how I can modify the quote and have the customer book after the integration? Normally, if somebody sends an inquiry from VRBO, will i see that in OwnerRez or only in VRBO? What is the best way to modify an inquiry?

Also, I make pricing less expensive as we get closer to days not booked. What is the best way to set that logic in OwnerRez to feed VRBO? What levels do you choose to discount to?

Thats great info - thanks, I'll go try it right now.

I don't use Seasons to set rates. I use them to designate different times of the year in order to facilitate trigger emails. For example, I have a "Winter Season" set up from November - March. If there's a booking arriving during that time it will trigger an email to tell folks about winter travel. If someone falls into the "Summer Season" they won't get the winter travel email, but they will get the one telling them about the pool we belong to. The only other thing I use them for is to set minimum nights.

Done! Thanks so much.

It used to give me an error. Looks like it worked this time.

Becky - I do neither. I have ski condos and I set rates uniquely per week and sometimes even per day around holidays.

I use spot rates to accomplish this, starting from a spreadsheet and then eventually using the ownerrez Rate Calendar to make adjustments which I then push out to vrbo.

I do not use seasons or monthly settings because for my condos they aren't a good fit.

I edit posts all the time, I edited one two different times this morning. always works as expected for me in chrome.

Just looking for some feedback here from homeowners on how you decide when to change your rates throughout the year.

1. Do you currently have seasons with overlapping months? eg. Sept. 27 - Oct.4
2. Or do you set your rates by months? eg Jan. 1 - 31, June 1 - 30

Can both of you try editing forum posts again please? *I* can do it, and the engineers say there was a forum bug that might have been causing problems which has been fixed.

What happens in OR if there is a double booking? I imagine it's not something that could possibly be overlooked... will emails be sent to owner? Is it visible from an OR screen without having to run a report?

Ok, got it! :)

Yes! Go to the CRM menu and select Guests. This lists all your guests and their information, including emails. In the upper right corner is an Export button, where you can dump the report to Excel or CSV. You may want to Filter it first, e.g. to get rid of guests where you don't have an email or where all you have is a channel proxy. But you can do that easily enough in Excel too.

Kind of. There is a Daily Checklist report that includes much of this information.

1. At the moment, you can't: Airbnb's API does not support request-to-book, only instant booking. If request-to-book is a hard requirement, you cannot use the Airbnb API.

2. It is impossible to *absolutely prevent* double-bookings, as it is not possible to update all calendars literally instantly. There will always be a window of time in which the calendars are not fully updated no matter what method you are using, and it would be possible for a double-booking to slide in.

However, the API connections are much faster than the iCal calendar syncs, and so they make that window of time much smaller. If you are using the APIs with both VRBO and Airbnb, it is still not *technically* impossible to get a double-booking, but as a practical matter, it would be so wildly unlikely that it can be generally ignored.

All things considered, we recommend usage of the APIs wherever possible, as they minimize the likelihood of a double-booking.