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JTVRs said:
My real intent is to use TA as a cpc/commission/sponsored placement model. Not FlipKey, etcEssentially, it is like Google AdWords but within TA. So traffic goes to your (hosted) website, not through FlipKey or the TA vac rental portfolio. Therefore you control the payment, customers, etc. This is direct booking.
Ownerrez cannot currently do this, so I'm going to be using a PMS just for that function.I already discussed it with the owners here and I'm going to share my findings in case they wish to join the trip advisor group that can do this. I learned about this at a bed-and-breakfast forum, and they highly acclaim this method.
Vacation rentals cannot do this, so I'm presenting my rental units as Suites within a hotel.
My real intent is to use TA as a cpc/commission/sponsored placement model. Not FlipKey, etc
Essentially, it is like Google AdWords but within TA. So traffic goes to your (hosted) website, not through FlipKey or the TA vac rental portfolio. Therefore you control the payment, customers, etc. This is direct booking.
Ownerrez cannot currently do this, so I'm going to be using a PMS just for that function.I already discussed it with the owners here and I'm going to share my findings in case they wish to join the trip advisor group that can do this. I learned about this at a bed-and-breakfast forum, and they highly acclaim this method.
Vacation rentals cannot do this, so I'm presenting my rental units as Suites within a hotel.
This is not my question/thread. I consider the OP doubts about the product were likely the result of not doing proper research, understanding, due diligence. It, OR, and other similar functions are not pushbutton.
Substitute OR for PL and that is my point.
JTVR, you seems almost hostile to someone who is trying to answer your question by sharing their experience with Price Labs by just trying to "shoot the messenger". Seems like you already know all the answers, so why ask then?
Chris Hynes said:
so my recommendation is to set TA to full payment required up front.So, TA is set to only take bookings 90 days out. Payment in full required in 60 days out. If some rare booking comes in....
Just make a help topic pointing to this thread, or tweeze out the critical parts from top to bottom under new help topic with a useful name. But this stuff is practically gold.
Maybe put it at the beginning of the connecting to a channel menu item
So domains and DNS can host different services. A web site is one service and email is a completely different service. For the hosted websites in OwnerRez, we only provide the website part (this is the A/CNAME records you configure on DNS).
You need a separate email provider to handle email (this is the MX type records you configure on DNS). Often your registrar will have an email service they provide and you just have to configure the DNS properly for that. It sounds like you've got email on your other domains with them, so ask if there's a way to use their email service but still have the website point to OwnerRez servers.
If not, you can use GSuite like Paul mentioned, which gives you GMail but at your own domain: https://gsuite.google.com/. There's tons of emails services, another couple I know of are https://www.fastmail.com/ and https://www.pobox.com/.
Basically what you'll do is to find an email provider, sign up with them, and they'll give you the correct MX records to configure on your domain's DNS to make that Sales @ JimThorpeVacationRentals.com email address work.
OK - my other domains (besides this one - using your hosted website service) are on a standard host.
So I chatted with my domain registrar and they said:
"Do you have a hosting to use for the domain's email service yet please? You could confirm with them about this issue as all the files are configured there. If they do provide MX records for you, then you can set it up for your domain."
"Looks like the domain is using our custom DNS. You could set up DNS records for your domain at the same page to connect your email hosting to your domain name."
My Domain settings include:
DNS Settings: Dynadot DNS
Email Settings: Email Settings do not apply to custom DNS
In other words, not really sure how to do this, and still not sure how to use this email (Sales @ JimThorpeVacationRentals.com)
You didn't miss it -- I was just thinking that myself as I was writing that out!
I might have missed it, but the above should be a help topic... Perfect!
The pre-booking process is different on all of those sites, but you can funnel in the post-booking process to one standard process. Here's the lowdown:
VRBO will give you the real guest email address and phone right off.
Booking.com, TripAdvisor, and Airbnb will give you the phone number and a passthrough/platform email address that will send email through to the guest. TripAdvisor will strip links in the email until full payment is made, the others will always pass them through, so my recommendation is to set TA to full payment required up front. Booking.com does some wonky things with hyperlinks, so the best thing is to include the raw URL for links.
Airbnb includes the passthrough email and phone number on the iCal. The rest require API integration to get that information in automatically, so I'm assuming you'll have API integration. If not you can use channel bridge for VRBO, and booking.com and TA would need emails entered manually.
