General Help and Questions

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Hello,

I'd like to split my payouts between different bank accounts when I receive the fees. So, for example, if i receive $1000 from the guest I'd like to have $75 go to bank account A and $925 go to bank account B. This is so that I can automatically pay my booking agent their fee of 7.5%. Is this possible? Any hacks or ideas?

Hi,

Wanted to see if there was a way that something flashes if there was a Note added, when creating new quote from previous guest? I seem to always forget to look to see if their was a problem with previous guest, when they inquire again.

Thanks,
Claudia

I use with VRBO booking .com and yes auto responders etc work. Tipadvior is challenge. Chris is working on that

Thanks. I was meaning that the only issue with direct integration is the calendar looking kind of stuff. All the other Communications and functionality work on all the OTAs?

awesome! maybe also put limit on B. com channel manager as to how far take bookings? wink wink

Yep, we're working on an update that'll let you set the theme to use (or none) for a given template.

The fees and taxes don't output automatically on the rate sheet because there can be some differences in criteria (for example, your case where it only applies next year). We will add those at some point, but in the meantime the best thing to do is to fill out the Rate Notes in the Description tab of the property -- that'll go right next to the rates.

Still working on all of those integrations! Air and VRBO have channel bridge imports now: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/channel-bridge. We're working on exports for rates etc. for those. TripAdvisor is integration developed and we're waiting for testing from them.

Even without the direct integrations, the 2 way iCal sync will keep all of those channels up to date so there's no issues there.

How close are full integrations with Airbnb, HomeAway family, Flipkey?

Not hear for awhile on progress. I am hoping to be doing my first bookings within about 3 weeks...

Does lack of integrations have any impact outside of calendar functionality?

Hi,
I use the hosted website, and just added a cleaning fee for next year.

When I go to the rates section, my new cleaning fee isn't showing anywhere... How do I add that?

thanks!
-JJ

That is the point The email is in plain text with nothing. However Theming footer is automatically applied to ALL emails (plain or otherwise) and that causes an issue. I also do not want clumsy Theming for al other emails that are not "blind"/ also, Tripadvisor WILL catch "go to xyz dot com". they have very sophisticated filters.

Try writing a plain text looking email, without any branding, and then spell out your website like... "Go to MyWebsite.com" or if that's blocked then say "Go to MyWebsite com (put that together with a dot)". That should work

I meant Theming , not Branding, sorry

No, you can still email something generic. But if there is anything in the message that even resembles phone number, email or website, they will block. Not blank out but block the entire message. So I have my logo, phone, email and website address in my "branding" footer. While that causes no issue when appended to "blind" response ton VRBO, it gets blocked on TA, thus essentially the inquiry is not responded to. If you want I can send you the print screen.

That's very interesting... I didn't realize TA blocked content based on message content. Is it that they block anything HTML?

I thought it was that they blocked all communication until the guest has made the final payment and then let communication through at that point.

I have set up generic message for blind auto responder. I also have "branding" - logo and phone/contact attached as footer to every email that includes my website, phone email etc. works fine with VRBO as VRBO just strips those off but allows message to go thru. However Tripadvisor blocks entire message thus negating the whole idea of auto response. Short of removing branding form the footer, is there any way around it?

Okay, I did a little digging

This might be a cool new feature for you, perhaps wired to your own functionality. I certainly would be interested.

I didn't check the others, but in AirBnB, it basically seems to be through the Resolution Center > Create a New Resolution > Request Payment for Extra Services. This would be in concert with mentioning the extra services.

A couple useful links for your perusal (how tos):

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/The-Resolution-Center-A-Community-Help-Guide-Request-or-Offer/m-p/8580#M1669

https://www.airgms.com/property-management-software/making-money-with-airbnb/

That's what I think he means. You don't want to nickel and dime people.
I do three things
Rent
Security
Cleaning
All the other costs (credit card, insurance, blah blah blah) I take as a cost of business.
Increasing rent for commission platforms like Airbnb is a great feature.
#bookdirect is the tagline for people who want to avoid these charges.
The only other thing I m thinking of is a discount for the use of cash versus a penalty for the use of a credit card.

Question - you say "Don't show the guest the damage protection" cost. In other words, I should pay it and they don't?

I am assuming you are telling me if I WANT to charge them, don't let them know what it is by rolling it into the rent, or into a generic fee such as cleaning or admin...

Thanks for the reply, Paul

My first two VRs (townhomes) will be hard to tell about popularity and how to price. Historically, they are off the charts, as they are 2/3 of a mansion that belonged to one of the most important (yet unknown) men in American history. And it was also the boyhood home of a US congressman. This is a small tourist town.

The "unknown" man invented the roller coaster, designed/built the first significant railroad in the USA, invented/built the world's first wire suspension bridge - such as the Brooklyn or Golden Gate Bridge, is considered by some to be the starter of the American Industrial Revolution, and quite a bit more.

I am just concerned about the "Sorry, your $2000 rent was just yanked because chargeback/Extenuating Circumstances/other stupid/fraudulent purpose" Thus I was considering a small admin fee in an attempt to balance it.

