General Help and Questions

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I have a Rental Agreement I send to guests via a different format for e-signature. I don't feel like I know how to turn off the agreement in OR so nothing gets sent to someone who's inquired or booked.

Also, where do I see the origin of the booking request? On his inquiry it says "Widget" so not sure where that comes from.

(OK - YES! Just received my first booking request thru OR and have no idea what to do. Hahaaaaa! And have no idea how this guy found me.)

Chris - you guys are supportive with so many things. Appreciate all you do.

Since the good folks at OR added the ability to import Spot Rates (at exactly the time I needed it ;-)) I figured I'd write up a brief tutorial

Two methods for setting nightly rates
- Rates/Seasons - better when you are using predictable rates for periods
- Spot Rates - perfect for varying the rate every day. Can only have one spot rate for a given date

IMPORTING (to OwnerRez)
Navigate to Tools/ImportExport
- Import Rates/Seasons
- Import Spot Rates (can set the minimum reqd nights for each date!!)

EDITING (in OwnerRez)
Both kinds of rates can be viewed/filtered/cleared
- Settings/Spot Rates
- Settings/Season Rates

VIEWING (in OwnerRez)
Tools/Rate Checker
- offers a nice way to see all rates that exist inside OR

PUSH SPOT RATES TO VRBO
Settings/Channel Connections/VRBO/Actions/Push Rates
- Before clicking Push Rates, click on 'See details' and 'Set push options'

Why is this so valuable? Well, while it's pretty easy (and feels safe) to update nightly rates directly in VRBO, it can be cumbersome. And after you are done you have no record of what rates you have set. Come back in 4 weeks and you'll wonder why a given night is set to a given rate. Especially for minimum nights, it's very hard to see these settings within VRBO unless you click multiple times on each date. And next year you don't have an easy starting point of comparison for setting next season's rates.

Maintaining your own spreadsheet of rates is also very helpful if you are checking competitive rates from other people's VRBO's. For my case I have various 'competitors' and by comparing those individual owners along with a few management companies I find useful info about when they bump up rates for holidays, and how they vary min nights across them.

Maintaining a spreadsheet won't work for everyone since it requires a comfort level with Excel, but not really all that much.

In any case, thanks to the team at Owner Rez, I'm a very happy owner right now !!

@Rich -- yeah, that could be good, the option to delete seasons during that range that the spot rates cover. The way spot rates work you don't have to delete the seasonal because the spot rates override or "paint on top" of the seasonal rates, but if you're going full on spot rates it makes sense to delete the seasons.

@Lydia -- Don't apologize! We know the list method of managing spot rates is... not very good. That's why we built the import as a stop-gap. We are working on a calendar method like VRBO has, and at that point it'll be just as easy to set the rates right in OwnerRez :-D

OK - apologies in advance to the wonderful OR folks - but I find it much easier to set my rates in VRBO and then import them to OR. It brings in rates, # of days, everything. Then you can push from OR to ABB or wherever. Maybe it's because I used VRBO before using OR, but the Season - Spot thing seems more difficult.

I see that the new Spot Rates import is available - THANKS !!!!

I did a test of dates from 9/1/19-9/10/19 for my three properties, but the when I went to Settings/Channel Connections and started the Push Rates it appears there are lots of rates already in OR, probably from past efforts using Seasons OR by import from VRBO.

EDIT - Never Mind, I found that I can delete Seasons, Seasonal Rates and Spot Rates using the Settings page.

enhancement? would be easier to find how to delete these if the Push Rates modal included a link to settings. Or at least some verbiage saying how to delete.

They called me later and indicated that is the case and it's a known bug. I went ahead and updated my rates and changed it to a 6 month window.

Kinda funny, mid July, 90+ degrees and people in the DC area are planning ski trips for December.

One of each. I declined the inquiry. The booking was OK as it was a mid week rental for a few nights.

TOTALLY AGREE! Would be great if they would get out of our business altogether and allow us to collect all of it.

Right, just allow you to specify the tax. VRBO needs to do the same. It's ironic that the platforms make it so hard to do the right thing.

Airbnb has said they're working on that (direct tax remittance) as well as resolutions via API, so hopefully in 6 months or so these things will be a lot easier :-)

1) To get back to the default, go to Settings > Legal Agreements, create a new one, and use the Prefill from button to fill it from the default.