Once you've got the passthrough/platform email address (or real guest email address in the case of HomeAway), the next step is to send them an email with the renter agreement signing link. The renter agreement signature process collects their real guest email address as well as the e-signature on your rental agreement template. Best way to do this is to create an email template and trigger on the booking created event, with a criteria for those channels (HomeAway, VRBO, booking.com, Airbnb, TA). Include the {BULEASE} merge field which is the renter agreement signing link. Here's an example (the example talks about Airbnb only, but the same technique works for the API integrated channels as well): https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/airbnb-request-for-contact-info-real-email-address-and-signed-renter-agreement
After the renter agreement is signed and you've got the real guest email address on file, the rest of the process will run just like a direct booking, sending out your scheduled/triggered emails to the guest etc.
If you want to do the security deposit hold in OwnerRez for HomeAway and Booking.com, check the "use OwnerRez security deposit settings" option in the channel settings and note that you will be doing that in your house rules on the channel. For Airbnb and TA, they have their own methods of holding deposits, so you'd continue to use those.
I find your assessment borderline naive. When you start using a complex piece of software, it is your responsibility to research, understand and configure it to your needs. PriceLabs is like OwnerReservations. There was a lot of thought that went into setting OR up.
PriceLabs or any other dynamic pricer may or may not be present in your market. Did you determine that?
How did you determine your base price?
Did you deeply dig into the PriceLabs help and instructionals and use their support to optimize and configure it to your situation?
Do you truly understand prices for your market? Across all seasons and days?
Do you understand all the variables that go into pricing? events in your area or nearby?
Do you really think Airbnb pricing is reliable? It is roundly hated on many other forums, often cheapening listings just to generate commissions.
Do you understand how to use the min night optimization there also?
How do you know "bookings have dropped?" Do you understand yield management? Supply and Demand?
untrustable?? How in the world do you know?
the rates are different? of course they are!!! This is called dynamic pricing!!! This is not a science, sometimes max revenue is achieved at a lower price with higher occupancy or a higher price with a lower occupancy on a razor's edge - and the decision might be applied to similar properties the same day.
The user is going to be totally responsible for using it properly. Right now, heading in the wrong direction... Most people properly using correct dynamic pricing, that works in their market, will see a 5-30+% yield increase. And sometimes they will tweak the pricing if they know of the occasional huge event or anything that creates a surge in their area,
ok, my question above was "hijacked" a bit, so bringing them down again:
The burning question is:
...Realizing that each of these 4 sites have their own processes and methods and ways. Including how they communicate with clients
...Realizing that how or if they provide guest phone number and email can differ...
How does the various email templates (lease agreement/signature, collecting payment, security deposit, etc.) work with Booking.com, TA, VRBO, Airbnb?? Does it not work well or have issues with any of these 4 I might not know about?
Yep, HomeAway and VRBO are the same company and distribute back and forth to eachother. As for distribution to others like Expedia or CanadaStays, you'd have to ask them about the exact criteria for distribution. I found this article with a bit of info on the "Expanded Distribution Network: https://help.vrbo.com/articles/What-is-the-Expanded-Distribution-Network -- "The Expanded Distribution Network includes Expedia Distribution brands (Travelocity, CheapTickets, Orbitz, & Expedia), as well as Trivago, KAYAK, CandaStays, TravelMob and other affiliates that specialize in vacation rentals."
I know that they only distribute to Expedia if you've got instant book enabled. Yep, you'd set the properties in OwnerRez and then start pushing them over.
Also note that "HomeAway sites are meant to offer a "Whole Home" experience to travelers": https://help.vrbo.com/articles/What-types-of-properties-can-I-advertise
Chris, when you say VRBO, does that also mean Homeaway?
Right now I've been having only one property on Homeaway, and I wanted to add my others to add up to five.
Does one have to get the five properties set up in OwnerRez first to be able to have them all ported over to the channels?
I didn't realize that CanadaStays was part of Homeaway, etc., I was about to sign up with them separately. So are there any other channels that the properties get distributed to with the HA/Vrbo group?
I've been getting bookings on my one HA listing from Vrbo and Expedia, but never CanadaStays or Abritel. Is it by chance not being distributed to them because I don't have the 5 property minimum set up yet?
I have not tried price labs, but I did try extensively (1.5 years) Beyondpricing and Wheelhouse. In my market I found Wheelhouse to be more realistic. Unfortunately Wheelhouse works only with airbnb and TA, it does not work with vrbo any longer.
I did ask them last night, and no reply yet. I was interested to see if other PriceLabs users had some of their own thoughts and insights on this.
I didn't realize that CanadaStays was part of Homeaway, etc., I was about to sign up with them separately. So are there any other channels that the properties get distributed to with the HA/Vrbo group?
