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Thanks, Chris. Very helpful. Do you plan on having channel bridge for TripAdvisor since the API is only for accounts with 5 or more properties?

ok, clarification?

January:
"Currently, we have API Integrated integration for Booking.com, CanadaStays, TripAdvisor and (very soon) VRBO/HomeAway."
"we built an in-house tool called "Channel Bridge" that simulates the user with the goal of copy and pasting data between their channel account and their OwnerRez account. "

Now:
Is the theory that once you have API integrated for TA, VRBO, etc the channel bridge is no longer needed?

I had answered on the support request, but figured I'd copy it here for everyone's edification...

Channel bridge rate push works for VRBO/HomeAway and also Airbnb.

1) Set up Channel Bridge (if you haven't already): https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/channel-bridge-install
2) Open the Chrome browser and log in to VRBO (or Airbnb)
3) Go to Settings > Channel Connections and click on the VRBO channel in the list (if you don't have one already, hit the Connect button, find it under Synced Channels, and add it)
4) Hit the Change Property Settings button and enter your VRBO or HomeAway listing numbers (just the numbers, nothing else)
5) Hit the Push Rates button which will open up a dialog where you can review the rates to be pushed
6) In the dialog, use the Push Rates button to perform the push.

Hi Paul,

Can you give further information on which sites the channel bridge can now push rates to and how to do it? I reviewed the literature and do not even see the rate push being an option, but know like you said the documentation writing is taking a back burner to the pushing of features.

Thanks,
Elizabeth

I tried WP and hated it. I am somewhat of IT person but it was anything but easy (site created by someone and I was just trying to edit and maintain it). I am much more happy with sitelio hybrid type site - it has templates and drag and drop, yet allows customization like inserting scripts, seo etc.

Yep, there are a couple ways to do this. Most people just add a few paragraphs to their standard agreement that refer to "if pets are included" and show the pet count.

You can also set up a separate pet legal agreement template if you want. Then either go to the Legal tab of booking and request an additional signature on that.

If you want to set up a trigger to send that automatically you can do that as well. It'll definitely work for direct bookings, but keep in mind that for listing site bookings, many don't send pet counts, or send a single "has pets" flag which we treat as one pet.

Did you overwrite the description with the one from the other or combine the two?

The character count limit includes the HTML formatting markup, so it will be a bit more than the actual text. You can see that by hitting the <> button in the toolbar to view the HTML. Those are both around 14k characters so individually they'll work fine but if you combine them together you end up at 28k characters which is over the limit.

You've got a lot of content in there, and if you're planning on distributing to channels you'll hit their limits before you hit ours. HA has a 10k character limit and TA a 5k character limit. Both of those limits are text only (we automatically remove the formatting when pushing to channels).

VacationSoup is a combo -- site builder tutorial videos to build your own site in WordPress, and then a cross linked blog sharing system. If you want to build your own site in WordPress and need help with that, it's not a bad way to go. If you want a quickly set up and easily editable site, our hosted website is a lot simpler. Our site can't do every single advanced thing WordPress can, but it does it's one job of being a vacation rental site very well.

Everyone should have a website for their vacation rental in my opinion -- it's great for marketing to repeat guests, and as a place to send leads you already have. Its not going to show up on the first page of Google except for very specific search terms because there's so much competition. But even without search having that personal location for guests is very beneficial.

Yep, it'll be based on whatever template you use, and you'll be able to add your own callout sections.

I cannot imagine a way to make that happen automatically reliably.

It would likely have to be done similarly to your rental agreement, through a trigger and a template.

But I am sure Chris or Paul will illumine shortly

Is there a way to get a signed pet agreement but only to those guests who have pets? Excuse me if the answer is obvious. I'm new here. Hi everyone!!

Cindy Wheeler

I am getting 20,000 character limit error in Description when I am not yet at 20,000 characters!

"Please correct the errors below.
The field Description must be a string with a maximum length of 20000."

HERE (error): https://app.ownerrez.com/properties/182669/description/edit

I COPIED FROM HERE (no error): https://app.ownerrez.com/properties/220953/description/edit

And all I am doing is copying the Description Text from another property, which does NOT have the error.

As always, when I try to edit my post several minutes later, it is rejected with an error.

I was trying to say "I assume this will work smoothly even if we did a lot of surgery on the contents of the default agreement?"

I am all for it.

I have seen in two places that the cancellation verbiage should be at the BOTTOM of the page near signature. This appears to relate to enforceability. It shouldn't be buried within the body of the agreement.

Yes yes. Even if without the signature using fancy fonts, but where it makes them to do some ACTION on important paragraphs (such as type in initials etc). So if that can be done 1st, and other features introduced gradually, that would help. I did create a custom field where they have to initial to agree to a one-sentence "no pets" and "no refunds withing 60 days", but there are other important things (like hot tub) which are simply impossible to handle as custom fields.

make the guest pick a signature font up front like DocuSign and HelloSign do << nice to have
- have them agree, when picking their sig, that they agree to an eSign process << must have
- add legal "callouts" that they first read which are plain text paragraphs that are each of the main bullet points that stand out: cancellation, pets, extra guests... all the important stuff << not sure what that looks like
- they have to check, initial or both to all of these << must have
- the entire agreement is then rendered with the callout bullets in the middle and their intials on it as an image
- they have to "slide down" the page and sign each page and/or the very bottom << must have
- add a final metadata page about the booking, guest and dates. << nice to have

We've seen where DocuSign, HelloSign and the others do this. It helps formalize the chain of events
I have used Signnow (cudasign) and I could insert the spots where they were forced to enter number of adults/ kids. I had the initials required on bottom of each page.

