General Help and Questions

Sort by

• Newest Reply
• Newest Topic

Hi there! My family is planning to host around 60-75 friends & family members at our property for the solar eclipse weekend in April and are trying to think of how to utilize Owner Rez to handle payment processing as plenty of folks will want to use credit cards. They'll be camping out with us on our land so it's not a single property booking, but we'd like to be able to communicate with folks in one place so Owner Rez seems like a no-brainer. Anyone have any thoughts on this?  Appreciate any you might be able to share!

In OwnerRez, discounts are used to decrease the amount of the stay.  If you want to increase the rate that would instead be a Surcharge.
Surcharge settings can be accessed in your account here:  https://app.ownerrez.com/settings/surcharges

You can in most cases accomplish what you mention.  

To do this you would create a surcharge with Booking Fields set to Number of Nights is Equal to 1.

The reason I say in most cases, is because Airbnb does not honor criteria such as number of nights in a surcharge.  You can read more about the caveats with Airbnb Surcharges settings here:  https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/channel-management-api-integrations-airbnb-rules-settings

Here is a quick video to show you how this would work for non-Airbnb bookings

How to Create a One Night Premium - Watch Video

Hope that was helpful!

Finally have my website up and running, and my friend tried to open up the site on her work laptop and the site is not secure enough to open. she thinks it may be because it is an “uncategorized site“. Is this something I have to go to the domain provider about and if so, what kind of information do I give them?

Yes I believe so, the channel rate tester should break down individual line items including discounts on the displayed charges table. But please do let us know if you find otherwise.

And I'd recommend always doublechecking either way via the Airbnb dashboard.

~Caleb

Is it possible to set up a length of stay PREMIUM on OwnerRez?  Going through the steps for applying a discount, it doesn't look like there's any option to make it a premium vs. a discount.  I want to set up a premium for one-night bookings, for example.

Hey James,

Have you considered configuring "portal branding" feature?  It's free, and it would allow you to give your owner a simple URL to remember using your own domain name like:

https://portal.windmillrentals.co.uk

To be clear, that URL does not work yet. I'm just showing you an example of what it COULD be.

You could then put a link to this on your website if you wanted, maybe down in the bottom footer area, where owners/housekeepers can go to click on it and not have to remember anything.

To do this, go to your Account button > Team Access > and look for the below.

Based on availability I'd like to send a notification so that we opt in/out of pest control treatment that day.

I'd like to check to see if a property is occupied or not on a specific date.    I find I can use the trigger tools and bookings to do anything around a single property but I can't figure out how to determine what's going on between 2 bookings.   In other words, if booking A checks out Monday and Booking B checks in Thursday I want to notify pest control to service.   But if Booking A checks out Tuesday I can't tell if Booking B also check in Tuesday.

Problem 2: Taking the scenario in step 1 a step further,  I'd like to find all properties available on Wednesday and prepare a single unified email to the pest control service saying Please service units A, C, D.  DO NOT service units B & E. 

Yep, that aligns with what I've heard, and that Vrbo legal, as you say, doesn't recognize or work with that.  :-/  However, hopefully later this year they'll have this sorted effectively.

Thanks Ken

Nothing more specific than above. I listed mine (without a vat number) a few years back but don't bother with them much in the UK. I had a client ask me about connecting to them and I said I'd take a closer look. That's when I found the thread.

So basically no guarantees because they don't take into account UK tax law.

FYI the law is that small businesses don't have to register for VAT until their turnover exceeds £85,000 a year. Most people actively try and stay under this as the price you charge will go up by 20% if you exceed it.

I see you are in the UK.  Yes, we have had issues with UK tax law, that we have no direct insight into or understanding of.  Some of our UK clients have been successful in establishing an API connection, and others not - the lack of a VAT number has indeed been given as a reason why the API connection was not possible.  Our current recommendation is to give it a try, it might or might not be allowed but doesn't hurt anything if it's rejected.

Even if you are unable to establish am API connection to Vrbo, it is still perfectly possible to use OwnerRez and Vrbo together, just a little bit more manual, by using iCal feeds and Channel Bridge.

We are working with Vrbo to make the international API connections smoother and more reliable, and significant improvements are expected later this year.

Otherwise, we're not aware of any particular open issues with our Vrbo API connection that aren't documented and longstanding (e.g. specific amenities that their UI offers but their API does not support).  Did you have any details of the concern that we can address specifically?

Was just reading a discussion thread about how several Channel managers are having problems with VRBO at the moment. Also a comment saying that you can’t go api without a VAT number.

Can anyone shed any light on this  and is OwnerRez all systems go with VRBO?

Is there a simple link to the owner portal?

I have an owner who is IT challenged and cannot find where to log into the owner portal. I have looked and the resend invite button has changed to password reset.

Is there just a link i can send them so they can put in their name and password?

Hi Rachel P!  I noticed your reply here which led to me finding your account and ticket conversations with helpdesk.  I just responded to you there too, but your website is good to go and live.  I explained more about what happened on that side.  We hear you super loudly on support.  It's kind of ironic - I just left a helpdesk meeting a few minutes ago where new processes are being implemented (last week and this week) to change things up.  Thanks for your patience. 🙏

I just sent an email, please take a look as soon as possible. You will also see the autofilled grace period statement contains grammatical errors that need to be addressed.

Hi Becca,

I've been hunting around trying to find the verbiage you're describing here, but I'm not coming across it. Could you send us some screenshots of the form you're seeing that wording on and send it to us in an email to help@ownerrez.com? We'll gladly take another look for you.

Can you edit the Grace Period in the Payment Form? The Grace Period shows up on both the Payment form and the Security Deposit form. See below for what is autofilled. This Grace Period statement isn't true for my business, so I want to change it. The phrase "Please contact us and let us know so that your booking isn't cancelled" doesn't make sense after explaining a due date, and then further explaining it is your responsibility to have the deposit by the due date.

"The security deposit for this booking is due by Aug 21, 2024.  If it is not received by then, your booking may be canceled.  If you think your security deposit may not get to us in time, please contact us and let us know so that your booking isn't canceled.  It it your responsibility to make sure that we have received security deposit by the due date which includes any time that it takes for the check to clear with our bank."

Normally, you should change the property in Airbnb.com and let that change sync to OwnerRez.

Hi Adria, thank you for responding!

I clicked on his booking here: 

https://app.ownerrez.com/bookings?view=list

Then clicked on "Change/Move" button in the middle of the nav bar here:

https://app.ownerrez.com/bookings/9650018

Which sends me here to Change Booking : https://app.ownerrez.com/bookings/9650018/edit  

Where I get the warning from last night: 

• Channel Calendar Linked
• This booking is managed by the _________________________ Airbnb channel so only check in/out time can be changed in OwnerRez.
• If you need to change dates or property, we recommend making any changes on the channel which will then automatically update the OwnerRez booking. Or you can unlink from the channel calendar and make the changes in OwnerRez, but they won't be reflected on the channel.

There is an "unlink from channel" button which I didn't notice last night because I clicked on the Airbnb link in the warning.

I clicked the button just now  and got a pop-up warning which bothers me because it says it can't be undone.  

• Are you sure you want to unlink this booking from the channel calendar?
• This action cannot be undone.
• Channel calendar linked (the current mode) means OwnerRez will automatically update calendar changes from the Airbnb channel for this booking.
• If you unlink the calendars, you'll be responsible for making any changes yourself. No other bookings will be affected.

So I guess I can go ahead and unlink, change the property in Ownerrez and then call Airbnb to change it on their end?  

If I unlink will that apartment's calendar be forever unlinked, or just this booking?  

When someone responds it is super helpful and friendly. It is the wait time that is challenging. I am still waiting for my live website to become “secure”. We have the indication that it is unsecure and do not have the https feature that OR reportedly provides. I am not able to share my link yet and this has been frustrating as I am so reliant on support. . I understand the wait times but wonder if a more streamlined system could be developed. I wish i understood more and could remedy this myself, but still learning…

In general you’d want to change the booking on Airbnb via the right hand side bar where it says change booking.

Are you saying you’ve tried that and get the warning message you posted?

How do I move a guest to a different apartment and unblock the days of the apartment he moved out of?

We had a pipe freeze in Apartment 5 two days ago and moved our guest to Apartment 4.   The guest is thrilled because he got an apartment twice the size for a month.  

However now I have 2 apartments blocked for nearly 30 day each.

