General Help and Questions

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What are Sage's Echeck fees? Do they do that? Or is it only Credit Cards?

Thanks,
Claudia

Yes, I'm saying to do this.

Right now, the renter agreement page is hard-coded into the payment process. There is no way to remove it from the process or to give them a roadblock of "fax in the signed agreements" prior to continuing.

We've seen this kind of process with a number of owners, but we're still debating how best to implement it.

-Michelle

Hi Michelle,

So how would I do this -
Inquiry comes into your system
1) system creates a quote
2) I accept the values and send it - but can I modify it to delete the rental agreement link and then if they say they want to rent I send them my normal rental agreement - I can always have wording on the rental agreement link to say something to the effect the rental agreement will be sent via email if ready to book.
3) they send the agreement back and how do I send them the payment link??
or are you saying I do my manual work up front(quote email) and then when I have the rental agreement then I send the quote generated that will include the rental agreement (which will be a blank page or asking them to review the emailed version) and then pay the bill at the bottom or wherever the link is - no problem if they accept the rental agreement (that is blank) at that point.

I am trying to envision how I would be able to work with your system. This is a biggie for me. I have no problem with even just providing the rental agreement values/cost in that page but I need the actual agreement signed and faxed first.

Thanks, Silvia

Yes exactly. The owner-submitted reviews. Not perfect but something to get the HomeAway sites working for now.

-Michelle

Michelle,

Are you be talking about the reviews owners could put in? Except it's from the renter? I guess this could work if you somehow stated in the review it was submitting via owner Rez? Not quite helping with the rating system as you mentioned but it's something. I guess first could try to have the guest send it via their channels and if not review appears then send them the request to do it via your system and then upload it that way.

Silvia.

Gotcha. Because I know that I saw it other times.

Claudia

Actually, it seems like we missed an edge case. It DOES show pets if you have all three - adults, children and pets. It does NOT show pets if you only have adults and pets. We'll make sure to correct that.

-Michelle

Doesn't show if pet is included.

Claudia

Third party alerts are sent whenever a booking is first created, when the dates are updated (if they are) and when the booking is deleted/canceled.

I believe the pet tally is shown IF pets are included. It doesn't show a pet tally if there aren't any. I'll check to make sure.

-Michelle

I am not sure who these go to, but I send this out to my housekeeper. However, the email goes out, even when I am waiting for a check. Things happen when the potential guests decided they are not renting, after all. This letter went out already. What happens? When it is canceled, does another letter go out to the housekeeper stating it was canceled?

Also, it does not include PET. The tally is only number of people. Can you include PET, so that the housekeeper knows their will be extra cleaning involved?

OK, thanks.

Claudia

The total is figured per account per month. If you have 5 properties and do 5 bookings at each property during the month of May, your May invoice will reflect 25 bookings @ $2.00/per.

-Michelle

When you say per booking... do you mean the month it was booked? Or the month the rental date is on, that month?

In other words, I book 4 bookings in the month of May (2 for July, 2 for September). Does the per month apply for the month of May? Also, does the per month mean all properties? So, for my pocono mountain house I booked 2 - july and 2 - Sept. For my Hilton Head Island villa I booked 1 in August and 2 in October. Does this mean the tally is 6 bookings for one owner for the month of May?

Claudia

Also, all beta users (ie. anyone with an active account right now) will receive a 25% discount for life on their OwnerRez fees.

All bookings, no matter the size or payment type (check or credit card), will have the same pricing tier.

This is the pricing tier: http://i.imgur.com/mshKk.png

So if you have 5 bookings in the month, your bill will be $17.50. If you have 10 bookings, your bill will be ~$25. And so on, depending on the tier you fall into.

But that's assuming every booking is either check or via a credit card account not created by us. Any bookings with credit card payments via a merchant account created by us are always free.

-Michelle

What is the pricing for checks? You were mentioning that it is a certain amount, within different ranges of bookings.

Claudia

Yes, but for my hilton head island villa, most pay by check.

