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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. The built-in one won't be sent if there is 0 balance due. In this case, that worked correctly and it wasn't sent.



You can see the status of this in the booking Payments tab. If there was a reminder scheduled to go out, you'd see that info and have a button there to skip instead of the status that no reminder will be sent:



However, you also have a custom "Payment Reminder" email template with a trigger set for 37 days before arrival -- that's the one that was sent. We don't have support for advanced criteria on triggers yet, although we're working on it. So it's just going to go 37 days before, unless you skip it in the Email tab of the booking:



Notice how the subsequent triggers there have a "Skip" button? You can't skip the Payment Reminder on this booking because its already been sent, but if you had clicked Skip next to it before, then it wouldn'tve been sent. That's the manual skip you've got to do for now until we have criteria on the trigger that will allow you to say "send trigger 37 days before arrival, but only if there is a payment amount due".

You can collect manual payments at any time. If you have a scheduled payment for "Remaining Balance" and the amount due is 0 by the time the scheduled payment is collected, then that collection will be skipped.

We also check when you try to do an "Collect Additional Payment" and only allow it if there is an actual balance due. If not, you'll get a message like this when you go to Collect Additional Payment:



Collect Additional Payment may need to be reworded slightly -- it doesn't mean an additional payment on top of the charges, but an additional payment different from the automatic first and second payments.

In any case, you won't be allowed to collect more than is in the booking Charges -- if you did want to do something for price changes, you actually have to change the Charges first to create an amount due before you can collect the additional payment against it.

The guest wanted to make couple of payments early. So each time I would change existing payment date to next day and amount to what she wanted to pay. then the remainder was supposed to be collected on due date. But, she asked to pay the balance early, so when due date rolled around, the remaining due was 0.
I was afraid to use 'collect additional payment' as I thought that would cause to collect money ==in addition== to her outstanding amount due. I thought collect additional payment was meant for price changes such as extra money for extra people or pets added later, or some rebooking/change fee. etc added after the fact.

P.S do I get an "award" for QA testing and discovering quirks? LOL

Looks like you have your field definitions set to "Rich Text". That allows you to do a multiline editor on the field, but then the result is not going to merge in smoothly.

Looks like the fields values themselves that you're using are all just plain text. Can you uncheck the Rich Text box and then review the field values? With Rich Text off, it'll be a text only merge that should work inline.

Hmm. You're right, that shouldn't happen. There are checks in the system to only send if there is an amount due, although we are working on an overhaul of the triggers right now so its possible something was affected.

Did you change the date on an existing scheduled payment or collect an additional payment manually?

Can you give me the booking number so I can have a look? Open a ticket if you don't want that to be public...

Hi, I have a guest who chose to pay her balance early. I did it by changing due date in the system so that payment collected earlier. So by the time her date due came, her balance due was 0. However, payment reminder email still triggered:

"We wanted to remind you about your final payment for your upcoming booking at XXXXX.

Your final payment is due by which is ."

I would think if the balance due is 0, payment reminder should not trigger? or do I need to change some setting? Thanks

I'm creating/modifying email templates but notice that when I insert a custom field definition and then preview it, the inserted field appears on a line by itself, even if it is in the middle of sentence. What am I doing wrong? (If you can, preview my template called "NBH Initial Template" to see what I'm talking about.) Thanks!

Thank you, will retest!

FIXED! We were able to locate it fast, patch it and push a release for it. Try it now and that shouldn't happen again. Great find.

Thanks, I think I am on the roll finding things :-) I am setting and testing rates for 2017, so that is how I found this.

@u0999: I don't think you're wrong. I think you found a bug. I can definitely reproduce it on my end and have no immediate answer. I'll have to get back into the lab and huddle on this.

...or using the new Hosted Site feature being deployed by OwnerRez in (literally) a few days. ;-)

Google sites does not support many things anymore. They do have iframe widget but you need to find one via trial and error as it is created and submitted by users - not by google. I could not find one that would work with booking/inquiry widget. You are better off going to a diff. provider like ehost and for a small fee (like $90 for 3 years) have a normal site. just my opinion anyway.

Now I am having strange thing with weekend/weekday night rate.
My weekend nights are defined as Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun. My weekdays Nights are defined as Mon, Tue, Wed.
Here is a quote from the rate tester 3/1 thru 3/7 2017.
Rent 1 night (3/1) during Low season Winter 2017 at Weekday Night rate $145.00
Rent 5 nights (3/2 - 3/6) during Low season Winter 2017 at Weekend Night rate at $169.00 per Weekend Night $845.00
I am not sure how is it counting 5 weekend nights if I have only 4 weekend nights defined in a week? The nights of 3/1 and 3/6 should be weekday nights, not weekend nights?
What am I doing wrong? thanks

Thanks, this is helpful

Not automatically but you could do Booking > Send Email and prepare a template to send them every time. Here's one that I've seen some users send out. VERY effective and the Airbnb person almost always responds:

(create a template with this)
-----------------------------------
Subject: Contact info and renter agreement for {PDISPNAME}

Body:

Hi {CFIRST},

I have entered your Airbnb booking into our main booking system. Thanks again for booking {PDISPNAME}!

I was wondering - could I have a real email address for you? The current email address I have for you looks like this:

{CEMAILPRIME}

That's what Airbnb provides to us, but it's difficult to send you the information we need to send using that (parts get stripped out). If you could give me a real email address (Gmail, Yahoo, etc) I would greatly appreciate it.

