General Help and Questions

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We have auto re3sponders set up that auto-respond to MOST inquiries. The only inquiries that are not auto-responded to are the ones with no dates specified. Otherwise about 90% of questions from potential guests may have been handled by an inquiry auto-responder template. yes the SMS alert would be nice, but maybe try what we do using an email auto-responder template similar to the one below:

Hi {CFIRST},

Thank you for your inquiry about {PDISPNAME} ({PIMGCAPTION}). Our cabin is a private family vacation home, rented out by the owners . We are not affiliated with a management company or agent.

The quote is shown below for the dates you requested. The Booking and Rental information (right below the quote) will answer many of the questions you may have!

{QPROPAVAILOTHER}

Please use the buttons under the form to view more information about the quote or to accept it and checkout.  Our checkout form is simple to use and very secure.     {QHCTAB}

{ICOMM}

{IOITAB}

Booking and Rental information.

• No indoor smoking, No pets/animals, and No house parties.
• Must be at least {PMINAGE} years of age to rent and be present during the entire stay. Minors under 18 can only stay with a parent, legal guardian, or responsible adult.
  
• The primary Guest must sign the Rental Agreement and provide a Valid Photo ID within 48 hours of booking; otherwise, the reservation is subject to cancellation. No third-party rentals.
• No occupancy above total {PXOLIMIT} persons (which includes ALL children ages 1 day old and up), with maximum {PXMAXADULTS} persons over 14 years of age. Our quoted rates are per-property, but over-limit occupancy is not permitted. 
• Amount Due at the time of booking: {QFPAMT}. See detailed charges above. 
  
• Interim/installment payments can be made at any time for bookings more than 60 days in the future. Balance must be paid in full by {QSPDAY} days before check-in.
  
• Availability is real-time and may change after this email is sent. Property is not reserved until the deposit (or full balance) is paid and the booking is accepted.
• A Rental Security Deposit of {QSDAMT} is required; it will be released or refunded within 14 days after check-out if there are no damages, rule violations, or excessive cleaning required (See the Rental Agreement for details).
• Cancellation policy: {QCANPOL}  No refunds for Unforeseen or Unfortunate Events outside of the Cancellation policy cutoff, under any circumstances, including but not limited to: weather/travel concerns, work/life events, change of plans, evacuation, or hospitalization.
• Travel Coverage/Protection policy is highly recommended,  especially if your stay is during the winter months.  Some credit card companies provide Travel Protection (check your cardholder benefits). Examine your selected policy carefully to ensure it meets your requirements, and consider purchasing additional coverage if needed.
• Accepted Payments: Major credit cards, Zelle, personal or cashier's check, money order (at least 35 days prior to check-in date). The name on the credit card must match the primary Guest's name or that of the legal spouse.
• Address, driving directions, and check-in instructions will be provided after the balance is paid and a few days prior to check-in. See the distance from the cabin to popular area destinations.  
• Owners operate exterior security cameras for the express purpose of securing the property, driveway, entryway, parking, dwelling, and its contents -AND- to ensure occupancy limit, house, and No-pet rules observance.
• Check-in is any time after {PCHECKIN} ET and check-out is no later than {PCHECKOUT} ET unless pre-arranged otherwise in advance. Late check-outs may be subject to docking of the deposit. Check-in/out is contactless. 
• Complimentary WIFI is provided, but connection speed/availability is not guaranteed.
• The property has a yard, fire pit, and ample parking. The yard is NOT  fenced and is surrounded by wooded nature, adults must always supervise small children at all times.
• Questions? Check our Vacation Guide, FAQ, and What is provided
• See the Reviews of our cabins. 
• 'Like' {PDISPNAME} on Facebook and follow on Instagram where we post updates, photos, area info, specials, or availability due to last-minute cancellations.

Thank you,

We are missing a lot of bookings because we are not getting notified when an inquiry comes in. We need a text message on our phone for notification purposes.  Do you know when it will be available or if phone text notifications are available for inquiries? If available, how can we implement the inquiry text messages to our phone?

Hi Chris, I am having the same issue but I don't see the Channel Fees section.  How do I change this now? Is there a new way to do this.  Also, I had this set incorrectly so I have about 75 bookings across 8 different properties where this is incorrect.  Is there a way to change this on current bookings with a batch change and how do I change this setting so that future bookings are not deducting the channel fees from our commission? 

Thanks!

Some bold hosts have reported they temporarily disconnected the API, on a property by property basis, made their adjustments to tools/discounts/promos & reconnected/republished the API properties. This is much too new for us to know if there are any subsequent issues caused by doing this.

⠀

Please write in to the Helpdesk with specific examples, so we can investigate them in detail.

It's still in testing. We, too, are looking forward to release of that feature.

Hi, I noticed when running any payment reports on Ownerrez for my Airbnb listing that the total and Net Totals or incorrect. It appears to be due to it not calculating the nightly discount that we have set, so it is not actually correct on the reporting. Is there some setting that I might have incorrect or do others have this problem? 

Thanks 

I think that was probably how we did it. 

follow on question, any way to delete the old files for the old templates? 

Try this one:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/email-templates#files 

Hi Ken, that link is broken for me :-(

Still not 100% sure where i uploaded them before but i found a way in https://app.ownerrez.com/account/files 

It is odd as we have a document per property, but none were shown, i retrieved the original document i uploaded from the original link i had and once modified it, found this link for file upload and that seemed to work. 

