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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

It applies to every direct booking. That's part of the arrangement with TravelGuard that allows us to offer low prices -- they've got to spread risk.

For calendar imported bookings, you can apply damage protection or not by changing the "Apply Damage Protection" toggle on each calendar import.

A follow-up question... does Damage Protection apply to *every* booking ON MY CALENDAR even ones I enter manually to my calendar, and bookings that are imported from VRBO, etc?

Or does Damage Protection ONLY apply to the bookings that are actually processed and paid through OwnerRez?

Thanks for the clarity!

Monica

... actually, scratch that. There's a better way to do it that you can do yourself.

a) try a void and a refund on the payment. If that works, you're done. If not...
b) click "change details" and put a note on the payment about what happened (so you'll remember if it comes up later)
c) click Refunds on the Transactions tab of the booking and Record Refund (which will do a manual refund record). Set it as a "Credit Card Processed Elsewhere" type and put a note in there too

Once you record the refund, the booking will have a balance again and you can send the additional payment request.

Ouch, that's not good!

So in OwnerRez, you can click on the payment and refund it -- all of those operations are available in OwnerRez without dropping to your merchant gateway account. You can also void it if it hasn't settled yet but it's probably too late for that if it happened yesterday.

However, it's likely that refund will error if they've already canceled the payment on their end. What's the booking number? I'll try doing a refund and if that doesn't work I will manually unhook the payment from the booking for you so you can send the new payment request.

Yesterday I sent out my very first payment request for a guest to click through and pay securely online. Yay! Very exciting and the guest said it was a "piece of cake" which is great! Trouble is, the link that the merchant processor had given me to send out was for someone else's merchant account. Zoinks.

So now, even though the processor has canceled his original payment and is waiting for him to RE-SUBMIT his payment information via my new link, the OwnerRez system won't let me send a second payment request because it thinks it's already been paid.

Is there a way to reset it so I can send a new payment request?

Thanks!

Yep, you can turn damage protection on and off at any time or adjust the tiers as you want. When you turn it on it will apply to new bookings but not existing ones (although you can add it to existing ones if you want). Same thing on tier changes -- that'd apply for new bookings after you make the change, not any existing policies. If you turn it off entirely, you'd keep the policies you've already purchased and it wouldn't be applied to any new bookings.

To do this, go over to the Rules tab of the quote or booking and set secdep to "Do Not Reserve" there. The rules tab on the quote and booking mirrors the relevant rules that are also set on the property -- the property rules are basically the defaults for new quotes/bookings, and then you can edit the rules for a specific quote or booking individually if you want.

It looks like these guests are for inquiries, not bookings. Are you getting value from forwarding those notifications in? Evolve is tough because they give 0 info in the iCal.

Couple options here... could just stop forwarding in the inquiries and then the guests wouldn't be created. Or maybe merge them all together?

Can you give me a booking # with the "can't be deleted because bookings" issue? I spot checked a couple and didn't see ones with bookings.

Hi all!
I am considering turning on the damage protection for my property however I would like to be able to turn it off later if I choose to, OR adjust the dollar amount tier up or down later.

Is this possible? Or is it a case where once I commit to turning it on, it can never be disabled?

And can I change the tiers? For example, if I want to start at $500 and then later increase it to $1500 worth of coverage can I do that?

Thanks!
Monica

I have many repeat guests from whom I don't hold a security deposit. Trouble is, I can't figure out how to remove / disable it during the quote process OR after the house has already been booked.

I see OLD instructions in these forums but those were from many years ago and I tried following them but I don't think they apply anymore.

Help?

Thanks
Monica

I use Evolve to help me book my vacation rental. My challenge as it relates to OwnerRez is that my guest listings are now littered with Evolve Vacation Rentals as if each one is a separate guest. It won't let me delete them because it says they are associated with bookings.

How do y'all deal with that?

Thanks!
Monica

Is this outside of OTA functionality, ie your own website, or does it work on Airbnb, etc

Hi Abiquiu,

Yes, you can do that. Those are called "optional surcharges". Go to Settings > Surcharges and create one, select optional surcharges and then fill out the rest. Lot of options there, so let me know if something is confusing. Depending on the criteria you select, the guest would then be able to select those during the quote acceptance process (ie. when booking).

For instance, here's a quote where someone has added things like Bounce House and Wedding Events to be selected. This is what the guest sees when they're accepting the quote and booking.

Each add-on/optional item can also have a full rich-text description with pictures. For instance, in the above example, if you click on the "what is this" link next to the bounce house, the guest would see this.

Any updates on this?

Is there a way to create add-ons on the reservations page that people can add to their reservation - for example, a cake for anniversaries/birthdays, packaged deals, etc?

Chris, any news on that front? I am thinking of putting another property on B but will not do unless I can limit calendar...Just waaay too many cancellations.

I did. Took a month, they have finally removed their payments BUT they do not allow to set up prepayments because I am new. So pick your poison - either use their payments and possibly require prepayment ()for example at 60 days) OR use OR payments but Booking will try to force you pay-at-check-in

Hi BlueMtn., Did you get this worked out with Booking.com? I have started the process and am finding the same problem. No way to take my own payments. urgh....
Thanks, Sherene

any news? I have 5 bookings and out of those 4 became cancellations. Their platform is ridiculous

I believe HomeAway requires 5+ properties to be configured as a property manager.