General Help and Questions

Sort by

• Newest Reply
• Newest Topic

I just looked at my page views comparing AirBnB listings to VRBO listings. February is always one of my biggest months for people viewing for summer bookings. For the first time AirBnB had more page views than VRBO.

Just sayin.....

For what it is worth Airbnb now helps with tax collection.

One of my properties is in Arizona where local regulations require me to collect and remit occupancy tax. True to American government form - taking something simple and making it as complex as possible - there are FOUR separate occupancy taxes to collect and remit. Even trying to follow all the rules I just yet again found out that one of the taxes that I am collecting - privilege tax - (oddly named), has yet another set of slightly different collection rules than the other taxes based on the length of stay of my guests.

VRBO leaves you out in the cold on this... up to you to figure out how to define your taxes and apply the tax rules. And of course they only allow for one blended tax rate, not the 4 different types with different rules. Arg.

AirBnB now automatically calculates the occupancy tax on a booking, adds it to the renter booking charges, and submits it on your behalf. How nice is that!!

Glenn

Hi BlueMtnCabins,

That's a really great question! I believe that all TripAdivsor PM accounts are subscription based but I'm not 100% sure on that. The big thing is getting PM turned on to begin with. They have changed requirements over the years but they tend to only do it if you have 5 properties or more. We are hoping that they open this up to more and more owners, not just the big guys, because it's such a great feature to be able to use.

-Michelle

Hi Jim,

Take a look this support article on the subject:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/damage-protection-overview

Does that answer all your questions? If not, please ask!

PS. If you notice in that, we do recommend having both damage protection and a security deposit in place. The security deposit is good for making the guest be careful because their money is on the line.

-Michelle

Is it possible to get more info on damage protection? Perhaps details on how claims are paid / processed, documentation required, etc ...

One fear is that without a deposit the guests may not be as careful with our belongings.

Is anyone using it and if so can you share your experience.

Thx,Jim

Is this for Tripadvisor subscription listings or pay per book? Sounds like subscription for PM?

Hi Marinas Edge,

It's a limited beta feature right now which is why we haven't announced it. If you want to join, we can try to get you in.

The channel integration for TripAdvisor is for both listings and inquiries.

For listings, how your properties are configured in OwnerRez (description, photos, amenities, availability, rates, etc) will determine how your TripAdvisor listings look. No need to ever update the TripAdvisor side. TripAdvisor will "pull" that information from our system several times per day and always keep your listings up to date.

For inquiries, TripAdivsor "pushes" us inquiries that you get in real time. No more sending emails and worrying about parsing or future changes to the format. If you have this channel integration established, it just works. The inquiry gets pushed directly into our system.

While this is obviously a great feature to have (HUGE time saver), there is a restriction to joining... You have be a "PM" in TripAdvisor's system. To get that status, contact pmsales@tripadvisor.com and ask to be converted to PM. It might take a few days (or weeks) before they respond. Just hang in there and keep calling and emailing. Once you get in PM mode, you want to tell them "I use OwnerRez as my software" and give them the channel feeds that we show in that Settings > Channels > TripAdvisor page. They'll use that to make the integration work.

I just noticed you offer a TripAdvisor channel integration but I can't figure out how it works. Looks cool....please advise

At one point Kodak was all that too. where are they now? All I am saying it matters little what the rest of the world thinks - if the company screws up (and no one including AirBNB is guaranteed from it). We shall see.

@blueMtnCabins-

I'm not joking. I agree, if you don't set a minimum on smartpricing it won't work.

Sounds like you've had some bad luck with AirBnB. Knock on wood, we haven't and I personally believe it is the future...a $25 Billion Dollar valuation is indicative of what the rest of the world thinks as well.

No, but what I do is I make them agree via email to mu house rules (which includes having to sign rental agreement and provide copy of ID to me - not to Airbnb). Only after they acknowledge that they understood and agree, I accept the booking. after booking is accepted I have their phone #, I get their email, send the rental agreement to be filled and signed via signnow, and have them email or text me copy of their ID.
Granted it will not make me whole in case of breakage, but at least having to verify age, supply and ID and sign the rental agreement has some deterrent effect.
I also find that higher percentage of AirBNB guests have this "I know it all " attitude(when they don;t). Like I specifically send very detailed driving directions (we are in the mountains and I KNOW that in many spots GPS and cell phones have no signal). My email specifically says "do not rely on GPS alone, follow directions". The know-it-all AirBNB guests more often than any other disregard my directions, and then start texting me or calling because they are on a wrong street etc. I just shake my head - I send directions and instructions for a GOOD reason, not just for them to ignore. because I KNOW how GPS may be wrong or lose signal. But of course they are oh-so-smart until they get lost.
I also hate the fact that AirBNB took upon itself not to include babies in overall guest count. So technically according to AirBNB they can bring over limit number of people just because they do not count babies. i guess if natural disaster happens, we will tell rescuers not to look for babies - as babies do not count, according to AirBNB. And who AirBNB thinks they are to decide who should/should not be counted in the guest count? I find it amazing how company that owns nothing but website and arrogance basically dictates owners policies.

