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Great find. I've emailed my processor to see if they agree and can change my MCC. (I'm on an Interchange Plus plan.)

Thanks!

What you are referring to is called "Broken link protection". It enables OwnerRez to ensure that requests get routed to the correct page even if you change the path for that page.

You can disable it on the hosted website options page: 

Checking in on this update?  Last post was from 1 year ago, and I still cannot find this feature.  Hosted websites are still creating these ungainly trailing numbers for custom pages, would love to be able to avoid them.

Wanted to pass along some knowledge after recently shopping for credit card processing services.

For a bit of background, in CC processing there's the concept of "interchange rates" which is the wholesale processing rate that merchant account providers pay to Visa, MC, etc.  There is a giant table of interchange rates, which vary based on the merchant's business type (merchant category code or MCC) and the type of card the purchaser is using, i.e. debit card, basic credit card, rewards card, etc.  Merchant account providers typically charge merchants a flat rate (like Stripe's 2.9%) or possibly a couple tiers of rates based on card type.  And they make their money on the spread between those rates and the wholesale interchange rates.  Sometimes the spread can be quite large, for example, debit cards from large banks have a federally regulated wholesale rate of 0.22%.

There is another merchant account pricing model called "interchange plus" where the provider passes the wholesale rate through to the merchant, plus a processor margin typically 0.10% - 0.50%.  Historically that model has only been available to high volume merchants, but there are some processor sales channels that will offer it to small merchants as well.

The semi-recent development (as of Oct 2023) is that Visa has created an especially low wholesale rate of 1.43% for "real estate" merchants (MCC 6513), and this includes both regular and rewards card types.  The goal is to incentivize landlords to accept credit cards and increase Visa's transaction volume in a category where they don't see much action -- rent payments.  But I'm told this MCC is also appropriate for STR / vacation rental merchants.

Long story short, signing up with a merchant account provider who offers interchange plus pricing and getting them to code your account as MCC 6513 can provide substantially better rates than typical processors.

Following up with what I learned.  There's a small monthly charge for the Converge gateway, and it varies depending on the Elavon sales channel.  Via Costco, the Converge gateway is $5/mo with a $149 setup fee.  Via another Elavon reseller (who has better overall rates than Costco) the Converge gateway is $10/mo with no setup fee.

I had the same issue.  What i found out is that I set up "seasons" and in the seasons section I had set minimum stays.  Those become the default and even override the property minimum which I had set at 3 days.  Once I updated seasons to 3 night minimum, that cleared it up.   Hope this helps. 

I'm not clear on exactly what the question is here?  Please write in to the Helpdesk with a description, specific examples, and screenshots, so we can properly understand and give advice.

Can't figure out why the widget for rates shows only the cancellation policy.

Under widgets preview it shows correct data but on the site menu or an added widget it only shows cancellation policy. Spent hours on this & can't figure it out. 

???????

Any update on this Paul?

You must choose either your OwnerRez hosted website or the OwnerRez global landing page for your Google Vacation Rentals (GVR) listing Landing Page. 

• Their OwnerRez hosted website, which sends GVR guests to their property's standard hosted website URL as defined inside of OwnerRez.
• The OwnerRez global landing page sends potential GVR guests to an OwnerRez-hosted guest booking page.

A hosted website generally directs the user to the Property URL which is setup in each Properties > General Info page. 

A Global Landing Page sample can be seen here:
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/google-vacation-rentals-common-issues-questions#global-landing-page

Each property would have it's own Global Landing page, which would look similar and have the property details on the right:

I have a few properties and I manage others for other people. Right now I have a single Hosted Website with multiple properties.

I'd like to connect each of the properties up with Google Vacation Rentals

I would like to use each of the per-property subpages on my Hosted Website to link to Google Vacation Rentals. Can I do this or do I need to set up a separate site for each property along with new domain names?

If I do need to make them into individual sites, can I use subdomains, such that Property 1 goes to property1.domainname.com, Property 2 goes to property2.domainname.com, etc.?