2) Like @BlueMtnCabins said, Airbnb specifically allows a renter agreement as long as you disclose that in the rules: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/465/can-hosts-ask-guests-to-sign-a-contract

Chris - hope you guys can find a way to help us with this. A big topic of discussion for a lot of our Tennessee owners (as Victoria says - some ABB guests will go along with anything and others will go along with nothing outside the site). There's just got to be a better way to do it, particularly with an eye to accurate financial reporting. Many folks don't have the time to do what Victoria does. But if owners just randomly go in and raise their nightly ABB rates by 3% that really doesn't make things accurate. Really appreciate your looking into a solution for all of us.

2) you do not need to attach agreement to Airbnb. OR handles it. You can set up trigger email once ABB booking is imported that sends the link to ABB guest to esign rental agreement AND collects all the renter info (actulay email, phone, address) and instructs them to send ID. You just need to disclose!!!! that as requirement in ABB house rules. All automated and easy. I don't ever use ABB portal to communicate post booking unless renter does. All OR

1) I made a killer rental agreement covering every imaginable way a guest could screw/screw up a VR owner. Now I am uncomfortable chasing away prospects when I have only part of the year left. Is it possible to retrieve the default ownerrez agreement?

2) Also, I saw a forum discussion that ABB does not allow/enable attaching a rental agreement for guests to sign. True? Their policy or other? Thoughts?

why would they care? if calendars are accurate, why would they care if it makes them money

Interesting idea ... But could be risky if the folks at VRBO detect the duplicate listings as such. I wonder how they would view it if it comes to that.

The suggestions and rules seem to depend on which Airbnb rep you talk to -- different ones have different solutions.

Their API team says they are working on taxes and resolutions and hopefully will have a bit more control and automation around them by earlier next year.

It is a message right in your dashboard. You have to remember, Airbnb users are a separate "breed". They worship Airbnb. maybe 4 out of 5 will be oK if you request amount outside of airbnb, but the 5th will report you or raise a fuss.

There isn't currently a way to export content to VRBO except for the API integration, but that requires 5 properties.

One thing I have noticed is that if you set rates out farther than your booking window, Airbnb will automatically reset the booking window. Could that be the case?

To do this, edit the surcharge settings and set the expense to PM gets 150. Then under commission, set it to calculate on entire amount.

That'll include a $150 expense to the owner and then also deduct commission on the entire amount. The expense will remain 150 and the 22.75 would be added into the overall commission on the booking.

"it is against ABB terms to collect amounts outside of ABB"

A lot of people (on the forums I follow) say they collect various things outside of ABB. Some claim they never do the crippled ABB security deposit thing, but request for damaged items directly from What if you upsell when ABB doesn't do that kind of thing?

Curious where you saw this?

BDC (at least used to) do a lot of having you collect from the guest at the door.?

So I am thinking of duplicating couple of my listings as PPB on VRBO. Is there a way to export them to vrbo?

Do you receive bookings or inquiries?

I have a booking window set at 3 months in advance but I still receive bookings 5 - 6 months in advance. Talked to an Air rep and she is clueless. I read the Air community forum and there seems to be mass confusion regarding settings, price tips and advance discounts.

Besides manually blocking my condos on Air does anyone else have a fix or another work around.

ALL these booking site have become a giant PITA.

Can I get commission to generate on both the rent and the cleaning fee?

If a cleaning fee Collected is $175, I am looking to apply commission to that entire figure.

$22.75 in this case is the commission I have aligned to. $150 is what the Cleaning charge is. There is a nominal difference between the two the owner keeps.

The owners expense is then my commission and what we have paid to house keepers. Or $172.75.

3) ignore anything ABB suggests price wise. According to them a 3 bd house that sleeps 10 should be rented for same price as local motel 6 room. Not very "smart".

4) you have to study your competition (size, location, etc). I am sure you know who they are. Go on VRBO (because that displays daily rates on calendar) , find your competition and see their rates. Then knock off about 5%-10% due to newness and lack of reviews. You will gradually raise it later.

Lydia, I am in TN also. I collect 3% tax via Airbnb resolution center. By the way that way they do not apply CC fee or service fee to it but it is a manual process. it is against ABB terms to collect amounts outside of ABB, so some guest may complain.