Happy Friday! From regulatory reforms and real estate restrictions to platform overhauls and pop culture throwbacks, the vacation rental world is buzzing with change.
Airbnb unveiled its 2025 Summer Release () this week, marking a significant shift from a home-sharing platform to a comprehensive travel and lifestyle marketplace. The updated app...
We're excited to introduce our new integration with Hello Guest Screen () , bringing a personalized digital concierge experience directly to your properties' smart TVs. About Hello Guest Screen
Hello Guest Screen is the digital concierge for your smart TV—making guests feel welcomed and informed, while helping hosts stand out and book direct. If your TV has access to...
Tighter rules and shifting demand are reshaping the vacation rental landscape. From Maui to Greece, governments are cracking down to address housing concerns, signaling a wave of change ahead of peak travel season.
Maui County is advancing legislation to phase out short-term vacation rentals () in apartment-zon...
From global crackdowns and price surges to platform safeguards and event-driven policy shifts, this week's vacation rental headlines reveal how external pressures are reshaping the industry ahead of the busy summer season.
In anticipation of Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, Airbnb is once again activating its "anti-party technology" (
As many of you have already noticed, Airbnb bookings are coming in (via the calendar import) without any guest name, phone, email address or other details on them.
This is happening because, sometime yesterday, Airbnb changed their calendar sync engine (the iCal feed) to remove all of the guest information. They have not offered any explanation for this; the guest info just disappeared. They st...
Happy Wednesday Thursday! Sometimes it feels like it takes longer to write about our updates then to build them! Don't tell the engineers I said that.
This past week saw 12 updates with a focus mostly on channel related things. We're particularly excited about a new Cancellation Policy feature which was important to add because of some upcoming features that will rely on it. Start your engines...
Hey Jordan,
Google Vacation Rentals is not necessarily the issue. Your listing does market your direct book website to a broad audience. That's good and bad. Bad because scammers look for properties to vacation where they can check in at the last minute, using stolen credit cards. By the time the credit card is reported stolen and a chargeback is filed, they have enjoyed your place and are long...
Sooooo... I set my website contact form to automatically email new reservation requests directly tto my OwnerRez email address and lo and behold I tested it and it showed up under the "Emails" tab like a damned miracle.
I go into the Emails tab and clicked on it to open it, and I selected "Create Inquiry" like I think I'm supposed to.
That takes me to a screen with the email itself on the l...
To do that, there's a setting in the property Rules section called "card will not be charged". It's been there for many years so it predates the term "Request To Book" -- we should probably rename that so it's less confusing :-D
Anyway, to turn that on, go to the Rules section of each property and set it the option (see screenshot). Then the booking will come in with a card on file but not be c...
Not currently -- the account theme is special in that it's the contact info/logo etc. on the account itself. The other themes are stored separately, but the account theme is the default and it's stored on the account.
Typically you'd want to use the account theme as the default, so there can be a fallback if there's no property in some context -- like an inquiry with no property.
Then, you'...
The always applied fee is flat.
If you want to do a percentage, then just deduct it from the refund percent. There's no need for a separate percentage field.
For example, if you refund 50% but want to keep 3% extra then you'd enter 47%.
Or if you do full refund outside 60 days and 50% refund up to 30 days, then choose the "it's complicated" option and create two periods:
60 days, 97% refund
3...
Yeah, you definitely deserve an award for finding all the quirkyness! We should have a user badge for "Test Pro" or something that shows up on your forum account. ;-)
I see what's going on here though... the reminder that was sent out was a custom one that you've got scheduled on a trigger. The built-in one goes out automatically 10 and 5 days before payment is scheduled as well as as the day of....
Hi Jake,
Thanks for the remarks. I do not manage so many properties (I would have been rich but gone crazy) :) but propose them for rental; that's partly why each property is not making big scores that largely cover the per property costs.
Looking at pricing another way does not change the issue. If I had the marketing trick at hand I would have used it to put more into my own pocket; not O...
Wow, your old PM was pretty expensive! That's about 13 cents (USD) per message that your old PMS was charging. At that rate, the base fee $15 we are charging would barely cover 100 messages.
We are including 300 outbound messages and unlimited inbound which works out to 2-3 cents per message depending on your ratio of outbound/inbound. It's 3 cents/outbound after that.
It's not hard to hit 100...
I am a little surprised given the importance of Mother's Day and Valentine's Day in the vacation rental industry, that is is not a default holiday.
I realize that it is not a day off/formal holiday, but they can be huge travel days for VRs.
Anyway how do I set up a custom holiday that will always be the second Sunday of each May? (Mother's Day - USA) and third Sunday in June (Father's Day)?