I could be interested in just using OR's Global Landing Page, but I can't actually find a live version anywhere to test it out.  Does someone have a link to one?

Answers, thoughts, suggestions welcome, thanks.

You can't - and you don't need to.  Inquiries don't need to be "approved", the guest can just go ahead and book without approval.

Thanks Ken 

Sorry to bug you again but I think I'm still having an issue. I can't pre-approve / edit the quote in VRBO

And then I also can't send them the quote in OwnerRez because I dont have their email. How am I supposed to approve this inquiry?

The issue is that Vrbo doesn't even have a custom-quote API.  We've pressed them on this for years, and recently we've gotten a bit of traction, so hopefully at some point that functionality will be available.

Note that, with Airbnb, you can already create a custom quote in OwnerRez and send it to a prospective guest via the API.

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/air-inquiries-and-stuff#specialoffers 

Ken this is massively helpful. Thank you.

But this is also a massive gap. I get more inquiries than anything in VRBO and its creating a bottle neck, disincentivizing me from even using Ownerrez. Right ? I pay a pretty penny to come centrally manage, but this is me manually working through VRBO directly now. As of now, I only use for Airbnb and VRBO. I already message people directly on AIrbnb instead, and now im having to do the same in VRBO and talk them through any post booking costs changes on a "promise"? Kinda makes sense for me to just use those two platforms directly instead then

Is this a gap with the integration between VRBO / Ownerrez?

Effectively, yes - Vrbo intentionally does not provide any direct guest contact information until the guest has actually booked.  You can only communicate with the guest via the Vrbo internal messaging system (though OwnerRez does integrate with that).  And, those messages block any phone numbers, email addresses, or weblinks until after the guest has already booked.

This means that, unfortunately, there is no way to send a guest a custom quote.  The only option is for them to simply book their stay on Vrbo at whatever rates are posted there.  Once the booking has been made, it appears in OwnerRez and you can control it there, including by adjusting the rates at that time.  You can discuss this and make promises via the internal messaging system prior to booking, but you can't actually do a custom pre-booking quote.

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/channel-management-api-integrations-vrbo#vrbo-quotes 

Will do!

Please write in to the Helpdesk with specifics, so we can investigate.

Hello!

I recently added a new property to OR and on my website I selected:

Rates: Show range for min and max (eg. "350-499/night")

This works for all of my properties but the new one...any idea why?

Thank you for your help,

Yes, this has indeed changed, but, you can still edit the Hosted Website footer settings.  Here's how to do that:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/hosted-websites-footer-customizations-video 

Hi - I have had my last two inbound inquiries from VRBO come in without any contact info from the potential guest.  So when I make the quote to send back to the guest, owenerrez wont let me send the quote. This is because in the "Send Quote" section, it requires the email of the guest.

Is this a gap with the integration between VRBO / Ownerrez? I really need to solve this ASAP in order to get this quote out so this guest can book! Any help is appreciated!!

-Matt

Has this changed? I noticed the last response was 2018, and I cannot find the footer settings. I need to make contact changes down there.

I don't myself interpret this law as speaking to security deposits in any way, but no doubt that will be determined over the coming months by the appropriate legal authorities.

How would this law affect security deposits? This technically is not a charge - but there is not functionality to roll it into the nightly price. It would be against Airbnb terms of service. However it would be important to be able to continue to charge a security deposit. I find that guests are much better at following the rules with a deposit it place. 

This is not a phishing message, it is legitimately from Vrbo - we got it also, as well as other partner-level communication.

We are not lawyers and have no competency to express legal opinions other than from the perspective of a layman.

Generally, in order to be regulated by a government entity, a person or business has to have presence (nexus) within the jurisdiction of that entity.  So, if you live in Florida and own property in Florida, and someone from California places a booking, that would not put you under the authority of California regulators because you have no business existence there.

Obviously, Vrbo does have offices in California, so must obey California regulations.  But that wouldn't apply to your own Florida-based direct-book website.