I think the minimum price setting takes care of them going too low, but I've never used it.

Marinas Edge, have you gotten higher prices with the smart stuff turned on? Or does it always tend to hit your minimum?

You must be joking right? if I let AirBNB set their "smart pricing", they would charge about 40% less per night than I do (and my calendars are pretty full as it is). yes i know I can set min price, but then what is the point? I do not know, maybe smart pricing works somewhere someplace, but not for my type of property - it is more like "ripoff pricing".

And yes, while AirbNB booking percentage in overall mix has gone up (from 0 in 2015), they do supply higher percentage of problem/messy/do not follow the rules guests than any other platforms.
Like someone above mentioned, I also cringe every time I get AirBNB booking , thinking "what will this one do?"

Yes, it's 25. And that doesn't particularly matter because Airbnb does not verify the age ;-). Their ID checking process is a joke, I found out, even assuming you have that turned on. The current people who we had a problem with were in their 40s and 50s.

(Oh and the same guy left a 3 star review on TripAdvisor because "our price was higher on Airbnb than on our website and he felt over charged" even though I explained that the Airbnb rate has to be higher to account for things like taxes that they don't add on. And of course there's a service fee)

We just don't have these problems. Is your minimum age 25?

I just now, this morning, was notified by Airbnb that a guest who damaged a $50 stainless cooking pan and took two pool cues and brought extra guests without paying would not have to pay anything.

I did the normal "request money from guest" (which is a joke of course) and the guest rejected it. I escalated it and Airbnb has now denied the claim. They saw the pictures but said pans are "wear and tear" items. This pan was purchased brand new within a year (I have the Amazon receipt) and was completely destroyed. The pool cues can't be paid for because they're "missing inventory" which evidently isn't paid for. I mean huh -- "missing inventory"??? So if a bunch of sheets, dishes, etc all disappear, nothing is covered?

If I try to get security deposits directly from the guest in the future, that's a violation of Airbnb terms. So Airbnb guests can basically steal whatever they want from the house and Airbnb won't cover it and I have no way of billing the guest.

How do you handle this, Marinas Edge?

Interesting to hear that people have had problems with guests from AirBnB. Here's some data to consider (out total #of bookings by year for AirBnB-it's exponential growth, doubling every year and more than quadrupling last year since we started). There are other factors contributing to this growth, but if not for AirBnB this last year we would have had major cash flow problems with our business.

2013-3 bookings
2014-7 bookings
2015-15 bookings
2016-73 bookings
2017-12 bookings to date (it's only February)

Of all these guests we've had <3 that have been problematic. AirBnB offers 2 way reviews, so if a guest is problematic they get a poor review from us which means in the future if they want to book the host will know they are problematic. It doesn't happen that way with any of the other platforms.

For us, AirBnB integrates very cleanly with OwnerRez with the iCal synching I never wonder if my calendar is in synch. While it would be nice to have backend integration I honestly don't see the benefit (the AirBnB app is incredible and is ridiculously simple to book guests).

In terms of pricing....here's a trick I've learned....don't even try to keep prices in synch...it's a nightmare. I have chosen to use AirBnB's "Smart Pricing" feature and let it choose (with a minimum price set by me) for the majority of the offseason. I set the price for the peak season and holiday seasons.

A few other things to consider...AirBnB doesn't charge for their listings (free). They deduct their fees from my prices (vs. charging the guest like VRBO). I can move guests between units (I have multiple condos in the same complex) on AirBnB seamlessly (I can't on VRBO).

I'm obviously a huge fan of AirBnB. Don't miss this wave...they'll blow VRBO out of the water in a few short years I believe (they already are).

Has anyone been able to make a third party web page work? I created one on Weebly, complete with calendar and inquiry widget back to OR. However I haven't gotten one hit from it yet. Obviously it is not coming up in the search engines. Any strategies for that? I know OR is going to start offering to host web sites. But I have discovered you can have the most beautiful site in the world but it is of no use if it does not appear in the web searches. I have dabbled a bit in facebook and google adwords advertising, but to zero effect.

Regarding Marinas Edge's posting, I have also read elsewhere that AirBnB is Millennial vs VRBO which is older generation. Obviously the older generation is a preferred group to rent to ... less likely to have parties, more traditional with vacations, etc. I am wondering if setting the limit on minimum number of nights to a higher number would attract a tamer crowd (ie not people looking to crash for a few days). Does anyone have any experiences with that?

I am on the edge of not renewing my VRBO subscription when it is time for renewal. I hate the fact that we owners have to pay for it AND there is a guest service charge as well... just seems overly greedy. Combine this with the fact that they shortchanged me my security deposit last year on a rental and it took me four calls to sort it out. The first two calls were met with 'oh you don't know what you are talking about... the settlement on your rental is fine'. The third call was ... 'oh I guess you are right there is a mistake in the (bizarre) way we calculate the settlement and we indeed did make a mistake and short change you $500'. The fourth call was 'oh yea, we did notice we made a mistake in your account as per your third call two weeks ago, but we don't know why we never sent you your $500 let us take a few weeks to look into that. Are you kidding me?

I might not like AirBnB and how closed it is, but at least they way they calculate settlement is straightforward and they haven't made a mistake yet.

The rates too!!! Yes, blue mountain is right! Same thing for us. The don't have any way of setting seasons unless you literally set a rate for every night of the year on the calendar. TERRIBLE. We've had guests get mad at us because "the rate was higher than your website" but we have to do that to make sure we're covered for taxes and seasonal differences.

I understand what you're saying, Sam, but it seems like 90% of our bad guests come from Airbnb. Young college age groups, foreigners who don't understand our signs or house rules, groups of people looking to "crash" somewhere". We are listed on Airbnb but I have a HUGE LOVE/HATE relationship with them. We aren't going to take down our listings yet, but we cringe every time we get bookings through them. They are almost always bad.

I hate ABB period; I do not like a lot of clientele they provide (messy and at the same time picky). the owner dashboard, price setting etc is clunky. But they started to generate bookings so i will use until better alternatives are developed.

I think Marinas Edge is right, but it pains me to say that... I'd love to love Air, but they make it hard for 3rd party integration. They also REALLY restrict guest interaction with other guests which they claim is for protection. They def. got their claws into the market in a way that VRBO and others are now struggling to copy. If you're not on Air, you really should be.

I love this thread. Here's what we do (it isn't perfect but works).

-We allow instant booking on VRBO. When a guest instant books my wife uses the information to manually create an instance in OR. This is well worth her time as we send a number of automated emails.

-If a guest doesn't instant book on VRBO we use the VRBO inquiry parser and manually input the guests email address (available from VRBO). Then we simply send the standard OR quote and life is great

-We also have a 3rd party booking units for us. We use the awesome OR ical import for these bookings. It's automatic and it just works.

-We, too, have seen a dramatic decrease in VRBO inquiries but a HUGE increase in AirBnB bookings. This has happened in the last year. I'm a huge believer that AirBnB will dominate in a few short years. We use the AirBnB app or website to do all correspondence with the guest. Once a guest books we use the awesome OR ical import (automatic). My wife gets the guests email address (available after booking) and puts it into the OR booking that came from iCal.

My money is on AirBnB. The new generation AirBnB's....the older generation VRBO's. If you aren't using AirBnB I'd recommend doing it sooner than later.

I have my own data for last year and this year in a table form by source, but i do not think I can post a JPG here?

Love to see some site wide data from OwnerRez on VRBO vs. TripAdvisor vs. Air vs. private/custom sources. I guess it woudl "system listing sites" vs personal ones. I strongly suspect BlueMtnCabins is right. Same thing for us. VRBO has dropped dramatically for us from the good ole days when it was nothing but VRBO. They may have made a lot of money from their acquisitions and changes but it's really hurt traffic for a lot of owners.

VRBO is not going to stay in the lead IMO. In 2015 80-85% of my bookings were VRBO. Now it is hovering around 30% and I am halfway or more booked for the year.
if I were you I would not try to spend too much time on trying to automate VRBO interface as I predict the bookings from that source will continue to diminish barring a miracle. They have messed up the site too much.

I do not even use auto reposnders with vrbo. I just let whomever wants to book using VRBO book via VRBO, then reservation gets synced/imported to OR and from there on I use OR for the communication.

As far as additional payment, it can be done via VRBO dashboard, but I do not recommend. get yourself a Square account and just bill/invoice a renter for an extra night, for example. Square produces beautiful invoices and receipts and it takes about 3 days to get money deposited to your account. Unfortunately I do not think Square integrates with OR, but it is perfect for one -off situations like this.

Possibly, we're still reviewing, but haven't seen any conflicts. You do have a weekly rate that would factor out to $361/night, but its for a different property.

I have not been able to repro the $361 issue, and also get the correct price when running the rate tester. But I believe it might be related inactive weekly rates for the property? I was going to delete these as they are no longer valid but I kept them in as I thought they might help debug.

We're looking into this issue. The weekly rates on the rates table widget is a known issue that's going to be fixed in the next release due out shortly -- the widget was showing disabled rates.

The $361 issue is separate. Did you ever have a $361 rate? If I run a rate tester or quote for those dates (8/12-8/19), I get the $425 rate.

If you create a quote again, can you reproduce the issue?