I've been getting bookings on my one HA listing from Vrbo and Expedia, but never CanadaStays or Abritel. Is it not being distributed to them because I don't have the 5 properties minimum set up yet?
I don't have details on the PriceLabs algorithms and how they work -- I'd recommend contacting their support to see if they can fill you in and look at the differences between rooms. There are a lot of knobs and dials you can configure on their side to nudge the prices in different directions.
VRBO and HomeAway are the same -- a listing on one will be distributed to the other (as well as other places like Expedia, CanadaStays, Abritel etc.). For the API integration we call it the "HomeAway" channel to keep it simple.
Yep, the properties need to be in OwnerRez and then go to Settings > Channel Connections, add the HomeAway channel (the one under the API Integrated section), and contact HomeAway using the instructions and they'll work through the rest of the process with you.
Chris, when you say VRBO, does that also mean Homeaway?
Right now I've been having only one property on Homeaway, and I wanted to add my others to add up to five.
Does one have to get the five properties set up in OwnerRez first to be able to have them all ported over to the channels?
I don’t understand at all what the PriceLabs algorithms are deriving from or how I'm supposed to trust them.
I have two rooms that are the same size and right next to each other in the property. But the rates that Pricelabs set for each of them are totally different from each other.
Also, the rates it sets are totally different between the OwnerRez listing per each room and the airbnb listing per each room.
It comes across to me as totally arbitrary and, frankly, untrustable.
I am working on getting on other platforms and to get my website to where I'm ready to go public and to work to draw traffic to it. Nevertheless, since I started using PriceLabs, my bookings have dropped.
Any light that can be shed on this?
The burning question is:
...Realizing that each of these 4 sites have their own processes and methods and ways. Including how they communicate with clients
...Realizing that how or if they provide guest phone number and email can differ...
How does the various email templates (lease agreement/signature, collecting payment, security deposit, etc.) work with Booking.com, TA, VRBO, Airbnb?? Does it not work well or have issues with any of these 4 I might not know about?
Yep, it's a process. Let us know if you have further questions once you add those channels in OwnerRez and start working on the instructions procedure.
Thx, Chris
It is a bit confusing what to do where for each channel at this point. You are building a great service, I know it's complex.
Yes, the procedure is to open an account with each channel. For booking.com and Airbnb, you have to build out the listings on those channels and then you can connect to them in OwnerRez and push rates.
For TripAdvisor and VRBO, the content is populated from what's in OwnerRez -- photos, descriptions, amenities, rates etc. -- so you don't need to build out the listings on those channels, just initiate the connection process with them for a PM account, hook up to API, and we will start pushing out to them. The first step is to run the Listing Quality Analyzer in the Tools menu to make sure all of the content is compatible.
Then go to Settings > Channel Connections and look at the top under the API Integrated section. Add the channels you want, and the instructions tab of each channel will get you started with the connection.
For booking.com, TA, VRBO, calendar updates and rates are all automatically pushed.
For Airbnb, we don't have API yet so you get calendar updates via our 2 way iCal sync and you can push rates using channel bridge or use PriceLabs which can push rates to Airbnb automatically.
OK, I am at the point where I am to set up all the properties at each of Booking.com, TripAdvisor, AirBnB, VRBO
I have skimmed some of the help topics you have, but I am not 100% clear on best procedure is:
- to open up a partner account with each (obviously)
- have all my OwnerRez property descriptions complete
But not really sure the optimal way to get the OwnerRez topics and other machinery functioning on the major listing sites
I see this: https://app.ownerrez.com/settings/channels
But I realize there have been changes, such as recent HomeAway API
So, is doing this going to port over my OwnerRez content for each property? Is the calendar and other stuff automatic? Do the Amenities I selected get picked up automatically? What about the Owner information, short description, and other fields on the Description page?
I want to do this right once, not wrong and flail a couple times.
[should start having pictures within a week.]
It is very possible that the person who buys merchandise off a website has a different mindset than someone booking a hotel/vac rental.
I don't have experience in this yet, so I am just trying to get my arms around all the process steps that seem applicable.
OK. I understand. People at several different properties might be interested in the same tour at the same time for or greater. But that seems unlikely. So I prefer to stick to one booked group, 4+ people, I can offer a tour.
I have a complex, rich website for tours, but it is intended to start next year. MountainManJourneys.com. It will be using an Icelandic PMS owned by TripAdvisor. .
I wish there were a way to do real packages: vacation rental + tours + other services.
For this year, I am just intending to offer local tours to people as a vac rental add-on.
