Latest Activity...
Hello,
Does anyone use payment processors other than stripe and lynnbrook? If so, what do you use and why?
Thanks,
Brigid
Is any one else having issues with payments, support ticketing and photo gallery?
It started with photo gallery, I've been going back and forth with Support but it has not been resolved yet.
As of yesterday, an important high season booking could not pay by credit card. Neither can I when I do a test transaction.
And when I tried to open a support ticket for this, I got an error as well....
I was wondering if there are any updates on the progress for the Direct Booking Threads, as it has been almost 1 year since you communicated "later this year".
"We are discussing what it looks like to have direct booking threads come into the new Inbox (and we already have plans to bring email into the Inbox later this year). Both of those would help communicate with your direct booking guests."
This feature is badly needed. We should be able to auto trigger a CC fee if the guest chooses that form of payment.
Hi Neil, Yes I am still here, and can help! Will send an email!
Alison
Hi there is there anyone who is experienced in adding properties to additional vacation sites? Last year I had Allison Carsley help. She was great to work with, not sure if she is still doing that work.
Great timing, Robert. We've been making some usability improvements to the new Confirm & Pay form - mostly minor polish items. The hover-icon situation with custom fields was on that list and just got fixed today.
I've passed this feedback to our Product team for review.
Thanks for your input, the use of Custom Fields and their descriptors can be very important in how business is able to be conducted.
I'm not offering feedback for your consideration!
I need a solution or a work around to this right away. I’m not making a feature request. It’s been a week with no support or help!
PLEASE!
Robert
Hi,
The Owner Statement Summary report is still a work in progress, but we are actively working on updates to better support P&L reporting.
For now, try using the PM Owner Statement Bookings and PM Owner Statement Expenses reports to find that data. You may need to check "show booking expenses" on the latter to see everything you need.
Or use custom Statement Views on your Owner Statements. Since PMv2 structures data differently, "Net for commission" and "Owner Revenue" are no longer standard columns and now require custom formulas within a Statement View. Using custom formulas may allow you to use your Owner Statements to format your year's worth of data the way you need and export it.
Pro Tip: One of the things I find most useful is that in PMv2 Owner Statements, the data is fixed but it can be viewed in different ways. You can create a custom Statement View (e.g., an "Accounting View") with columns based on formulas that are limited only by your imagination and need. If you export your Owner Statements using that view, the Excel download will reflect those custom columns, allowing you potentially to replicate the exact report format you had previously.
Just found this while updating my house rules and have to say it is a brilliant post. Thank you.
Hey Jordan!
There wouldn't be a way to have this done automatically, where it prevents guests from staying at the child listing on a Friday or Saturday. A possible workaround would be to create blocks in OwnerRez for Fridays and Saturdays at the child listing, and this would prevent guests from being able to select a Friday or Saturday when booking a stay at the child listing. However, you'd need to create a separate block for each weekend. More on creating blocks here: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/blocking-off-time
When creating the blocks, you should see a Mutual blocking option and a box for 'Don't block other properties'. Be sure to check this when creating the blocks to ensure it doesn't block the parent listing as well:
Hey Ariel!
We wanted to let you know that our team is aware of this issue and is currently working on it, but there's no ETA at this time. We should post in our Weekly Release Notes once the issue has been resolved.
I am trying to update and/or remove the Registration Expiration Date section on my web site home page. How do I do this? I have looked everywhere and I even tried using code override suggestions from ChatGPT. Thanks!
Hello!
Can you please submit a ticket by emailing help@ownerrez.com and let us know which properties this is happening to so we can take a look?
Thanks for letting me know it isn’t on my end!
I've passed this feedback to our Product team for review.
Thanks for your input, the use of Custom Fields and their descriptors can be very important in how business is able to be conducted.
We have reached out to Vrbo to report multiple concerns, they are receiving reports from multiple other API partners as well and have opened a ticket to investigate a potential outage.
I'm having a few integration issues with OR, being in Australia. I know you're US-focussed, but the same things should work for all (we pay the same). As an aside it would also be great if you looked at other integrations outside of the US. There are quite a few platforms I can't use as the integrations are only with the major ones. I know we're small fry, but. Anyway, this issue:
This one is regarding ical. I feel it must be a solvable problem given the ical from Air BNB manages to show the dates correctly. I presume whether you are in the US, Australia, or Timbuktu, the Air BNB ical works accurately.
I've been advised the following:
Why This Happens
This is a known issue with Google Calendar's handling of iCal timezone conversions, particularly for users in timezones significantly ahead of UTC (like Australia). The iCal standard represents bookings correctly, but Google Calendar's interpretation can cause display issues.