Claudia

Pricing is going live at the end of this sprint which I don't have a firm ETA on. There is quite a bit we need to do.

It shouldn't affect you much because you created a merchant account with our banking partner. So most of your booking transactions will be free.

-Michelle

It is the booking emails, it is the response letters (not having the charges broken up on the email) for the owner, it is the not having our own email format for responses (including fonts/color/bold and pictures). It is a few things.

I am going back and forth, back and forth, at this time.

When are you going on pricing?

Claudia

I see. It's the difference between the booking emails primarily. And you're right - some MAJOR differences there. I thought you were referring to the payment emails that come in later - the scheduled ones.

I get your frustration. Believe me. Email is the big elephant in the room right now. It's all over our radar.

We're working on the 1.0 release right now. ie. 'Beta' is coming off and pricing is going live.

After that, THE VERY NEXT sprint is all email related. Major major email changes coming.

-Michelle

Silvia, I go throught the VRBO review system. It is the same. Why they changed this, I don't know, but it is nowhere near what it used to be.

Claudia

Yes I agree with that as well - since they are not actually paying it, it should be OK for them to do this, I am doing this currently and they seem to be OK with it and would like not to have to refund the check or payment less work on my end.

Silvia

No, I don't like the format for the owners. It doesn't seem to help me in anything that I am doing. I have to always go back and click to see things that I actually need. Plus, filing the emails doesn't do anything - not worth it.

Here is the email we get....

A booking just came in for Claudia's Vacation Home - PA

Here are some of the details...

Guest Name:

Janet Pak



Arrival Date:

Fri Jul 20, 2012



Departure Date:

Sun Jul 22, 2012



Persons:

6 adults and 4 children



Total Amount:

$1,066.57



Reserved By:

Guest



Reserved Where:

Web Form





Get all of the details >>


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Here is the email the customer gets...


You have successfully reserved Claudia's Vacation Home - PA!



Booking Details


Booking #: 252208

Guest Name: Janet Pak


Arriving: 7/20/2012

Adults: 6



Departing: 7/22/2012

Children: 4



Property: Claudia's Vacation Home - PA

Pets: 0




Billing Details




The total charge for this booking is $1,066.57 of which $1,066.57 has been paid. A separate email is sent for each payment that is made, listing the details. Any payments made by credit card will appear on your bank statement as Claudia Vacation Home.

A security deposit of $400.00 is scheduled to be reserved on 7/16/2012.

A digitally-signed copy of the renter agreement will be emailed to you.



Property Location






Address:
448 Maple Court
Tannersville, PA 18372



Open this address in Google Maps | Yahoo Maps | Bing Maps | MapQuest




Congratulations, your dates are confirmed




A few weeks prior to arrival, a Welcome Packet with details on how to enter the townhouse and directions to the townhouse, along with other things you need to know, will be sent out via email.

An Arrival Letter will be sent, a week before your arrival, after the Guest Registration Form is received.


*** RENTERS MUST BE 25 OR ABOVE, unless accompanied by a parent. ***


If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you,

Claudia
201 750-1215




Pet Policy




Only dogs allowed.

Pets must have all their shots, tick and flea treatments up to date. Pets must be one year or above in age. Three days before arrival, pets must be treatment for flea/tick control. Barking dogs may have fine imposed.

Pets have extra fee. Pet Addendum is required for rentals to any dogs.


***** PET ADDENDUM (if dog is coming), on last page of Terms and Agreement, must be scanned or Faxed to (201) 215-0742, to complete the reservation. *****




Guest Registration



A Guest Registration Form will be sent out asking for every person ENTERING the townhouse, age (if under 25 yr old) and the license plate numbers of the cars coming. The security dept of the development is now requesting this for every rental. ALL GUESTS AND CARS MUST BE REGISTERED. Parking passes may be issued. Please have this information available. If this will be a problem, please let me know now.