Airbnb said if they change it it won't stick because of Ownerrez.

So I tried going in and changing the booking in here and got this message:

"Channel Calendar Linked

This booking is managed by the ________________ Airbnb channel so only check in/out time can be changed in OwnerRez.

If you need to change dates or property, we recommend making any changes on the channel which will then automatically update the OwnerRez booking. Or you can unlink from the channel calendar and make the changes in OwnerRez, but they won't be reflected on the channel."

I'm brand new here... still in the trial period. No idea how to unlink.  Can someone walk me through? 

Hi,

Has anyone found a way to integrate  GetLynx and/or OwnerRez to ADT alarm system?

Ideally I would like to have OR or GetLynx to share the check in / out date and time with ADT, so when a guest enters their valid code, the ADT alarm is turn off automatically and turned on automatically either when the guest checks out through GetLynx, or worst case at the end of the check out time.

I do not wish to be manually entering the guest check in/out info and codes into ADT (or any other alarm system) manually.

If this type of integration (or another automated workaround) does not exist with ADT, has anyone been able to do it with any other alarm system?

Lastly, does anyone allow the guest to turn on the alarm then they leave the house during their stay?  How is that enabled?

Thank you in advance to folks sharing their experience.

Jake

They typically can in fact stack with themselves, since they're applied as rulesets on the Airbnb calendar you may be able to see this in effect on the Airbnb Dashboard.

Can the stacking behavior be seen/tested using the Rate Channel tester on OwnerRez?

Many thanks in advance.

Hi Caleb,

I use alerts and triggers but they are all account wide for all bookings.  So yes I can get a reminder sent by email for every booking 3 days before arrival to send the check in instructions, and I do use that. But you don't have the simple ability for a specific booking to say 'hey, remember to do X by Y days before arrival for this one booking' or whatever. There is a notes field, I am suggesting allow us to add a customizable reminder popup for them I guess.  It would be used more than you think, I think! Regards, Mark

Hi,

We have another article here that may provide some more helpful information on Length of stay discounts - https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/length-of-stay-discounts#airbnb

Regarding your questions:

(1) Does this apply also to discounts that are for "exact" numbers of nights, or "fewer than" nights, or ido only "greater than" LOS discounts work when weekly and monthly discounts are set?  I like to set special discounts for exactly 3 and 4 nights.

Airbnb has a select set of endpoints in their API for criteria in surcharges and discounts, as a result they generally don't have a means to translate any criteria set as "Less than", think of it like a language with no words to facilitate that idea. As an example I've attached how a discount set as "number of nights equal to 3 days" discount would be passed over through the API:

(2) Do these LOS discounts stack? In other words, if I have a discount of 5% for a 4-night stay, and also a 15% discount weekly discount, and a guest books for a week, do they get a 15% or a 20% discount?

They typically can in fact stack with themselves, since they're applied as rulesets on the Airbnb calendar you may be able to see this in effect on the Airbnb Dashboard.

~Caleb

Hi,

There are a plethora of functions in place that could offer reminders, mainly system alerts/messages. Beyond that you are able to make a template and trigger that sends to you personally at a certain time ahead of a booking. https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/email-templates

That all being said, if the current system functionality is not satisfying what you're looking for then we generally recommend writing your thoughts up as a suggestion in our Feature Request forum, so other clients can vote up your ideas for new and improved features in OwnerRez:

https://www.ownerreservations.com/forums/requests 

Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.

~Caleb

Hi Cameon,

We have an article on this here: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/reporting-common-issues-questions#discount-codes

The options may look a little different since the report has been updated since this article was created, but the feature should still be present.

~Caleb

I appreciate your support.

I appreciate your support as well, so much that I want more of it :-)

Thank you, @Undercard_Wonder, for that response.

There's some great ideas there - some we've already considered, but others that are new or different that we should discuss.  I have added some of your points to some of our weekly team meetings where helpdesk/leadership discuss the running agenda.

I appreciate your support.

Yes, there was recently an issue with the Booking.com API connection which has been resolved.  This was posted on our status page:

https://status.ownerrez.com/ 

It's not there now because it's been resolved, but it's in the archive:

https://status.ownerrez.com/notices/8auygcc3fz9xkqbp-booking-com-api-errors