Google Calendar > It seemed like it was working, but it's no longer updating!
Here is the example of what I see: In blue is the ical from Air BNB showing the booked nights, i.e. checking out on 5th May. OR shows as checking out on 6th. As I use this calendar for cleaners and more, and hope to exclusively use OR (because not everything comes from ABB), it is very confusing and basically unusable. Suggestions of using alternate calendars are not useful - everyone uses Google.
It would seem that if ABB has solutioned this, then it is clearly possible. Hoping you can look into this. Thank you.
For some reason all my messages are not syncing to my inbox. This seemed to start this weekend. Even when I refresh my page I am not seeing it. They are coming into my email mailbox but not the message app on OR. anyone else?
I agree the Glamping Hub integration is clunky, and I am considering de-listing all of my properties indefinitely until it is better.
What is their markup or fee? Also, why am I getting random, emailed invoices to pay their fee separately?
If I wanted to have to hire someone to respond to emailed invoices, I wouldn't have software integration.
Are there other integrated "partners" that don't have their commission disclosed and/or collected automatically? If so, I will probably de-list all of them.
Anyone with wisdom on this topic it would be much appreciated.
Hi Jessica:
I created a ticket and wrote you directly & we will help you get your API connections setup optimally.
Ideally, your listings will be API synced to all the channels, so then there would not be any double bookings expected.
It's great when new features or updates are released, but if they are, they shouldn't break existing workflows. I'm not putting this as a Feature Request in that forum, because I'm only asking for things to be LEFT ALONE the way they were. Put another way, I want the functionality back that has been taken away from us with the introduction of the new Confirm & Pay form.
Under Custom Field Definitions, there are a couple of things which affect the Confirm & Pay form:
1) First is the ability to include the Custom Field Definition in the Confirm & Pay form so the guest can enter the needed information. Great. That's the way I want it.
2) Next is an Order number entry which determines the order of the fields on the Form, another good and needed feature. And
3) Description. This is a bit of text that in the previous booking form would appear UNDER the field where the guest would enter their information. It is there to provide help and an explanation about what is being requested.
Based on how the Description text appeared on the form when I set it up three years ago, I used the description field to insert instructions into into the form about how I needed the various fields filled out by the guest. This is especially important because there are no controls provided to me as the OR user, to control how these form fields appear (date, type, size, etc.).
I would love to show you a picture of what my Booking Form USED to look like after my creative use of the Description fields, but I can't now, because it's been replaced by the new form. (OwnerRez, if you can give me the old form back in a snap, PLEASE DO SO for obvious reasons as explained below, at least until you can fix the issue you have created!)
Because whatever I entered into the Description of a Custom Field showed on the form BELOW the field, I used it to provide instructions that guided my guests through the proper completion of the form. I put space in between the lines of text in my descriptions, in order to have the comments spatially relate to the correct fields, either above or below the text. In some cases, I would put the instructions for completing a field in the description of the item BEFORE that field, so they would instruct the guest about what to do in the next space.
So with a description entered like the following (note the empty lines before the text begins):
It would show up in the form kind of like:
Note how the text is spatially related to the field underneath it, and separated from the one above by an empty space (created by a couple of blank lines in the description).
In fact, in one instance, I put information in the description about the field above it (meaning the description for that particular Custom Field), then put a couple of blank lines of space and then added more text that related to the next Custom Field underneath.
In this way, I guided the guest through completing the form, with text IN the form, related to each part the guest had to complete.
Why is this important? In some instances, I would have the guest put more than one type of information in a field. For example, in my GUEST LIST Custom Fields (Something OwnerRez SHOULD have, but lacks), I ask the lead guest to not only put the guest's name, but also the age group that they fit into; adult, teen, child, infant.
Or in other cases the instructions are vitally important. For example in one part of the form, where the guest is to place their initials in the fields, the instructions and that part of the form looked kind of like this:
Notice the text underneath the Credit Card Cardholder Agreement Section? Pretty important right? It's important that it be visible so that when the guest initials it, they can't later claim that they didn't understand what they were committing to and launch a credit card chargeback in a dispute. I WANT that text THERE! I NEED that text there!
And using the Description field in Custom Field Definitions it was there. There was text like that for all of the items.
Note also the instructions at the top telling guests to Initial the following fields. It's important to tell the guests what to do at this point, because... well... guests can be kind of dumb and will screw up things if they can, but also, the design of the form NOW doesn't make it obvious that this section is different from the previous ones. My text and instructions and spacing throughout the OLD form accomplished that.
Now look at the mess we have:
Could we possibly have a more boring, unimaginative and unhelpful form design?