House Parties and Age Restriction




* NO HOUSE PARTIES ALLOWED! ONLY TOTAL NUMBER OF PEOPLE SPECIFIED ON ORIGINAL INQUIRY SENT ALLOWED, unless approved beforehand. ** THIS INCLUDES VISITING GUESTS AND CHILDREN!

Any renter not abiding by above will be evicted, along with everyone in their group, as stated in rental agreement, along a $500 charge. A Guest Registration Form will need to be filled out with any guest entering the townhouse, age and license plate numbers, two week prior to arrival.


****** RENTERS MUST BE 25 OR ABOVE, unless accompanied by a parent. ******




PRINT RENTAL AGREEMENT




Please make sure to PRINT THE RENTAL AGREEMENT that was emailed to you, after you completed your booking. There is a lot of information that you will need for your arrival. Plus, things that you may end up being charged for if not completed during your stay.

If you have not received the email, please let me know and I will send it again.



Check-In & Check-Out




Check-In: 3:00 PM Check-Out: 11:00 AM

If you are interested in earlier checkin or later checkout, there will be an added charge of $25/hour, plus taxes. This is providing there is not a renter arriving or departing that same day. Arrangements must be made, at least, one day prior to arrival date or prior to departure time, so that payment can be made and the cleaning staff can be notified.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In my opinion, day and night. I also would have some of the details on my email, to know I let them know these details, when I might end up changing them later.

Since you already have this format for them, why couldn't we get the same email? CC our email.

Most of the starter emails I receive, at this time, I delete them. I have to copy and paste the other format so that I could file those emails. Very frustrating for me, right now. Seems like a lot of extra time is being put in. This is not even my busy season yet. It is going to begin in a few weeks. I am concerned about how I am going to do your software and mine old way.

You have a great product, but some things... there is too much going around the software that I am ending up doing two jobs for an inquiry/booking. It gets confusing.

The response letters is frustrating. I am constantly "clicking for details" to even be able to send it manually.

The reason I am frustrated, at this time, is that yesterday I have been away from my computer for a few hours. When I got back I had two bookings and an inquiry. It took me forever to sort through everything and clicking for details to see what happened. I got me thinking that soon I will have one big problem on my hand! When it get busy again, I will not be able to handle all the different clickings for details. I was a little overwhelmed.

Claudia

What about using the HomeAwayConnect guestbook? Someone here just mentioned that. I know that's not as preferable as the real rating system because you want to see the stars and "verified rating" attribute show up. But we might be able to use the guestbook side to insert the reviews that way.

-Michelle

Michelle,

Reviews are plummeting, my sister almost always got reviews from her customers and now she is lucky to get a few. I also used to get some reviews but now it is even harder to get a review through their new process. I am not sure if VRBO changed it's way yet so it may be able to go in that way but I am sure this will change too. I hope they lift the restrictions but no change yet with all the complaints they have gotten. Especially since the reviewer proceeds to write the review and at the end of everything they are asked to login. It has infuriated quite a few people - renter and owner alike.

Silvia

Claudia, can you be more specific about the fields you which the email showed? The payment and booking emails you get (as the owner) should have most of the information on it that the system has.

I know the email is worded "here are some of the details..." at the top, but in truth, most of those emails contain ALL the available fields for the item in question. There aren't any other details to show.

Or do you just not like that it's a different format?

-Michelle

Yes, that's been asked by others that are aware of our future plans. A lot of people want to maintain their own email processes. Email is something that everyone wants/needs different options for.

-Michelle

Hi Silvia,

At the moment, the only way to do that would be for you to manually take care of that BEFORE sending them the payment link. So while corresponding with the guest, you would email them your documents and make them fax them back. THEN send the the payment link from our system.

That would work well except that they would still see the Renter Agreement page during the payment process. We don't have a setting that would turn this off.

-Michelle

That actually sounds nice - fourth option. I am for that. :)

Claudia

The idea is on the dev roadmap, but it has not been designed or scheduled. There are a lot of unknowns surrounding this. As I'm sure you know, guests could be "not interested" for a lot of reasons or even have been interested but had dates change or had some other conflict.

-Michelle