I just realized as I was working through the tedious AirBnB integration that a SEASONAL OPTIONAL ITEM (NOT a SURCHARGE, but OwnerRez doesn't distinguish between the two - which is a HUGE failure for this software!) is being rolled into my nightly rate on AirBnB!!
Why?
This raises a whole number of questions...
1) Why is an OPTIONAL item which the guest can choose to ADD or not to their reservation being AUTOMATICALLY included on AirBnB?
Again, this is an OPTIONAL item. Including it in the nightly rate, with no choice being provided to the guest, is wrong, incorrect, and practically dishonest!
2) It is a SEASONAL item, that we ONLY charge for during certain times of the year, but it appears that it is being applied ALL the time! (Am I wrong about this? Is it only being applied seasonally? Someone please let me know this so that I can be talked a little bit back away from the ledge!)
3) Why am I... the owner of the property, the host, the one who makes the rules, and decides how and if I will rent out MY property NOT allowed to determine IF this charge should be included in the nightly rate shown on AirBnB?
4) This artificially raises my price on the AirBnB site against my competition who are NOT forced to do this.
5) Not only is this an OPTIONAL, SEASONAL ITEM for Winter Months ONLY, we have a DIFFERENT OPTIONAL, SEASONAL ITEM, for Summer Months ONLY. I don't see that being fed to AirBnB and added to the Nightly Rate! (Thank goodness!) But it demonstrates the ridiculousness of the approach! A Seasonal Optional Item which may not even be appropriate to the time of the booking is being forced on reservations, meanwhile the correct one for the season is not mentioned or available?
I have, for the last decade, charged guests separately and off site, for OPTIONAL items that they add after making their booking on a 3rd party website like VRBO and others, without any difficulty. I note that this can be done for a Credit Card Authorization Security Deposit with AirBnB bookings, so why not with OPTIONAL Items?
One of the MAIN reasons why I use PMSoftware and have for over a decade, is precisely because listing sites hell-bent on controlling my business don't offer the needed flexibility for me to run it as I need to in order to be successful. I SHOULD have the option to include an OPTIONAL item on AirBnB or NOT!
At the moment, the workarounds for this problem that I can see are...
1) Disconnect the API connection between OR and Air.
2) Explain that this is happening in my description. But that's not a good solution because it doesn't fix the issue that my listings are being made less competitive by an artificially increased price.
That's about it. Does anyone have any other suggestions or information for me?
