General Help and Questions

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Yep, this is one of the big things that we need to do -- update the quote and widget so it doesn't include the secdep in the total -- TI as well. That will clarify what's going on. We also have a dev cycle planned for additional payment criteria which would let you put the deposit in a separate payment (perhaps the first of 3) etc.

I know we talked about this on the phone, but just wanted to post this here for general edification :-)

We collect the customer address (and email/phone) during reservation from a quote in OwnerRez, and also if a guest is e-signing the renter agreement for listing site sourced bookings.

I am very new to Owner Rez and would appreciate some feedback.

Is there a way to get customer provided mailing address information into the owner rez system without me having to retype it.
Thanks
Andree'

I would totally love a group availability widget so that we could use it to collectively advertise it through other channels such as magazines and other deal aggregators .... it just doesnt make economic sense to advertise 1 or 2 properties in those channels...
thank you so much for the idea BuleMountain

reason I am asking as I use traditional DD. so what happens is people being people do not look at quote carefully when thy do it online so then they comment something like "oh we did not expect it to be $2200" whereas in reality it is $1900 (plus $300 refundable DD). I get comments like that all the time and how many just abandon cart because they do not see that deposit is REFUNDABLE

Not started yet as I said, but i follow b&b + VR forums. I get the sense quite a few owners prefer it that way. And that it seems like not a security deposit to guests. Coupled with the fact traditional hotels/motels do this, FWIW

MY bigger concern once I start, is that some OTAs seem to make the security deposit into an ordeal and some VR owners have gotten delisted over minor attempts or misunderstandings trying to collect for damage.

And perhaps, using the credit card approach might invite more chargebacks?

I agree with Chris/Paul in using both traditional security deposit and I believe the damage deposit. Rather than trying to collect, it is discouraging damage in the first place. My legal agreement is harsh. I make it clear those who chargeback (friendly fraud/flippant) or deny their damage or vandalize, etc... face: entire party will be named in a court claim + face charges of theft by deception + all will be reported to all credit bureaus for nonpayment of bills. Of course, I would only bring this clause up with the nonpaying abusers...

I know this topic has been beaten to death. But, I am wondering if I can improve my bookings as it seems a lot of people do not realize that my quotes include REFUNDABLE damage deposit and quote may seem high compared to someone who charges insurance only or has secdep as Auth on CC.

Does anyone use Secdep as CC hold (vs to actually charging the card or receiving payment, and then refunding) + ARDI insurance?
I have never used Secdep as CC hold, how hard is it to charge any damage against it?

has anyone switched form using traditional damage deposit (collected amount) to CC hold secdep? has it increased your bookings?
My larger more luxury property has $500 damage deposit, and I am wondering if it is impeding my bookings. On the other hand, I do not want damages (who does), and actual damage deposit ius usally a good deterrent for that. any advice ? Tia. My cabins can be seen at bluemountaincabins.com

Dynamic pricers like PriceLabs push their rates into OwnerRez as spot rates, which override any seasonal rates in the system.

All of our channel integrations that push rates use those rates as they push out (optionally with a per-channel percentage adjustment).

Something I was thinking is, for the busier seasons I don't plan to use small/specialty OTAs such as BringFido/MisterBnB, as it brings more complexity. Someone in support mentioned that recently.

But I was considering using them for slow seasons or for Mon-Weds time frame to catch a few extra bookings.

Of course, not yet sure how to set that logic up!

Question, how will that work together with PriceLabs or other dynamic pricers? Part of the appeal of these to me, is to let them constantly determine all the best prices for the next few months and have the PMS (OR) push it to all channels. So I don't have to touch them if I don't want.

In addition to what Chris said, keep in mind that many reviews may be stored (whether manually entered or imported in bulk) globally and not against a specific booking. Airbnb reviews are the only ones that automatically find and match up against bookings at the moment. Other reviews, imported in bulk, will not be linked to a booking.

Yep, most calendars aren't built to show many properties at once or half days either.

If they've got OwnerRez accounts, email me a list and I'll have a look and see what we can do.

If you go to the Bookings tab and switch to list view, hit the Filter button and it will let you filter down to show bookings with or without reviews.

