General Help and Questions

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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?

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