I already have your phone number of {CPHONEPR}, so that's great!

Also, could you take a second to click on the following link. This will open a renter agreement that we ask all guests to sign before coming out to {PDISPNAME}. Since it's a mountainous area, we like to make sure guests know the rules - some extra liability warnings that Airbnb doesn't cover in their general agreement.

{BULEASE}

This needs to be done as soon as possible. Please let me know if you have any questions.

-{MYFIRST}

Guest Support
{MYCO}

-----------------------------------

You'll want to tailor that to your own liking, but it works well. The BGEMAILPRIME field fills in the Airbnb proxy email address that our system scooped out of the iCal field.

You may want style it so that hyperlinks and bold font show up, like this:

(click this to open a big version)

I set this up a few days ago and got our first booking with AirBnB last night! It synched flawlessly. Thanks, this is a huge time and stress saver!!!

Question: Is there anyway to automatically request the person that booked to put their real contact information into the OwnerRez system after they've booked? This makes it easier to communicate and develop a long term relationship with our customers.

Any thoughts/advice is appreciated.

Damon

Ahh, good point. Right now only the owner notifications can be sent.

I'll work on a hotfix to add the third party alerts as well.

Do third party alerts go out when a booking is imported from an iCal calendar (e.g. AirBnB)? The reason I ask is I use 3rd Party alerts to trigger programming of my Z-Wave Locks so I need them to fire on importing calendars and these calendars synching bookings.

This is now fixed. Try those same dates again in the Rate Tester and it should work now. Looking into that discount issue...

Awesome catch on the bug, u0999! Found it and we're dong a hotfix for that as I speak. It had nothing to do with seasons. It had to do with the way Weekday Night was being determined. Found a small edge case there. Great find!

Thanks,

Another question - I want to add a specific discount but NOT on stays that include certain holiday periods. But I noticed that if the stay dates are split between 2 periods (one period that is eligible for discount and another period is not), the discount still shows up. Even though I do not have this discount ticked on the holiday period (it is ticked on adjacent non-holiday period). I tried to change priorities but that did not help.

example:
I have Cleaning fee discount on weekly stays during "Standard" , "Late Summer" and other periods. I do NOT want to give discount if stay includes "Labor day" period (Aug 31 - Sep 4). I have discount unticked on "Labor day" period, BUT if I run a quote for Aug 28 ("Late summer") through Sep 4 ("labor day"), the discount is still there. Am I dong something wrong? Thanks

@u0999: We are looking into this. I did reproduce your issue and I notice that there is a "Weekday Night" that should be covering that Wednesday (August 30, 2017). Probably a small edge case that may be slipping through the cracks after our recent big rate engine update.

I have 'late summer" period defined as Aug 20 - 30, 2017. Aug 31st is beginning of "premier" (holiday) weekend.
I have weekly and weekday night/weekend night prices set for "late summer"
When i test prices, what is happening is this:
1. if rental period starts on Aug 30, the night of Aug 30 shows 0 price; the subsequent nights have correct price.
2. if the night of Aug 30 falls in the middle of rental period (ex: Aug 28 - Aug 31), the night of Aug 30 is not a 0 price.
3. if the period ends on Aug 30, (ex: Aug 24 - Aug 30), Aug 30 price is 0 again.
happens on both properties. I checked the rate periods - periods do not overlap. My next period starts on Aug 31.
I have tested everything, cannot think what the reason is. Thanks in advance for any help.

I looked at the May 20-25 issue, and I believe this is happening because you have rates entered in the wrong "Spring" season. You actually have two different "Spring" seasons created but the name on both is "Spring". One of those "Spring" season applies to Regency Tower but the other one doesn't. Try deleting the extra Spring and just have one (and make that one is set to work with all three properties).

Hi Susan,

You want to set a rule on the season to not allow less than 7 days. To do that, open the season and fill in the Minimum Nights field under Length Restrictions settings. This will override the property default rules just for that one season.

Thanks for the quick response. I don't allow less than 7 days in the summer. How should that be addressed? Also, did a quote for May 20--25 and no price quote was displayed.

Hi Susan,

I took a quick look....

I do see some issues. I notice for instance that if I pick your Regency Towers property and do some dates in June 2017, nothing comes back.

And I see why that is... While you have seasons entered, the only rates that are set for those seasons are incomplete.

I see a Week rate of 1700 for instance for Regency Towers but no Nightly rate. The Week rate could be used if you set the "pro-rate" value to "any nights" so that it will cover 2 or 3 night stays in addition to 7 nights.

Other than, that give me some specific searches, and I'll tell you exactly why the rate isn't coming up right.

Hi All,

I've set my 2017 rates, but when I attempt to execute a quote, the charges for the night are not populated. Can you look into this and let me know what you find?

Thanks!
Susan

Will do! I'll be over the southern border for a day but will try when back.

Thanks

@Paul: a bunch of updates went out this morning. One of them was a pro-rate setting on rates. You can now fine-tune prorate up/down/both and it now covers ACROSS split season periods. This shouldn't completely fix the problem you had here. Can you do me a favor and test it?

FYI - on that weekly one, set pro-rate to "extra nights" and then set the extra night amount to 115. Then add a weekly rate to the other season, set pro-rate to "extra" and set the extra to 130. In other words, don't worry about a Nighly rate. Just set 115 and 130 as the pro-rate adjustment itself.