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Hi OwnerRez,
I think it would be a good idea to have an autoresponder for enquiries that come in on 3rd party platforms.
For eg. A guest sends a message via Airbnb, asking a random question. But neither yourself or staff is available at that moment; an autoresponder letting the potential guest know that you have acknowledged their question and will assist shortly, would help to retain the guest.
I think this would be a very good option for guest retention.
We would like to be able to show/hide photos in our gallery based on dates/months etc. For example, we have a different set of photos for summer than we do for fall or spring. I would like to be able to add all my photos at once, sort them, and then enter dates or months for when these photos will be active. Then I can write my description for each photo but only have them displayed during the appropriate time of the year without having to add/remove and write the photo descriptions.
Take a look at the rules tab on the specific booking:
If you still can't figure it out, write in to our help desk (help@ownerreservations.com) and we can help you get it sorted.
I really wish that were the case.
We are also having problems with Channel Bridge. We have had to run channel bridge manually every month for a long time to catch all of the financial information. We do have the airbnb api setup. Is there a way for OR to automatically collect all of the financial data without us having to run channel bridge.
We have also had issues with guests who extend through Airbnb. It appears that OR is not picking up the new income generated from a booking extension. Last month, we had a guest extend 4 times and we had to run channel bridge by hand three times before all the income appeared in owner rez.
This seems like it could be automated somehow. Help.
That's the workaround I'm using as well, as I mentioned. However, as the house rules live other places (so that they display in the listing, etc.), any time the house rules need to be updated, changes need to be made in multiple locations per property. Having a more streamlined, consolidated manner of dealing with these would be very helpful. Even having the custom field work in the listing content would make a big difference!
Hi Ken,
Check the rules tab on your booking. The text of that page reacts to whatever rules you have configured. In this case, you probably have a booking that is set to use a Refundable type instead of a Hold type security deposit.
Actually, it's not possible, because of the way Vrbo integration works (which is very different than Airbnb integration).
When you integrate with Vrbo, you effectively turn into a hotel that runs its own front-desk software, and Vrbo becomes just another OTA booking channel (just like someone booking a hotel room at a Hampton Inn via Expedia). Expedia takes and confirms the booking but the hotel's front desk software charges the card, manages the transaction, handles check-in/check-out, etc. The hotel is 100% in charge of the booking once it comes in.
This is amazing for vacation rental owners, because once the booking comes in, we are 100% in charge of it. We can change it, cancel it, evict someone, charge them for damages, etc. without Vrbo's permission. Vrbo can't even force hosts to cancel a booking, unlike Airbnb. Think of March 2020 when Covid hit: all my Airbnb bookings canceled instantly without any input from me, whereas all my Vrbo bookings remained intact. Now, of course Vrbo tried to incentivize me to allow my guests to cancel by dangling carrots (higher placement in future search results if I allowed cancellations, etc.), but I was still fully in control and could have chosen not to allow cancellations/refunds (and in a number of cases, I negotiated with guests to move their stays to future dates, preserving that income).
With Airbnb, Airbnb still controls the booking in full and can cancel (or not cancel) at any time. If you have bad guests in your house and can't get Airbnb to approve the cancellation, good luck evicting them: at least in my jurisdiction, the police will not enforce an eviction if the reservation is still active and the guest has a legal right to remain in the home. I once had trashy hoarders with two pit bulls in violation of my rental agreement, and the cops would not back me up to get them out until Airbnb approved the cancellation, which took 10 hours from the time I initially reached out to Airbnb.
So this is all related to why Vrbo cannot collect the taxes for you (while Airbnb can): with Vrbo, Vrbo doesn't even collect anything from the guest (except for their service fee), and YOU charge the guest's card and manage all of the charges completely. You can charge more or refund or cancel or extend or do anything you want without Vrbo's input (just like a hotel front desk can), so Vrbo actually doesn't even know what to charge the guest for taxes. Airbnb can collect and remit taxes, because they control the charges and finances and everything and don't even pay out on the booking until after the guest has checked in.
