General Help and Questions

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1) does VRBO intelligently recognize when remaining available nights are inconsistent with the min nights settings? For instance, if I set 3 night minimum on fridays and saturdays but end up with an orphan night, will VRBO override the min nights and still allow it to be booked?

Example: Wed/Thur are booked; Fri is open; Sat/Sun/Mon are booked (but Fri still has the original 3 night min set)

2) Is it possible using spot rates in OR to only update min nights, without affecting the rates? Since this year I've gotten my winter season rates set early I've gotten some fri/sat nights only bookings in January which have me rethinking whether to put 3 night minimums on these going forward. This early in the season I don't need to be super flexible, I want to attract longer bookings.

Yep, sometimes they don't get back the first time. Follow up and they will.

I did the TripAdvisor thing three days ago. They said they would contact me shortly, but never did.

Ok, well the theory is that when you are new, you need to charge someone less to get reviews. And I have lost 40 percent of the season, and thought using several listing sites at different price points would maybe snare me some higher booking prices. At this point I need heads in beds.

Any tweaks to the above keeping in mind I am brand new are appreciated

Yes (to Lydia). Both great points. Airbnb is often inflated because Airbnb guests can be problematic types and you may need to adjust for taxes and other things they don't include.

Around 60 days is normal. Sometimes, users get paid as early as 45 days but 60 is more typical.

Do you want bargain hunters in your place? My rates on ABB are actually a bit higher. Nothing dramatic, but higher. Also - do you live in a place where ABB collects some taxes for you but you still have to collect taxes/fees? That might come in to play when deciding what your rates should be.

Yep that will work. I think you're probably leaving money on the table with Airbnb - travelers in my area tend to pay full or higher price with Airbnb - but every area is different. It depends on if it's a full house, luxury, apartment, etc of course.

Here's the main activation support document for the HomeAway API and connecting it:

https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/Activation-Documentation-for-OwnerRez--Ab9yACNk2lPiV0v1gvkhQYiNAg-Dxv5vQTLa1efjprYmeg3m

After you add the HomeAway API channel in OwnerRez, there is a Instructions tab that gives you step by step directions for where to go and who to talk to. HomeAway will assign you a integration specialist who will confirm the connection and validate things. They will provide the wiring on their side (whether to existing listings or new ones).

We highly recommend running Tools > Listing Quality Analyzer in OwnerRez which will give you a list of things, across your properties, that should be fixed or enhanced. It is highly helpful when setting up API for HomeAway or TripAdvisor.

The process is similar for TripAdvisor. Send an email to pmsupport@tripadvisor.com and say "I want to use OwnerRez as my channel manager". They will contact you back, confirm a few things, then tell you what you need to do.

How long are those of you using ARDI waiting for payments on claims? I submitted a claim with all photos and receipts and received a claim number on May 24 and am still waiting on payment. When I reach out a few weeks ago with my claim number to request an update, I just received confirmation that they had the claim. Two months after submitting everything required seems excessive but maybe that's the norm? Thanks for any info from those that have used it.

At this point, I'm planning the following strategy. Let me know if there's any holes in my assumptions.

I will set base pricing and minimum stays on pricelabs. I'm going to use OwnerReservations channel connections to knock off 20% on Airbnb, accept that price on VRBO and TripAdvisor, and add 20% to booking.com., trying to capture a spectrum of possible prices. Airbnb seems to attract bargain hunters.

Again, both questions above are focused on what (mind is mum) needs to be done on the listing site so that owner reservation can port all information properly

Same question for TripAdvisor

1) I registered that I have 5+ properties (vs. 1-4 option) now via Flipkey. [ tripadvisor.com/RentalInsights/get-started ]

2) They said automated email would be sent

3) For this one, all my properties display on the TA channel connection at https://app.ownerrez.com/settings/channels/edit?listingSiteType=TripAdvisor

4) But there is no Action except Preview Rates there, so I imagine once Tripadvisor contacts me, I will create listings for all mine on TA and there will be an Action connect to wire in the TA generated listing numbers?

OK, I am trying to do VRBO connection.

I am a little baffled about ?the minimum? I need to do on VRBO to port over from OwnerRez.

1) I created an Owner VRBO account. They sent me an email to "Finish Your Listing" yada yada

2) I see the VRBO channel connection on OR: https://app.ownerrez.com/settings/channels/edit?listingSiteType=HomeAway

3) Not really sure the minimum I have to do next to bring my OR listings over. Do I have to create an (empty) listing for each property I have on OR and then sprinkle pixie dust? Or do I need to do something more elaborate?

Not yet, but we're targeting that for late this year.

When you import the spot rates from the channel, there's a checkbox you have to check to also get the min nights.

We don't currently bring in allowed dates, just rate and min nights (if you check that box).

Right now it doesn't push things based on seasons. Their underlying schema supports it, but they don't allow the simple UI to access that.

If you're on PM mode with integrated API (which we support, but it requires 5+ properties), then you can push date based fees from OwnerRez.

We may do some R&D to see if there's a way to force through the date based fees.

If you go to the Rules section of the property you can disable the agreement there.

The origin Widget means it came from your site. We don't have a more detailed origin or track where they were referred from, just that it came in on your site. If you are doing advertising you can add trackers for that and it would show in the Adwords side or Google Analytics etc.

Awesome to get your first booking come in :-D

Awesome, thanks! Spreadsheet updates are cool because it's an easy way to set your own rules based on formulas.

Good question. I responded to messages from 6 inquirers over ABB communications channel and NONE of them responded. And it seems to go to their text (at least in some form).

Who says they will open that?

I found a few older threads about this topic but nothing recent.

It is possible for the system to send me a text message when an inquiry pops up? (Similiar to VRBO and AirBnB)

It would be very useful to be alerted via text for inquiries, messages, etc.

Thanks!

So now I don't seem to know how to get back to the import I did previously which brought in rates from VRBO. I changed some things in VRBO, did what I thought was the same import I'd done before, and while my rates look correct and minimum nights are correct I now don't know where to look to verify that it brought in allowed check-in/out days. Or am I imagining things - was that never part of the import from VRBO?

So now I don't seem to know how to get back to the import I did previously which brought in rates and minimum nights from VRBO. I changed some things in VRBO, did what I thought was the same import I'd done before, and while my rates look correct all the minimum nights have disappeared.

I agree, but i suppose you can send it over the abb, BDC, etc communications channel.

It is price mark up /mark down percentage on given channel settings./

Text message capability cannot come fast enough. This year about 1/3 of renters do not open emails with directions and door codes and then I get 11th hour calls . I think humankind's IQ is falling rapidly. Attention span of a squirrel. So now I need to send text to remind thgem to OPEN EMAIL. Where is facepalm emoji????

Okay, as an experiment, I would like to have pricelabs determine prices. I believe ownerreservation can push different prices to different listing sites such as $100 to abb, $120 to vrbo and $130 to bdc.

What would be the ownerreservations function to vary the price Labs pricing to different listing sites?

With the Push Rates feature I see a checkbox to push fees, however for my unit (3501) only the cleaning fee appears. Not the admin fee which depends upon seasons (winter vs not).

Is Push Rates smart enough to push an admin fee at all? Ideally one that is sensitive to seasons? I don't even know that VRBO can support time periods for admin fees, I think I asked them once and their website doesn't allow end user control like that. But maybe it's possible via the API?