Hmm, did you upload a file into OwnerRez as described here?

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/files-email-templates 

Hi all, 

We have created online check-in and welcome documents, now i need to change one, i cannot for the life of me find where i did it. we end up with a shortcode https://uc.orez.io......... with a randomized number behind it. 

Can anyone remind me where this is. Iknow about the guest instructions but this method allowed us to upload a pdf / word doc and then just reference to it through the hyperlink.

Any thoughts?  

It may be worthwhile reading through this article if you haven't already:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/bookings-display-for-cleaners#portal-access

Here's a key excerpt from that article:

You can create a trigger email in OwnerRez that sends a customized email template (that you create) which only shows the departure day. Something like "Guest departing tomorrow (May 14)" which is sent 1 day before departure, or one that sends immediately when the booking is created.  This would notify the cleaner when a guest is departing so they know the property needs to be cleaned.
 
Similarly, you can create a custom email template and trigger for cancellations, with trigger criteria specifying that it should only be sent in the event of a booking cancellation.

Yes so I was just looking at that, trying to add a promotion on Airbnb and i couldn't find a way. This is a major bummer. Will hurt if we can't compete with other listings this way. 

Hi, can you update on this?

You can have multiple Airbnb API channels created, each associated with a different Airbnb login, however each channel must use the primary host login credentials, not cohost logins.

Hi Ken, 

Is it possible to add more than 2 Airbnb accounts? I'm trying to add a 3rd following the instructions in this link but I'm having a hard time. Am I missing something?

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/channel-management-api-integrations-airbnb-common-issues-questions#multiple-accounts

I just had an inquiry from my website, I did not get an email notification for many hours after, I don't check the OR inbox constantly, so SMS notification of inquiries, bookings, or anything OR related is absolutely needed.

How do you set up notifications of bookings and cancellations to cleaning staff?

Which integrations insert data to OR?

So I finally got my first HTG booking that didn't end up canceling (my first two bookings were canceled, but HTG still invoiced me the commissions for those bookings until I challenged them). I went to pay...and while they now do support paying invoices by credit card, they only support Visa and MasterCard.

My business card is an Amex.

TBH, I'm just going to disconnect from them. Frankly, I hate doing business with European (and especially German) companies anyway--they are far too rigid, never focused on making life easier for their customers, and impossible to work with in general. It's a cultural thing, and I know this well, because one of my primary vendors at my day job is a German company, and it's a constant battle with them over their inflexible policies and insistence that everything fit neatly in whatever boxes they've invented. (FWIW, Booking.com, which is headquartered in Amsterdam, has similar issues...another reason I despise dealing with them.)

If they delivered me a decent number of profitable bookings, I'd deal with it, but I have one booking from them, and I've wasted more time fighting with them than the profit I've made on that one booking. If they want to grow in the US market, they need to make it easy to do business with them. Unfortunately, "making it easy to do business with us" is not a German ideal. So, bye-bye, HomeToGo.

Ahh yes, thank you guys. 

This is exactly what I was looking for. I just didn't know how to describe/call it.

You're the man Ken!

I think what you may be looking for is Custom Sources?

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/custom-sources 

I believe the way Turno is intended to work is, the cleaning date is set in Turno, and then pushed back into OwnerRez, not the other way around.  I know Turno was having issues with the dates for awhile, but my understanding is that this was fixed list week.

I'd recommend reaching out to Turno to discuss the proper handling of cleaning scheduling, so that it will work as expected between OwnerRez and Turno.

You are welcome to work with anyone you like!  That said, OwnerRez offers an optional paid ProConnect setup service that can assist with much of what you need.  Please write in to the Helpdesk if you're interested.

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/proconnect-setup-overview 

Does anyone know of a remote person that i could pay to help me setup and understand/Consult on this platform? Thanks Jay Nelson ( I own 2 properties ) I can pay you hourly thru venmo or cash app. My cell is 615-939-6570

The one unmentioned, though not insignificant, change I've seen is that API hosts can no longer access custom promotions. It's been reported other discounts are also unavailable to edit on Airbnb.

Thanks, Ken. 

Any reasons OR knows to NOT opt into the early access they are offering - in terms of any effect on API operations? They indicate it is a 1-way street, no going back. 

 

I am not inclined to do it, but could be useful to see what is coming.

I would view this like any Windows update or service pack.  Never be one of the beta testers (which is what this "early access" seems to be) and usually wait a month for all the bugs to be worked out.

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking here.  Are you asking if there is a way to have a "list your rental on our site" page that has a data entry form that inputs to Owner Rez?  If so, no there is no feature like that which I've seen.  Something like that would probably be best with a plugin for your site or something coded to go into your database.  Something like that, you're looking at a subscription model and there are wordpress plugins better designed for that and to handle the billing than Owner Rez is.

Now if you're asking about if you can create your own website that displays your listings and has a search feature, there are two options.  Option one is using Owner Rez's hosted wordpress sites.  That's the simplest way to go about it.  Option two would be to design your own Wordpress site and use Owner Rez's plugins and widgets to handle the property display, search screens, bookings, etc.  That's the option I chose.