The Vrbo model is way better. Why? With Airbnb, you have no control over the taxes. Have a tax-exempt stay? You can't just delete the taxes; you have to charge the guest the tax and then reimburse them their taxes using the Resolution Center. Have a state/county/city collector after you claiming you didn't remit tax? Good luck getting anyone at Airbnb to provide any kind of help or proof that they did remit the taxes. And that doesn't even cover the cashflow/interest benefits of being able to collect the booking charges up front and then only pay the taxes when they're due (in some cases, many months later). Plus, in my case, my state offers a discount of 5% for timely tax payments--that goes into my pocket if I pay my own taxes instead of Airbnb's or Vrbo's pockets.
Admittedly, signing up for all the taxes and licenses and things yourself can be cumbersome, as is reporting and remitting taxes, but at least in my jurisdiction, it's all pretty straightforward. I previously recommended Avalara MyLodgeTax's services for handling all of this, but they recently raised their set-up fee from $50 per property to $300, which I think is highway robbery, so I no longer recommend them. But unless you have a crazy amount of bureaucratic red tape in your jurisdiction, it's just a bit of paperwork and waiting for them to send you stuff back and well worth the ultimate flexibility that API integration with Vrbo offers.
exactly! Paying taxes is a small inconvenience compared to the HUGE advantages.
We feel it's important to reiterate the house rules in the rental agreement. As there isn't currently a way (that we've found!) to automatically include them, we've had to create a custom field with the house rules for each property to include them that way. However that means that any time we make changes to our rules, we need to update it in not just the house rules section of OR but also in our custom field. It would be so ideal if there was a built-in field for the house rules which we could utilize in email messages, rental agreements, etc. when needed.
It is possible to do this already. I utilized the "Custom Fields" under Settings > Custom Field Definitions.
I created a custom field specifically for House Rules. Now when I create emails or the Rental Agreement, I just use the "Insert Field Code" icon in the templates editor to bring in that information. When the Insert a Field dialog box opens, you will find the Custom Fields under the property tab at the bottom.
I have opted the Custom Fields to manage each properties House Rules because I was not limited to how many rules I can enter. I use bullet points for each rule.
I want to use this system but I can already see a serious headache coming. All I want to do is put a hold on the guests card but when the guest is taken to the link to fill out their information it tells them that their card will be charged and then they will be refunded. What?
Why in the world is this a thing? The messages should clearly read that there will be a hold and that the hold ends in a certain number of days. I am already having nightmares of guests constantly wanting a refund of their security deposit even though it was just a hold.
While there is probably some merit in adding other manual payment types, for the situation you describe I don't think you should use a payment at all. A payment reflects money changing hands via some means, but for rollover such as you describe, the money only changed hands once. Entering multiple payments would confuse the accounting side of things. Unless you are issuing a refund after every stay, that isn't what's truly happening.
I think a better way to represent that specific scenario is with a manual discount. You could apply the discount for those guests that you tag as "deposit rollover". This would clarify that you are not receiving any additional funds, but the guest is paid in full.
This would be particularly important if you integrate with any accounting software, now or in the future.
You could probably just set this up with your email service. It would certainly be faster than hoping OR implements something like this, especially since OR isn't really designed to monitor and respond to emails outside of inquiries and bookings. Many email services have autoresponders and out of office messaging. Gmail can be setup this way using a third party plugin.
(Note that I am NOT referring to additional payment METHODS, I know there is already a thread for that)
Currently we have the following options:
I'm sure I am not alone as an owner/manager who has repeat guests who "rollover" the damage deposit as a down payment for next season. There isn't really a good way to record this currently, and when displaying payment history for a guest the existing categories don't make sense. If you choose "other" it doesn't even list a type it just says "Collected a payment of $500" whereas other payment types will say "Collected a payment of $500 by bank transfer". I use "other" for now, but it really deserves another payment type. Ideally I would like a type of "Deposit rollover", "Deposit Carryover", or "Deposit Carried Forward" or something to that effect. It would even work if, upon choosing "other" there was a description field where we could fill in our own option. This would also allow for people to enter things like "Venmo" or "Zelle". You could then use this description field when displaying payment history: "Collected a payment of $500 from Venmo (or Zelle or deposit rollover).
