This is a work in progress, the list below is from the BETA GitHub. Let's all add to it and edit as we push the limits of the public GVR eligibility.

Translating OwnerRez settings {surcharges, discounts, rates, inventory, availability, taxes} to the appropriate Google ARI XML messages needs to be accurate for Google to reconstruct a feed price during an available open time from the constituent XML messages to combine the rates, discounts, taxes, etc. to create Feed price {secret protected by Google and not available to us to check}) within +/- 2%. If the price that the XML messages combine under the rules Google uses does not match (determined by a human price checker), then a price accuracy miss occurs. Price accuracy hits are bad and if enough accumulate (enough being dependent on the previous rating, but could be between 3 - 10 misses) the entire integration offered by OwnerRez will be delisted thereby kicking everyone off of the Google Vacation Rentals platform.

Major points to consider here

• This is different than other integrations in that the failure of listing clients is a collective penalty and is placed under the responsibility of OwnerRez to maintain at all times
• There is no room or margin for error. A single mistake applied across 10 properties could possibly cause OwnerRez to get delisted. Penalties accumulate and remain for 90 days and successful price matches are weighted at a smaller value than a penalty. Observations is that a penalty is at least 1 order of magnitude higher in points than a success.

• Suppose a price check of 5 properties is done with 2 matches and 3 misses that is a cumulative penalty to your rating of (5 * 2) - (50 * 3) = -140 points, and with a max points available of approximately 500 points you realize quickly that 2 - 3 days of this occurring means delisting of all properties.
• This also means that fixing an issue means future price checks say they do 5 per day going forward it means you will need 6 days of successful checks to make up for that 1 day of 3 price misses. Google does not perform a consistent amount of price checks per day or perform them everyday (weekends are absent most times, and other days during the week are skipped as well from time to time), that means it will most likely take 2 weeks to recover from 1 infraction day.

This means that when a client and their properties are added we should know that the ARI XML messages we send to Google will match to the direct channel rate on their own website/widget. Prior to a channel being created the Direct Rate Tester of their My Website is a valid approximation to enforce strictness of calculation of a possible stay on dates.

A note on the Google system is that we have to precalculate taxes on fees as Google does not support this and it is where the majority of issues come into effect currently because we do not have insight into how they apply these set amounts and they do not have any guarantees on order or awareness of how things work as well when questioned other than to repeat the documentation back to us.

Related tickets: