Airbnb API integration - come and get it!

Right off the bat, question. is pushing rates from OR to Airbnb mandatory? reason I ask is because I have Wheelhouse set to manage my Airbnb rates.

Yes, the rates, rules and availability sync are a fundamental part of the Airbnb API push. You can set the API to "Limited" mode instead of "Everything" but rates are still part of the limited sync. It's a very powerful API integration - we are recommending everyone get onboard, particularly since the Airbnb calendar import (iCal) is changing in a few weeks to strip out all the guest and booking information. Time to look at PriceLabs? 😜

What I did not like with pricelabs (and I did do a free trial) that you have to pay whether you have bookings or not in a given month. For 3 properties it was something like $42. I like Wheelhouse's pricing better- only the bookings processed through them are billed a percentage.
Overall still on the fence about benefits or dynamic pricing( and I have done it for 2+ years on some platforms) . yes it can make some holiday rates higher. But I do not think that I had a significant increase in revenue vs doing it myself overall.

Another question is whether we can "pad" rates with higher % before pushing to Airbnb. (such as pricelabs suggests $100 per night but I want to up the Airbnb rates by 5% due to higher risk). ?

Yes, all our price-pushing functions have a price escalator % setting. So you can indeed raise your Airbnb prices by 5%.

Agree with Blue about the questionable value of these pricing engines. If you manually adjust for holidays, weekends and recency (eg. way far out or way close) with stuff going up and down accordingly, you don't need the dynamic engines. I thought they were based on supply at one time (eg. PriceLabs would actually crawl sites and see what dates are taken) but that's not the case. They are just going up/down based on factors I can come up with myself. Then use the import from Excel in OR to bulk load a year or two at a time and you can update all your properties quickly for a year or two at a time. Adjust the spreadsheet and load again. Use discounts to make last-minute time (30 days, 14 days and 5 days from now) have automatic drops and you're covered.

I am very new to the API system. Airbnb is our least favorite platform because of the payout after guest check-in, lack of real security deposits (and many other reasons). I usually controlled bookings by reducing my booking window to 3-6 months into the future. But now that I have Airbnb integrated to my OwnerRez account I think I've lost that control. Is there a work around that? Thank you for your insight.

I figured it out. I was able to change the Aribnb Channel rules. Fingers crossed this works.

For others that are wondering, yes you can do that. On the API channel settings (under Settings) you can drill in and set each API to have specific time from now settings to limit when that channel takes bookings. There are some other rules there on the channel level as well.