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Is there a way to set a priority on a season? I recently had two conflicting seasons and the lower-priced season won out, thankfully I caught it before it was booked.
Use case: One seasonal rate for a long time period, in my case it was July & August. I had a season for the 4th of July with a special higher rate.
I ended up modifying my July & August season to start after the holiday, but if I had a holiday in the middle of a multi-month season, that would be a fair amount of extra work to make that happen, especially if I had multiple holiday seasons.
I did not see anything in the seasons settings that indicated a priority.
Vrbo charges their 3%/8% commission on the total rental that you process through their platform. If you don't want them to charge you to process it through their platform, take those non-compulsory items off of their platform and offer them separately.
Why use two separate systems and complicate things unnecessarily when OR can fix the bug/issue in the system?
As I said before, Normally you'd expect OR to make VRBO aware that some of these extra charges are compulsory and some of them are optional, so that VRBO would not get a commission on these optional extra charges that has nothing to do with them (if I sell the guest an airport transfer, or guided tour, what is this to do with VRBO?). Also as I said before, my guest representative from VRBO acknowledged that they are supposed to get commission on only compulsory surcharges, NOT on the optional surcharges.
The only fee I have is cleaning fee and it was subject to commission when I had commissioned listing (now on subscription). Cleaning fee is mandatory and is shown in quotes. I do not add fees after booking. Also I would think if you sell service to guests AFTER booking , then VRBO is not involved (just bill guest via Ownerrez), so how would Vrbo even know to apply commission?
VRBO knows what extra fees you add to your booking after a booking is made because OR has API connection with VRBO. Normally you'd expect OR to make VRBO aware that some of these extra charges are compulsory and some of them are optional, so that VRBO would not get a commission on these optional extra charges that has nothing to do with them (if I sell the guest an airport transfer, or guided tour, what is this to do with VRBO?). Also as I said before, my guest representative from VRBO acknowledged that they are supposed to get commission on compulsory surcharges.
So, I'm still waiting an answer from OR support.
Isn't there anyone else who sells extra products/services to their guests and concerned about the commision they pay unnecessarily up VRBO for these extra products/services?
i definitely get that the automatic use case could be really complicated, especially if all it does it move a day or add a day on the end. That's why I think manual is a good stop-gap until the automatic use cases can be clearly defined.
That's a great suggestion, and we may add that as well. We're also looking into whether it makes sense to automatically reset any triggers when the booking dates change. This will require some research on our end.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Seems like the simplest would be to make it manual, and those drop-downs to the right of the triggered emails, add a pick for "Reset" (or whatever name makes most sense) so it acts like the conditions that caused it to happen before didn't actually happen. I can then pick that menu for appropriate emails individually after the triggers misfire the email for whatever reason.
Unfortunately, at present there is no feature to reset the triggers. We're looking into it, but it's more complex then you might expect to make it work in a sensible way.
Vrbo will charge service fees on the higher of the original or modified total.
Hi Ken! Is this still the case or has it been updated with an easier way? Will VRBO charge the guest service fee on the discounted rate or the original request to book amount?
I had a guest first cancel their reservation on the day of arrival and then request to move it to another set of dates further into the future. I was able to do all the moving and accounting parts of it, what I'm not able to do is to reset all the timed/triggered emails that were already sent to the guest, so that they'll send again when the new dates get closer. (for example, reminder that the security deposit will get taken 3 days before arrival, etc.)
Is this a new feature request or am I missing something?
Vrbo charges their 3%/8% commission on the total rental that you process through their platform. If you don't want them to charge you to process it through their platform, take those non-compulsory items off of their platform and offer them separately.
The only fee I have is cleaning fee and it was subject to commission when I had commissioned listing (now on subscription). Cleaning fee is mandatory and is shown in quotes. I do not add fees after booking. Also I would think if you sell service to guests AFTER booking , then VRBO is not involved (just bill guest via Ownerrez), so how would Vrbo even know to apply commission?
any fees chargeable to the guests are subject to commission.
Who says so? My VRBO acccount manager doesn't say this... She says only compulsory fees are subject to VRBO commission but other fees are not...
I can see the idea behind it... and assume it was requested... but I too would greatly appreaciate ability to revert (or choose differnet solid color for blocked dates). It's visually disturbing to me as well (and not something I'll eventually adjust to).
any fees chargeable to the guests are subject to commission.
