Leaving Hostaway because of their booking fee?

Sending a supplemental invoice to a Vrbo guest

Ed T
Apr 4, 2024 4:08 PM
Joined Nov, 2023 24 posts

How do you send a request for a payment invoice through OwnerRez after a channel booking.  In particular, this one was Vrbo, the guest broke many items.   Please don't tell me about OwnerRez's insurance options.    How do I invoice a guest beyond the channel booking fees?  With Vrbo we are the merchant of record.  It seems that we should bill from OwnerRez and not from the channel.

 

I thought i found the answer but it's not working as I would expect.   Go to the specific booking  Select <Transactions>  select <Request>  then select <Request Payment>  I then select <specific amount>  then fill in my comment & choose <compose email>.  After doing this it takes me to a payment screen showing $0 balance and there is no history of email to guest.   So after entering the transaction (twice now) there is no sign of it.

Ken T
Apr 4, 2024 7:23 PM
OR Team Member Joined Aug, 2019 1706 posts

There are several different aspects to answering this question.

Strictly speaking, it is not possible to "send a request for a payment invoice through OwnerRez", in the sense of sending a guest an add-on quote to their booking for them to accept or reject.

However, for any booking where you are the merchant of record, you can freely change the Charges, adding whatever is needed.  And since you would already have the guest's credit card on file from their previous payments, you can simply charge the new balance on the Transactions tab.  The guest is not directly involved.

You can send them an updated full invoice as described here:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/template-receipt-billing-summary

Normally, we would recommend using a security deposit hold to provide for this situation:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/security-deposit-holds

In this particular case, it's too late for that, but requiring security deposit holds for future bookings may make things easier should this happen in the future.  Note that security deposit holds are not insurance, and do not have any cost unless you actually need to keep the money - then you have to pay normal processing fees on the amount.

Ed T
Apr 5, 2024 2:05 AM
Joined Nov, 2023 24 posts

Thanks, Ken, I'll dig into that in the morning.  As to a security deposit thanks for the suggestion and I agree security deposits can be valuable.  I use them whenever a younger guest talks me into staying at one of my properties.  But the question then becomes how much of a deposit do I take $250, $500, $1000.   When I have charged a deposit it's been $500 so this instance would have exceeded the limit.   I'd also point out in 15 years of doing this with anywhere from 3 to 10 units I've only had malicious/negligent damages 1 other time.  That's somewhere between 3k and 5k guests.   I charge a small damage insurance fee for up to $500 in non malicious or negligent damages and it pays for things like broken plates and things i'd be embarrassed to confront a guest about, avoids having to do a through inventory after each stay, and avoids tying up a guests funds.