General Help and Questions

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Hi Michele,

Can you show me what the email for the final payment collect, via credit card, looks like to the guest?

Thanks,
Claudia

I think for now the proposal is limited to HomeAway. They'll probably use the owners on HomeAway as beta testers before rolling it out to VRBO and all the multitude of other HomeAway website acquisitions.

I know the HomeAway security people are reading the HomeAway forum topic. It would be great to have a few more people who feel strongly one way or the other to log on there and voice their opinions!

http://community.homeaway.com/message/26537

This is horrifying! I am **not** going to go along with this if I can't see the travelers email. I like using my own format when answering, including pictures and links of my choosing. I'll walk away from VRBO if I have to.

If you're a HomeAway owner, I'd encourage your addition to the HA forum thread.
Does anyone here have a link or reference to similar discussions on other boards?

Thanks,
P.

I, for one, am not interested in going into their site and continue to check for inquiries. I want my inquiry sent to me, via EMAIL!

Claudia

Peter, thanks for starting this topic.

The replies on that HomeAway community thread, and elsewhere, are almost unanimously opposed to the changes, in one way or another.

As Michelle touched out, HomeAway has spent years chasing Airbnb, never realizing that their customers aren't the same as Airbnb customers. Their customers are VR professionals that rent out properties as a business. Those customers want professional tools, lots of options and personalization to their own tastes. They don't want their fortunes linked to any one listing site. They don't want listing sites to force them to use one particular calendar, take one particular type of payment or restrict them from talking to their customers how they choose. They want tools that highlight their own business and not the business of the listing site.

HomeAway really needs to be accentuating their differences with Airbnb and highlighting the advantages of their own model instead of spending millions chasing the same type of development.

Thanks for the link, Peter.

Hi GreenJoe,

Ah yes, the Airbnb-style stuff. HomeAway has been trying to duplicate what Airbnb does for the past two years. I figured that was what you were referring to. We're not terribly concerned about it, given HomeAway's track-record and their marketbase. FlipKey has recently been walking down the same road. Both HA and FK don't seem to realize that many of their customers don't want to be locked into a closed-loop platform with high fees that doesn't let you use any other email/phone/quote/payment structure.

If it does happen, then we could only scoop up some of the inquiry and you'd have to answer the other part through the HA interface.

Receiving and parsing inquiries is only one of many features we provide. Less than half of our users use our inquiry features. Most answer email outside of our system and using us to create quotes and manage the booking/payment/security deposit that comes after that.

-Michelle

Enjoy:

http://community.homeaway.com/thread/4590

P.

at the homeaway summit in austin a couple months ago they showed off a buggy email interface that they were considering rolling out (very similar to Airbnb). They claimed they needed to implement a closed email communication system because it was necessary to eliminate email phishing scams that have been targeting homeaway listings. the idea is to hide the listing owner's email until booking occurs or until the owner/manager decides to release their email id to the prospective guest.

Hi Peter,

Do you have more information on that policy? I had heard rumblings about that but nothing concrete. Our assumption was that that would be configurable (ie. owners could choose to get inquiries that way or keep them as they are now).

If HomeAway forces all users into that model, there are integration methods we could construct to retrieve those inquiries, similar to how we update calendars on third-party websites.

-Michelle

Hi,
How will OwnerReservations.com handle the upcoming changes to the HomeAway inquiry system where they will no longer send owners the e-mail address of guests in an inquiry e-mail?

Owners will be asked to log on to HomeAway in order to obtain this information. Won't this, effectively, disable OwnerReservataions.com?

Peter.

Hi David,

I will email you the paper version of the application so you can see the rates page.

There is no extra fee for non-qual, foreign, PCI or any of that. No monthly minimum, no gateway, no annual, no setup. There is only a flat rate of 2.95%.

At the end of the month, you'll get a statement showing how much you processed and 2.95% of that will be deducted from your bank account.

Lately we've been dealing with an issue known as FANF - a new fee that Visa has leveled at everyone in the industry in response to the Durbin amendment, which hurt Visa and helped MasterCard. But even that fee will not be charged to you. If it shows up, our banking partner will credit it back.

Again, only 2.95% of whatever your gross processing is.

Look for an email from me with the application and T&C.

-Michelle

That's great news - I am thinking about moving over to your merchant account from the one I have been using. The site state:
"All merchant accounts have fees, based on Interchange rates. Our banking partner's fees are within the industry average at 2.95%. No other setup, annual, monthly or gateway fees are charged. Just a flat rate of 2.95%."