Is there anyone from OR who'll reply to this thread? VRBO says only compulsory fees (extra charges) that are part of the inseparable part of the booking are subject to VRBO commission but currently all of the surcharges entered in OR, even the optional ones such as airport transfers are commissioned by VRBO because I believe something is missing between VRBO and OR API configuration.
Can someone from support give an answer?
Unfortunately, at present OwnerRez doesn't have functionality for that. However, most email clients have the ability to set up a filter to detect emails of a particular type and forward them onwards to another address.
That was my last resort. Thanks for confirming.
Unfortunately, at present OwnerRez doesn't have functionality for that. However, most email clients have the ability to set up a filter to detect emails of a particular type and forward them onwards to another address.
This is probably a simple answer but I can't find the info in the documentation. My wife and I manage a couple of properties. I have setup multiple messages to be sent at different times of the booking lifecycle. I am receiving the guest responses by email. How can I add my wife as a recipient for these responses. Also, I am using the PM module and have added her for portal access.
Hello Chris,
Thank you for your feedback...
Actually my guest representative from VRBO was surprised about this. She was clearly stating that only compulsory fees (e.g. extra person fee, compulsory cleaning fee etc.) are subject to their commission but nothing else. I'm also in touch with OR and waiting for their answer. I wanted to make sure that everyone is aware of this glitch/issue, so nobody overpays commission to VRBO unnecessarily.
Hi all,
Bit of a technical question here ... I'm having an issue when I try and paste my OR website into Facebook. When I do it, I don't get an image. It only shows the link that I paste in. After doing some research, it appears I'm getting this error: "The' og:image’ property should be explicitly provided, even if a value can be inferred from other tags." Basically, Facebook can't find the image (i.e. first picture). Any ideas how to correct this? In my research, it's suggesting I have to install WordPress and then another piece of software and it just seems overkill. There has to be a way to get this attributes updated so, when I paste it, Facebook has everything it needs to resolve to the image. TIA
We added guest auto-merge back in October of 2021. You can read about that in the blog post.
Auto-merging handles incoming bookings, not existing guests, so guests that were created before should be manually merged. You can do that on the CRM > Contacts list.
Has this been updated yet? I just had a repeat guest book for 2023. It shows as "Repeat" to the 2022 booking but not to the 2021 booking. I have several multi repeat guests that it only shows some of their stays. Do I need to merge them all manually?
Thank you
Lucinda
I don't sell any extras like that (other than cleaning/pet fees, etc.), but there's a nugget of interestingness here: in the travel agency industry, the travel agent is paid the lesser of the booked revenue or the actual revenue. If a guest books a hotel or car for 3 days/nights and extends their stay/rental, the travel agency only receives commission on the 3 days, not any additional days. And if the agency books it for 3 days/nights but the customer checks out/returns after 2, the agency only gets commission on 2. TAs sort of take it in the shirt either way, but it is how it has historically been done.
Vrbo really shouldn't be able to grab additional commission on stuff not booked through them. Maybe the OR team needs to go back to Vrbo and bring this up in light of how commissions work with other parts of the travel industry? Ultimately, it's OR that reports the revenue to Vrbo, so OR could change this, but they need to clear it with Vrbo first, I'd imagine.
That sounds like you're looking for our optional paid ProConnect setup service:
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/proconnect-setup-overview
Please write in to our Helpdesk for more information.
How do I do that ? I cant find the delete button or disable. I just need to change the address. Mistype.
Also if there a professional person that can help set it up properly?
Hello,
Today the colour of Blocked Off Events in Ribbon view has changed from the colour of my properties to the colour of my properties with a very distracting stripey effect. Please can you tell me how to disable this stripey effect and revert the colour to the normal colour of my properties without the stripe?
Sabina
Looking forward to those updates!
Are you aware that you pay commission to VRBO for extra services you sell to your guests (e.g. airport transfers)?
So, you add an extra service (a manual surcharge) to a VRBO booking in OR and VRBO gets a commission on this extra service (e.g. on airport transfers, on a guided tour etc.).
I've just realised this and I'm terrified.
I understand that a compulsory cleaning fee that is automatically added to the booking is a part of the price and VRBO charges a commission on this but non compulsory extra services?! Why? How is this logical?
Hi all... I have a pool/hot tub liability waiver that I want my guests to sign before they arrive. What's the best way to have them do this? I'm thinking of setting up a Template and then a Trigger. Thoughts?