As we read it, there are two halves to the regulation:

1. You must allow free cancellation within 24 hours.  Although OwnerRez custom cancellation policies (which match and map to Vrbo's) don't support this option at present, OwnerRez itself doesn't enforce any cancellation policies itself - it simply displays them to you and the guest.  When a cancellation occurs, you manually enforce the policy as you see fit, which also means you can be more generous, including by permitting a free full cancellation within 24 hours even if the cancellation policy doesn't technically allow it.  If your property is in California, this would be wise, as it seems like that would be compliant with the regulation.  If you have no California nexus, we'd view that as up to you.  Note that, as we read the regulation, it doesn't require you to state that as your policy, simply that you do it.

2. Regarding the cleaning charge, the simplest immediate solution is just to not have one, and to adjust your nightly rates accordingly.  There are other things you can do to roll surcharges into rent displays, but it is unknown whether they are technically compliant with the regulation, which is very new and no doubt will be subject to considerable litigation.

It is possible that Vrbo will add additional features to their custom cancellation policy system, in which case OwnerRez will promptly implement them as well.  No announcement or ETA has been made at this time concerning this.

Last Friday I received the following notification from Vrbo:

We are writing to inform you that effective July 1, 2024, California Assembly Bill 537 will prohibit advertising, displaying or offering a rate that does not include all fees or charges required to stay at a short-term lodging (except taxes and fees imposed by a government on the stay). For example, cleaning fees will now need to be included in the nightly rate shown to travelers.

... This information is based on Vrbo’s current understanding of applicable laws and should not be relied on by partners. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with this new California law and seek legal counsel for further guidance.

I was wondering if Owner Rez, or any other users, have any input on this subject. Does it only relate to properties and/or property owners located in California? Or is it to pander to every CA resident  who may be interested in booking a property anywhere in the world?

It's also possible that this is a phishing email. I didn't click on the link.

Any insight would be helpful. And if this is legitimate, and Vrbo's interpretation is correct, what are some possible solutions?

Thank you!

Here's how to keep the security deposit hold:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/security-deposit-holds#charging

This does not require any interaction with Airbnb at all.

However, it sounds like your situation is a bit more complicated, in that, even if you keep the entire security deposit amount, the cost of the damage still would not be covered.

Therefore, you have a couple of options, that you'll need to make a risk-based decision on.

1. You could file a claim with Airbnb, and not keep the security deposit.  This has the potential of full coverage of the damages, but, the risk that you'll get nothing at all.

2. You could file a claim with Airbnb, and also keep the security deposit.  If Airbnb rejects the claim, you still have the security deposit funds.  If Airbnb accepts the claim, you could refund the excess to the guest.  However, this may confuse matters, and could result in both the Airbnb claim being denied and the security deposit getting hit with a chargeback.

3. You could reach out to the guest to discuss and negotiate.  However, this depends on the honesty of the guest.

4. You could keep the full amount of the security deposit, then immediately open another security deposit, and keep whatever amount is necessary from that one to cover the full cost of the damage.  However, doing this twice increases the likelihood that the guest will file chargebacks, and likely get all their money back.

Note that security deposit holds do not last forever - they automatically expire, and, while OwnerRez will attempt to renew them, by that time the guest may have put a block on the card to prevent this.

So we had our first damages since converting to API connection with OR.  It's an Airbnb reservation and the guest paid us the damage deposit directly via our Stripe account listed in our OR.  I want to find out the process for retaining that damage deposit (it's less than the damages but better than nothing).  Do we have to do something through Airbnb directly or can we simply notify the guests of the damage/amounts and retain the damage deposit without concern for Airbnb?  Thank you.

Hey Tim,

Sounds like the Tax Detail Report would serve you better here than the Tax Summary Report:

https://app.ownerrez.com/reports/taxdetail

You can include bookings with no tax charges on the Tax Detail report, which would pull in those Airbnb bookings for you on the same report. Setting the report to group by listing site would be preferred:

If you have any further questions, feel free to write in to the helpdesk at help@ownerrez.com so we can take a closer look for you!