Is there somewhere that I can see all the terms and pricing (i.e. non-qual transactions, PCI compliance, etc (before I go through the trouble of signing-up?

Thanks,
David

Claudia,

You beat me to it! I was going to post on this thread to alert the watchers.

You can see the overview pricing here:

https://www.ownerrez.com/pricing

You can see a personalized pricing page in your account here:

https://app.ownerrez.com/account/billing

Active beta users will also get a 25% lifetime discount on their bookings fees, which is mentioned on your personalized pricing page.

-Michelle

Claudia, thanks! It's been a long time coming. We feel like we're a "real product" now instead of just a hobby that we were passionate about. Yes, you nailed it - existing users have a 7 day trial, after which the first month begins. New users still have a full 30 day trial ~Sam

I see you went live today. Congratulations!

So that I understand, we will begin to incur expenses, if not using your merchant account, starting next month? Since you have a trail period of a week, correct? So, any bookings made from July 5th on?

Thanks,
Claudia

NEVER MIND. Somehow those dates are reserved, when it was not showing reserved on another calendar. Sorry for the confusion!!!

Claudia

I don't follow. What's the inquiry #?

What dates are you trying to change the inquiry too?

Did you click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the Verify form after updating the date fields?

It is not in the Quote Screen.

I tried changing it in the Verify screen, but it still does not give me a Calculate screen.

Claudia

The inquiry will show as unavailable as long as the dates on the inquiry are already taken. Update the inquiry by going to the Verify tab (on the inquiry) and changing the date fields.

You may also need to change the quote dates as well if you already created a quote. You can do that by opening the quote, via the Quotes menu, clicking on the Dates tab and changing them there.

Changing the inquiry dates does not change the quote dates and vice versa. Inquiries and quotes are two separate entities in the system.

We know this process is a bit disjointed. There are a lot of changes coming to inquiries shortly.

-Michelle

I received an inquiry, which dates were not available. When I went back to change the dates to an available date, since they were flexible, I can't seem to get to the quote side. If I say I want to answer it, it has the message that the dates are not available.

How do I fix this, other than marking it as read and then manaually creating a new quote?

System can maybe do a check, after each change?

Thanks,
Claudia

Credit card fee would have been $12 and it is charged at the beginning of the month. So, it is not that.

Claudia

Hi Claudia,

It's the end of the month so it's most likely your credit card fees for the months, but that's just a guess.

-Michelle

Hi Michele,

I was charged $77.50 today under the name of Cornerstone! When I called my bank to find out where this came from, they told me it is a company named Sage/Cornerstone. Tim is looking into it.

Claudia

At the time I didn't think I needed it. I deposited the check and I throw out the envelope. I went through my recycling pile and couldn't find it anywhere. I have two piles of recycling, one in my office (doesn't get recycled as often) and one downstairs, where I open most of my mail and then recycle what I don't need.

Since emails were going back and forth if he wanted to use the credit card for the security hold, he eventually said yes. When I was ready to enter the information, I didn't have the address anymore. Another email out for the address and wait for him to respond.

Claudia

You're right - we need to ask for an address and phone from everyone, payment or not.

In the meantime, can't you find their address on the check they send to you?

Do they fill in the address for a check?

We would need the address, to refund the check. There is nothing on the payment side that gives an address or phone number. Absolutley no information on them, once booked.

My renter paid the deposit by check. He happened to give me his credit card information to put a hold on his credit card, for security purposes. I went to enter the information and couldn't find anything on his address (nor phone number). I searched everywhere. I ultimately had to ask him for the address, for me to continue to process his Security Deposit.

Claudia

The only address we save from the guest is on the payments they send. So to find it, navigate to the booking, click the Payments tab, view a payment and you'll see the name, address and phone number they used to submit the payment. I'm referring to credit card payments of course.

We already have on the dev roadmap an update to make the guest provide a "main" address and phone number (or several) before submitting their payment. This will be on the contact page prior to signing the T&C when accepting the quote.

Some background... When we built OwnerRez, our original goal was to be simple and minimalist by nature. We didn't want the owner and guest to have to wade through dozens of forms filling in tons of information, and we didn't want a cluttered design. Since then, we've realized that there are quite a few things that guests still need to provide for the owner to be comfortable, and we've been adding them one by one.

Hope this helps,

-Michelle

Where would I find the guest address, after they booked???

Thanks,
Claudia