I am currently handling adults /kids via custom form fields. the reason for having that is: a) imports sometimes come from OTAs with 0 in that field 2) some people when they use OTA (or even my website widget), only put default minimum (like 1 or 2 people) when in reality they have 12 ; and 3) one more check that they are not over occupancy (which many OTAs encourage).

Still the case and it is maddening. and they won't let me use API because I only have 3 properties. And as you know their CS is in Timbuktu or somewhere and they have no idea how to do anything other than read canned script.

Is that still the case - not releasing guest contact until after fully paid? I know on the API side, it's all released up front regardless of payment. There was a lot of push-back on that. I'm wondering if they changed their tone in recent times or if it's just shown on the API side.

Below is a recent API that pushed over from TripAdvisor. You can see that it's not fully paid (total owed on the right) yet the Gmail and phone and all came through.

Some discussion going on on this side in recent weeks about renter agreements... All design at this point - not scheduled for dev - but we'd like to do the following:

- make the guest pick a signature font up front like DocuSign and HelloSign do
- have them agree, when picking their sig, that they agree to an eSign process
- add legal "callouts" that they first read which are plain text paragraphs that are each of the main bullet points that stand out: cancellation, pets, extra guests... all the important stuff
- they have to check, initial or both to all of these
- the entire agreement is then rendered with the callout bullets in the middle and their intials on it as an image
- they have to "slide down" the page and sign each page and/or the very bottom
- add a final metadata page about the booking, guest and dates. We've seen where DocuSign, HelloSign and the others do this. It helps formalize the chain of events

We believe this would vastly improve the RA's. Thoughts?

Yes, that's the guide for connecting Booking.com. It should be up to date though, frankly, you never know with Booking.com. The screenshots may be a little stale in places. Their UI changes almost weekly it seems.

HomeAway and TripAdvisor need the same guides. We've cut images and done some work on it but just haven't gotten it together yet.

We made this one in collaboration with the HomeAway team, so their integration specialists will give it to you if you ask:

https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/Activation-Documentation-for-OwnerRez--Ab9yACNk2lPiV0v1gvkhQYiNAg-L1vVdI4KA2bVf9aKwktK7

The fix was dynamic. It checks to see if the headline/name are the same and both exist. If so, it will only do the headline. Property > Descriptions > Headline field.

I am, but the site is deader than dinosaurs. I do not even count it. I got MAYBE one booking a year with their insane 17% fees. Several inquiries that would lead to nowhere. The latest nail in their coffin was NOT releasing renter's contact after renter booked and paid deposit (now they only release after full balance is paid). So fine, I set mine up to collect 100% upfront, I do not have time or desire to play stupid games trying to evade their human screeners just to communicate with booked guests in order to have my rental agreement signed - because idiotic Tripadvisor censors everything worse than Mao's regime. I guess I wasn't the only one who went to 100% collection upfront. So what do they do: they unilaterally override my settings against my wished and set mine to collect 20% upfront and 80 % later. I am DONE with them. So what I did is I've raised my rates to some exorbitant number so that no one will ever book. I am not getting stupid inquiries (which do not book in 99% of cases anyhow), I do not have time or desire to deal with their bull$.t. But they won't get a DIME from me. And oh, I am not paying $799 for their stupid subscription - I KNOW they bury subscription listings so they are NEVER seen by travelers. Since I have only 3 properties, they would not allow me to use OR channel manager either. Keeping listings there just for the sake of Tripadvisor reviews. They can take their useless website and their totalitarian methods and shove them were sun doesn't shine.

Not on FlipKey?

Vrbo, a bit of airbnb. Sprinkles of smbyo. Maybe booking works for guesthouses (shared space)? 0 mine are stand alone mountain log cabins. smoky-mountains-cabin.com/cabins

I have it as a custom field where they have to initial to acknowledge on the check out form even before they get into the agreement itself.

maybe depends on where you are. The other 1/3 of my building, a guesthouse, has been around 15 years, ONLY does Booking.com and they do pretty well.

What are your primary traffic sources, besides direct?

The problem with a little site is that SEO wont get them on the first page dominated by the OTAs, so hard to get noticed. And if they cannot get me there, I would prefer to spend $200 in the offseason -Facebook ads or TripAdvisor to drum up a little extra traffic.

Would definitely like to see that

Also, my understanding is that cancellation verbiage should be at the BOTTOM of the contract near the signatures

There was a post in Say No to VRBO group about owner taking Airbnb guests to court over contract violation. Her contract was found to supersede Airbnb's perhaps because she had is not only signed but every page initialed. So, is there a way to make guest initial every page of rental agreement (or even more specifically, important paragraphs within it)? TIA

It is initiative by Alan Egan. Interesting concept maybe (including creation of content that is supposed to drive organic traffic) but not for me. Like you, I won;t spend $200 just to work some more to drive traffic to THEIR site.

Booking is very much USELESS to me. 2 properties over 8 months, 2 bookings between them (and one was in error when due to OR glitch it allowed 1-night booking which we do not allow). So, meh.