General Help and Questions

Sort by

• Newest Reply
• Newest Topic

Noticed my last 2 TA inquiries:
1. was 8 adults and 4 children on TA - showed up as 8 adults and 8 children on OR; created rule violation
2. was 6 adults and 4 children on TA, showed on OR as 6 adults and 6 children, created rule violation

We had an error in the deployment earlier. This is now fixed.

Tripadvisor inquiry, created quote, cannot email. getting
What just happened?

Whatever you just did caused an error. We immediately logged the error and sent emails to the right people.
What do I do now?

Try whatever you were doing one more time. If the error still occurs, please contact us and tell us what happened. Or, even better, use the Feedback menu at the top right of the page to send a suggestion.

This is a good one. I know several people put text on their site asking them to enter that in the comments, but that's sort of brittle. We could put a free text field for that on the widget, but there are already a ton of fields there.

Best idea would be to use a custom field to capture that on checkout: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/capture-additional-fields-on-checkout-quote-acceptance

Other than knowing which website the given traveler has inquired from or booked, is there a way to add optional question/field to inquiry/quote widget and /or check out form so that owner may know where/how the guest found owners' website? I advertise on craigslist, visitmysmokies etc, have presence on google etc. So when those people finally get to website, I do not know where they found it 9 they could have seen my ad on CL, or saw it on Google, or Visitmysmokies). would be good if I know what site has driven the inquiry. Or is there any other way to know this?

I looked into this and I don't see any support in GA for passing custom values you can see in real time. The only thing you can set is the event label. You can pass custom values for a visitor that are visible on the non-realtime reports, but even that support is limited.

We'll keep this in mind for a future enhancement if GA adds support we can use to show additional values in the real time dashboard. Or maybe we need to build our own real time dashboard ;-)

In both cases I was asked, it was for a debit card, and about 24 hours after they got the 'release email' that they inquired as to why the funds were still on hold.

This is good information to have if it comes up again.

Thanks,
-JJ

Got it thank you so much!

Make the change on the booking Rules, not the property Rules. You'll have to do that for each VRBO booking as it comes in, but that way it'll apply to only that booking, not the rest of the direct bookings etc.

<<Set it to "automatically reserve a security deposit" even though it won't actually be automatic in this case, and fill out the details. Leave "Security Deposit Reminder" set to "do not send an email reminder" because you'll be sending your own 3 days before arrival.>>
If I do that, would it not apply to my direct OR bookings going forward? i do not have sec dep enabled on those because I collect (and then refund) sec dep as non-taxable surcharge. if I enable it, would it not result in having a "double" deposit - one as a "surcharge" and another as CC hold? Thanks

Yep, it's never good to have a third party in charge of the damage deposit. I've seen people doing exactly what you describe with stating the secdep in the house rules and it works well.

Sending the link should work as long as you go into the booking Rules and enable the secdep there. That's probably what's tripping it up right now -- you have the secdep off for the property, so the booking Rules default to that. But you can change that on a booking by booking basis.

Set it to "automatically reserve a security deposit" even though it won't actually be automatic in this case, and fill out the details. Leave "Security Deposit Reminder" set to "do not send an email reminder" because you'll be sending your own 3 days before arrival.

Once you do that, the security deposit link will be enabled for the booking and you can send it to the guest.

Did the security deposit release go through successfully as normal?

Usually it is the same day you release the security deposit, but the actual removal of the hold is up to the originating bank that issue the guest credit card. We've found that banks tend to be worse about releasing holds on debit cards, unfortunately.

Some times if the guest contacts their bank they'll be able to speed up the release process by noticing you've released on your end and dropping it off the account manually.

VRBO/Ha started to hold security deposits (i.e they charge the renter sec dep but they do not deposit it into owner's account). I do not like that arrangement at all. I like to be in control of deposit instead of (potentially) having to prove damages to HA in order to collect from deposit.
So I was entertaining the following idea.
1. set up VRBO with "security deposit not required".
2. Disclose in VRBO listing that sec dep will be required by a cc and will be collected 3 days prior to arrival.
3. VRBO booking is imported to OR
4. be able to send the sec dep link to the renter 3 days prior to arrival and have them submit their CC info for the sec dep amount. I don' want to have to handle their CC myself

I have done some testing and it seems I am unable to set up a link for sec deposit UNLESS I enter guest's card number. But i want to have THEM enter the card number when they receive a link.

P.S. I do not collect sec dep in a form of CC auth for my OR bookings - I have it as a nontaxable "surcharge" that I later refund. So i do not have sec dep enabled globally.

So is there anything i am doing wrong here? That is preventing me form being able to send them a link where they can enter their CC for sec dep hold?
TIA

How long does it usually take for the security deposit release to clear? I've had a couple people who paid with debit cards follow up about the deposit. I have SecureNet for the process.

thanks,
-JJ

Huh, that's a great idea! Like you mentioned, we already trigger the events in GA.

Could add some custom vars in there for Arrival and Departure, would that work?

is there any way to track in stats which dates users are queriying inquiry/book widgets for? We can already see in GA when user is using a booking/inquiry widget of which property. It's be great if we can also see what dates they plugged in. TIA.

Yes , that is what I did - put "undersigned" instead of name. Thanks a lot!

No, you can reference the guest name in the agreement, but the signing name isn't known until after the agreement is rendered.

Instead, it's stamped at the top and the bottom with their name and signature (see below). Can you reference the signatory, undersigned, etc.?

Eventually we'll add something where you can break the agreement into sections and require initialing of each one separately, but that's a more complex process to have multiple sections, sign, then stitch them back together.

Yep, the hotfix did the blanking. Have a look at the sign link for that booking now. The name will now be blank and you'll see the additional signing note at the bottom. That way when Sam Spade goes to sign, he'll have to put in his name or get an error. He could still put in the wrong name on purpose, but won't do it by accident.

Here's an example:

Good call on the blanking of the signing name -- we just pushed up a hotfix to do that and add a signature message.

The checkout fields are collected before the renter agreement, just for that reason -- so they can be included in the agreement.

We don't have a way to validate number of people on checkout, other than adding a required field where they type the number of guests again -- that may actually be the best way. Add a field called "confirm number of guests", require it, and then check that against the number of guests on the quote.

Problem with an actual number that would go into the guests field is that many amounts are based on number of guests with guest fees etc. But if you're checking the confirm field, you can then update the charges to match and send them another sign link from the booking.

The legal agreement prepopulates with the contact name from the contact info checkout step. Are they missing that and then just clicking next...next...next? I suppose I could see that, but what about the other side -- do you validate that the signing name matches the contact name or the billing name, and if so, what if they're different.

On the same note, I have a lot of situations when one person inquires but another member of the partywants to pay and be the signer of rental agreement. But the legal agreement form pre populates original inquirer's name . Is there any way to make that blank and require the signer to type in their name? Thanks

Cool. Noticed you're making some fields for other things like State and Phone. Most of those should be already collected at checkout - it's usually the guest list you need the custom field for.

To see how checkout looks for the guest, first go to Settings > Payment Methods and add one so you can go through checkout. A check method is is easy, and you can turn it off later if you don't want to take checks. Then go to Quotes and create a test one. Use the Payment Form link and that will take you to the checkout that the guest will see.

Got it - Thank you!

The code is what you'll pick in the Insert Field dialog to reference it in the legal agreement. The name is the human readable label.on The code is for the merge engine to reference. Put something like GUESTLIST - you'll see how it works once you get to the Insert Field step..