This will only show the ones recorded in OwnerRez, so if you're checking up on bookings from listing sites, make sure to run the channel bridge review imports for those before you run the query so everything's up to date.

Can OR help with identifying guests who haven't left a review? How can I make this task easier?
Thanks

Yep, that's our main focus right now! Pushing rates by hand sucks, to push it mildly. We have been turning on direct connections to sites all year.

We're already connected with booking.com (https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/connect-ownerrez-t-booking-com) and TripAdvisor. For either of those, you can go into OwnerRez and create a channel and push out the rates directly to the site automatically from OwnerRez. For booking.com, you can accept bookings directly right into OwnerRez. For TripAdvisor, it's still importing bookings via iCal but we're about to release a direct connection for that as well (ETA a couple of weeks).

We're also almost done with Airbnb rate push via our channel bridge tool -- that'll be out in a couple of weeks too.

For HomeAway and VRBO, we're working with them on a direct integration as we speak. That should be available early in the new year.

Is there anyway to push pricing to VRBO/Homeaway, AirBnb, and Bookings.com. I would like to push the pricing out to these sites across multiple properties(location based) and be able to adjust pricing from the OwnerRez interface vs. having to go to each site (3x25 properties = 75 times). Any suggestions?

I would not hope for Anything from TA. I have not seen an inquiry let alone a booking from them in months. They keep pushing for instant book which I am not enabling there as I know their calendars are notoriously slow to sync and they charge owner for overbooking/cancellations $200 (unless something recently changed)

It was browser not painting whole page for some reason.

I do not know how many but I would think at least a dozen. I'd imagine if it works more will jump on board. All the calendars I tried limit ical in-feeds to about 5-6 and also display gets very unreadable. Google calendar is not good as it does not show half-days. If you know any calendar that supports more than 5-6 ical feeds pls let me know. I was trying to solve it for our group of owners but gave up.

yes I was also thinking permissions.. else a availability search combined widget would be awesome too.

Yeah, we've thought about how to do that. If they already have OwnerRez accounts that's the biggest hurdle -- once they do, it's just a matter of some sort of permissions that would allow crossing between properties.

How many properties are we talking about? If it's just a couple, the simplest thing would be to have each owner generate a separate calendar widget and then put those on a central page. Then link from that page to each individual owner's site. That way the guest can come to the availability page, see which one they want, then go to the individual owner's site and submit an inquiry there.

If it's a bunch, then you probably want an availability search widget. We don't have a way right now to search across users, but email me over at help@ownerreservations.com the list of users and we can start thinking about what it would take.

Interesting, was it an extension interfering with it or just a browser issue?

Here's an article that walks you through: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/capture-additional-fields-on-checkout-quote-acceptance.

For guest names, you can either create one big text field and make it multiline (or "rich text"), and give an instruction like "Guest Names, one per line". Or you can create separate fields for each guest name you want.

I actually went to write an article about this and found out we already had one :-D

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/fill-gap-hole-nights

SiteMinder's page is a bit confusing, but it looks like it's $75 for 15 properties, but they don't have a lower price for less properties.

We're watching these options closely as we plan out our development for next year. There can be a "first mover" advantage on some things, but on the other hand being the one to blaze the trail can sometimes take a lot more time vs. letting somebody else figure out that path first.

All of these API's are currently very hotel oriented and many are not currently designed or priced for a couple of units, but only for 10's or 100's. So we're hoping Google (and TripAdvisor as well) will come up with models that work better in the vacation rental space and can accommodate smaller numbers of units.

If anyone is using CPC and getting good results, I'd love to hear about it!

I believe RemoteLock has an integration for that. How are you doing Schlage, with a vera?

Yep, that's what I'd recommend! You can't have one widget that sometimes does book now and sometimes does send inquiry, but you could create two separate widgets, one for each property, and then turn on or off the book now on the widget.

I do not know about that., but you can create 2 different widgets for 2 different properties with different feautures

Another thing you can do is grab a channel bridge export for bookings in the past. We pull the tax details for what Air and VRBO directly charge and remit separately as guest fees.

Chrome browser. Select custom email is missing(only scheduled email templates are in the list); when trying to "send again" a previously sent email. there is no send button below email body.

NVM, restarted browser, works