Worse, the critical information the guest HAS to see when completing the form is all hidden underneath the little 'info' buttons, as in this example.
This is NOT good enough! For legal and liability reasons, the text needs to be displayed right by where the guest initials their agreement to these specific parts of the terms and conditions! In fact, my Credit Card Processor DEMANDS the text shown above along with the specific place where the guest separately indicates their acknowledgment of the Credit Card terms. I have given them screenshots of what the form looked like and it was necessary as part of their even agreeing to accept me as a client!
For those of you who operate a vacation rental business in your own country, this may seem like a bunch of over-the-top nonsense. For those of you who are a 'foreign national' to where your business is located, you KNOW just how difficult things can be and the hoops we have to jump through! This is NOT an inconsequential issue!
Yes, I can just go through all of my Custom Field definitions and correct and adjust them so they make sense based on the new form design. I know that.
There are other points that matter here:
1) When OwnerRez makes a big change like this, it can have unexpected consequences. This is an example of it. But the issue I want to draw attention to is that never did OwnerRez warn me/us that we should go and review the new versions of the forms they introduced THREE months ago. Instead, they just announced that they had updated the forms, which I (I guess now stupidly) thought would be just fine and have no real effect on me other than to improve how the forms looked. It never once occurred to me that they would CHANGE THEIR FORM AND FUNCTION!
I have been having guests using this form for four months, and had no idea they were being handed this hot mess to find their way through, and in a format that no longer protected me as it once did. I only found out about it today because a confused guest contacted me to ask for clarification on part of it.
2) Changing all of my Custom Field Descriptions will NOT put back the text into the forms where I need it to be. Yes it will pop up in the little info boxes if a guest hovers over one, but that is NOT good enough to protect me legally and limit and control my liability, and bulletproof me in disputes and chargebacks.
3) I understand that the powers that be may not want to get rid of the little info circles to hover over. Fine. Keep them. But I still need (desperately) the function/ability to put specific descriptions and info IN THE FORM (not just in an introductory paragraph at the top) the way I had it before! OwnerRez, please put this functionality BACK into the software.
Why post this here rather than just send the request to support? If someone else had experienced the same issue and shared it here, I would have found it, possibly months ago, and been able to take action on it sooner. Perhaps others did have the same issue, but did not share it here, and others, like me, wouldn't find out about it until later.
Finally, hopefully this thread can be a reminder to others to always repeatedly check your workflows, particularly after major changes are done. Don't just assume everything is working just fine!
So should we use iCal or channel bridge to avoid double bookings? I’ve been getting alot of double bookings on airbnb from booking.com and it recently caused me to have an account restriction on airbnb. I only have 2 listings. This should not be hapoening.
I'm having a similar issue, Vrbo calendar is getting blocked everyday and I can't figure out the issue? I have Hospitable connected as well. But I have Vrbo ical added on OR and vice versa. What am I doing wrong?
Hi there. I know we should be utilizing the Owner statement summary option but it honestly is not giving me any of the info I'm needing and is a bit confusing to create a year-end statement (maybe I'm just use to doing them by excel) The report that worked best, I can't find it! It had columns like "taxes (in period) (net for comm (in period) owner rev (in period), Cant find this report anywhere, have been doing owner statements with these reports for years so I'm stuck!
Here's what I came up with: Increase your nightly rate for the weekends to equal the nightly rate of the Parent. I do this through PriceLabs and their day of week price adjustments.
If someone books the Child through the weekend at the Parent price, I don't care because I will be making the same amount of revenue. This has worked well for us, we are getting a lot of mid-week stays on the Child listing that are spilling over into the weekends.
If someone has any other experiences, I'd like to hear them.
This would be the gamechanger I've been waiting on.
Hi, I can't find any way to import our FAQs for Rezzy, I'm wondering if it's possible to import them? We have around 100 defined and was hoping we didn't have to enter them one by one.
Thanks Kaitie for your answer.
That's disappointing. I do know how to add the tags to contacts and other things manually.
I was hoping to automate the process adding them to guests. I guess we're only part-way there!
Hey Robert!
Although the tag automations can only be added to bookings, and not the guest contact themselves, you should be able to manually add tags to the contacts. You should be able to do this in their booking by going to the Overview tab and clicking the Change button next to Tags in the Guest section. From there, you can add a tag. More on how to do this here:https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/tags-use-assign#assign-guest-tag
If you'd like to add tags to guests in bulk, you can do so by going to Contacts > check the box to the left of each contact you want to add the tag to > select Set Tags at the top > select the tag in the pop-up > click Save. Once that's been done, the tag should be applied to those guests in OwnerRez.