Yes, you should be able to use the same widgets in WordPress. But, since WordPress works differently, you likely won't run into the iFrame issue you did with Wix, so, they should work as designed without excessive jumping through hoops.
Actually, yes my current website is on Wix but I'm in the processing of building a new one on Wordpress.
You can see it here (still in development): stardustretreatgroups.com
Will I be able to insert an availability search WITH booking in wordpress? How do I find the widget to do that?
It actually already does work this way.
The reason it isn't for you, is, because you are using Wix, and Wix has put the widget in an iframe which is preventing it from communicating from its fellow widgets. You may need to talk to Wix to get them to turn it off, but once they do that, the data will be transferred as expected.
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/wix-widgets#iframe
Please reach out to the Helpdesk if you need additional assistance.
Such a great idea! One of my properties is a houseboat with special requirements, like flip a switch on when you shower to drain water from boat or its a step 50 stair climb that Guests must be able to walk. I emphasize this stuff several times in listing and in house rules but so many guests argue they never saw anything about it any of it. With the rules on the agreement they sign, I feel it would give more support for me on my end of the situation and HOPEFULLY give them one more opportunity to see it.
I know it's a different reason than what you mentioned... but i guess it just goes to show there are multiple benefits to it!
:)
You actually can do quite a bit of this using CSS, Property Tags, and our WebAssist service.
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/hosted-website-css-magic
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/tags#assign-property-tag
You are really lacking in one important widget.
Right now, you offer an availability search widget (in which the returned available results simply give a "more details" button to go to that room page) - and a inquiry/book now widget.
It would be SUPER HELPFUL if you could develop an availability search widget - but one that returned an actual BOOK NOW button for the available properties.
This is pretty common across hotels and accommodations. You do a search for your dates, and the rooms that come up, you can click to book it right then and there.
Only being able to send the guest to ANOTHER PAGE and THEN they complete the booking from there is an extra unnecessary step.
Or perhaps your availability search widget could return results that offer both options: A button for "more info" and a button to "book now."
That would be MOST helpful.
I would like to see a little more customization ability in colors and such. The ability to select/input a certain brand color for titles, rooms names on the searches, etc.
Could OR add a feature where a discount code can only be used once per guest? I’d like to start giving out a discount code for folks when they sign up to my email list, but each guest should only be able to use it on one stay. Thanks!
I would like the ability to offer a percentage discount on ONE night if stay is 3 nights. So, stay Mon - Wed, with Wed being 50% off. Not 50% off the Subtotal of rent.
To add a little flexibility, can we add trigger timing to align with a booking's check-in time? In my specific instance I'm looking for my SMS check-in welcome message to be sent one hour before check-in. This works fine as long as there's not an early check-in, in which case it becomes a manual process of remembering if the guest requested early check-in and manually sending my SMS welcome message with access codes. Would be great if we could automate that with a trigger tied to the guest's check-in time we stipulate with their specific booking.
+ 1
We can handle same day turnovers some of the time, but not all of the time. We would like to be able to adjust accordingly.
use tag?
I've got several triggers that I'd like to set-up that are all similar, except each uses a different tag or slight change in criteria. I don't believe there's any way to quickly duplicate a trigger or "save as another name", but that would be helpful for a future release.
Thanks!!
I would like to be able to send an automated reply to the guest during specific hours (after hours) for instructions for them to contact the on call service..
We all use reports, in varying degrees, a memorized report drop down would be AWESOME!!!!! Data entry is BORING. Keep up the good work team OR!
Would like to have an option to shade Fri and Sat as the weekend instead of Sat and Sun. We used Think Reservations for years and that's how their page is set up since Friday and Sat is the peak stay rates.