Apologies! I just saw your reply. This is functionality that only exists in the OwnerRez booking process (ie. Book Now widgets, hosted website, accepting a quote, etc). If the guest books on a channel, these add-ons aren't available unless you have them on the channel somewhere too. I don't know of any channels that support add-ons but there might be one I don't know about.

Hey Ross,

The channels definitely don't care about your property and will make very little (no?) effort to back you up. They're all about their fee structure and automating as many guests through the funnel as possible. VRBO could have differentiated themselves on that (against Air and B.com) years ago, and with other things, but decided to copy them and now suffers the same reputation and trust issues. Expedia shareholders don't care about that evidently.

The cleaning fee is a good idea - fairly common now so guests are fine with it (like fees when buying airline tickets)

I'd definitely do damage protection, but don't show it to the guest. They should only know that there's a security deposit being held. When their money is on the line, they behave better. But also have a solid low-cost damage protection. In OwnerRez, we have a built in product that covers all bookings automatically for a low cost (spread risk model) and uses AIG/Travel Guard. No statement of fault is required from the guest. The claim process is smooth and simple. Read more about that here:
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/damage-protection-overview

Most users do inflate their B.com prices by 15% to cover that big commission charge. B.com should lower that amount. I think they'd have better results (fewer cancellations, etc) if they came down a bit on that. They're not absorbing risk as the merchant of record, so I'm not sure why it's that high. Either way, it's pretty common. In OwnerRez, we have a full (2 way) integration with B.com and can add that 15% to your rates automatically.

Adding extra admin fees only works if you're in an area that has high demand and limited supply. In other words, only do that if you can get away with it. Otherwise, a lot of search traffic is going to skip past you when they see all the fees. You can roll that 3% admin fee into your base rent (so it's not seen) but that means your rate might be higher than the market average for your area. That's what it comes down to... what can you get away with while still building your brand, getting lots of business and building a solid reputation.

If you're booking too fast, raise the rent and fees. If you're booking too slow (lot of last minute bookings or unfilled weekends) then get rid of the fees. Dynamic pricing can help with this - Wheelhouse, PriceLabs, etc. and that's something we're adding in the near future.

A biggest thing that will protect you is good communication and clear procedures. Make sure guests know what to expect up front (house rules, emails, etc) and all throughout the booking lifecycle. Make sure your housekeeping crew and maintenance people are well equipped, fill out checklists and follow processes. Good communication and clear procedure lead to predictability.

Good luck with the upcoming turn-on,

-Paul

Chris,
I stopped having the Evolve bookings automatically sent to OR and we'll see if that helps!

Thanks,
Monica

Hi

I am several weeks away from making my first VR available (taking 6 months to get my 2 townhomes VR-ready)

The cavalier attitude of the OTAs is one of my biggest concerns in the future. So I am considering a few self-defense measures:
-- Cleaning fee (obvious) - I don't allow pets.
-- 3% damage deposit on all bookings PLUS a security deposit.
-- 12-15% fee on Booking.com bookings (to counter their 15% commission)
-- 3% "admin" fee on all bookings to counter chargebacks or the AirBnB "extenuating circumstances"

Thoughts? What do you do or suggest?

Yep, it was just a display issue in the text on the page, but the payment still works fine. Just pushed up a quick fix to show payments - refunds instead of just payments in that box (so it will now show $0 paid so far).

Sorry. It's NOT in the email request. My fault.

The erroneous text is on the webpage where the guest actually enters his credit card info.

Does that help clarify?

M.

I see it -- that's a bug, I've got it filed to fix.

However it's only affecting the text in the green box -- notice that you can now make the payment below.

Let the guest know to do it that way on the form (and ignore the green box) and we'll get that text fixed soon.

Thank you Chris. I just did what you said and it seemed to work, because when I tried to email the Request for Payments, and then I preview the email, it says the following:

"The total cost for this booking is $911.90 of which $911.90 has already been paid. Use the payment fields below to specify how much you're going to pay. If you're paying by credit card, you must confirm on the next page."

So that's weird. It's letting me do the payment request but the text says that it's already been paid. Sorry I can't show you a screen shot, but that text shows up in the green box in the body of the email right above the charges table.

Ideas? Thanks!

If you're worried about any card refunds, just start from step (b) above -- step (b) and (c) are just recording a manual offset to note what happened so there is a balance due in OwnerRez again. Recording a refund won't actually process it -- that'd be the "Send a refund" option.

Chris,
I appreciate your advice, and admittedly I'm super nervous about doing anything that has anything to do with a refund, because I don't want the cc processor to pull money out of my account to refund him, as his card was apparently never charged (by either myself or the other merchant).

Maybe I will just ask the guest to give me his cc info on the phone and I'll run it separately through my other payment processor and be done with it, just to avoid any unexpected technical glitches. Now that the processor has fixed the fact that I was attached to a different merchant account than my own (GAAAAH) that shouldn't happen again.

Thanks,
Monica