Airbnb email aliases

How do you reach your guests via email now that Airbnb no longer discloses a guests email to the host? I use OwnerRez to communicate with my guest and require a deposit and signed contract. This just happened Sept 30. I had to call my guest to get his email. Is there another less intrusive way to do this?

I've always done this, even when they had the aliases. Just message the guest and ask for their email. I have a saved response on AirBnB that I just send as soon as they are booked.....

"blah blah blah.....Please send me your email address. All of our house info and door codes go out by automated email and won't work with the Airbnb messaging system. 
Thanks,"

No one has ever questioned it and typically they respond within minutes. I just copy their email onto the booking in OR. 

Hi Catharine,

In order to use OwnerRez to automatically send messages to guests, you will need to be using our Airbnb API connection, and configure your messages as channel templates.

Note that, if you require your guests to sign your Rental Agreement as we recommend, that process collects the guest's real email address, so regular email message templates can be sent automatically to guests after they've done that. But the original message with the link for the guest to sign their Rental Agreement, can only be sent automatically as a channel message.

Any current templates which you want to also be sent as a Channel Message (Vrbo Airbnb), you'll want to do the following: 

1. Copy the body of the email template.
2. Create a new booking type template
   https://app.ownerrez.com/settings/templates/channel
   And paste the copied content from the email template into that newly created channel template.  Note that any links must appear as the links themselves, including the http prefix - they cannot be built into a Web-style clickable link, as with normal email templates.
3. Go to your Trigger Settings to create a new trigger here: https://app.ownerrez.com/triggers
4. Once there, you'll want to associate the newly created booking type template to said trigger, making sure to configure which listing sites (channels) you want the trigger to fire the template out for.  All available channel message systems use the same templates, so, you can send the same channel message template to multiple separate channels.

Please Note: New custom Template/Trigger combinations (email and channel) are only able to fire on bookings created after the trigger's creation date, with the exception of time based triggers configured to send prior to arrival.

Here's more help resources on this topic:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/messaging-triggers#missedtriggers
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/vrbo-messaging
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/channel-templates
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/email-templates
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/system-messages

Thank you Tim. That's a good idea and I'll start implementing this.

Thank you Bri. 

I know that we can easily ask guests through the airbnb messenger for emails but now we have an additional step to grab that email and enter it in ownerrez.  It would be AWESOME if Owner Rez could provide a link similiar to the booking clean up link that we can set a trigger for that asks for contact information (not payment information) and then is autoamtically dumped into Ownerrez.  

I know that we can easily ask guests through the airbnb messenger for emails but now we have an additional step to grab that email and enter it in ownerrez.  It would be AWESOME if Owner Rez could provide a link similiar to the booking clean up link that we can set a trigger for that asks for contact information (not payment information) and then is autoamtically dumped into Ownerrez.  

The process outlined in my post above regarding channel Templates allows for that guest's email to be entered on the booking automatically. 🙂

While the {BUFIXUP} link does contain the Point of Contact form, Rental Agreement, and a payment page at this time, and the three are not able to be pieced out, the end result is still the same as what you've described you're looking for. The system will dump that email into the booking for you when the Airbnb guest has completed your Point of Contact form.

So, we should take your original template with the rental agreement paste into a channel template with the {BUFIXUP} link.  With that, they will get the request for contact info and the rental agreement.  Then, we need to delete (make inactive) our original rental agreement template, correct?

You would make the trigger for the rental agreement template attributed to "Everything but Airbnb" so it still sends to direct bookings, Vrbo bookings, etc. Yet that template still sends via the channel message to Airbnb guests.

So, we should take your original template with the rental agreement paste into a channel template with the {BUFIXUP} link.

Yes.

  With that, they will get the request for contact info and the rental agreement.

  Then, we need to delete (make inactive) our original rental agreement template, correct?

No, you'll want to keep the original one active, for systems like Vrbo and Booking.com where you do get their real email addresses upon booking.

"... Note that, if you require your guests to sign your Rental Agreement as we recommend, that process collects the guest's real email address, so regular email message templates can be sent automatically to guests after they've done that."

Does the guest's email submitted in the RA automatically get placed in that field of the contact information? 

Does the guest's email submitted in the RA automatically get placed in that field of the contact information? 

Yes, and, it will automatically be used to send any email messages you have configured.