@jonathan-murray

Hey everyone - just following up on this thread, since the May invoices for channel management hit your accounts on June 1.

You have probably seen your April and May channel management invoice and noticed no fees have been charged. As previously promised, any channel management fees over and above your accrued credits have been waived for these two months. We hope this provided some financial relief for many of you during these difficult times.

We will return to normal billing starting with your June Channel Management invoice, which will be issued on July 1st. We hope everyone is hanging in there. We are encouraged by the increase in bookings we saw last month across the platform, and June has started strong. We’re hopeful business continues to come back for everyone.

We appreciate your support and if there’s anything we can do to help, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

And the dreaded Guest Cancellation notice. Turns out the Travel Insurance Policy I sold a sweet mature lady requires documentation of the cancellation.

Dear {{{ full_name }}},

We are writing to confirm we have processed your request to cancel your Reservation # {{{ reservation_id }}} from {{{ check_in }}} to {{{ check_out }}} at {{{ property_name }}}.

We regret you are able to join us here, and hope you will think of us should you find the opportunity to travel to our area in the future.

Sincerely,

Your Name

I’d like to participate in this discussion. I just created a new website with MyVR and would like feedback from folks who’ve been doing this awhile. Any tips, tricks, suggestions? I’ve looked at it so much, I’m either nitpicking or not seeing something to improve.

Oceanfrontsheltercove.com

I do know I need new photos and have a photographer lined up. She’ll also do some drone footage which I’m excited to use.

Thank you for your constructive feedback.

@Danny-Eiden Thanks for the input! I really do love this template and the final look of the website. I appreciate the vote of confidence and all of the help from y’all! 🙂

@Jenny-Oest
Ah, yes, I have those setup - I just never noticed what they looked like when input into a template - I thought maybe there was a secret “key” to MyVR that had the “code” for extra data … Like you, I am very much in need of the ability to create customized data pertaining to specific bookings 🙂

@mike-wesling Would you mind updating the community with any feedback on using Assurant for nearly the past year - please?

@Jenny-Oest said in [RESOLVED] Temporary Infrastructure Issues:

How do we report a system down?

The most effective way to report a potential system outage is to use the Report an Issue link after clicking on the Support button in your account. Although we do actively engage in conversation from forum posts, reports of problems as a rule are surfaced more quickly to our team.

In the event you experience what appears to be a system outage, we are likely to be aware of the problem, so the steps to follow would be:
a) Check our status page: http://status.myvr.com/
b) Submit an issue via the Support button in your account

If you are unable to access the Support button in your MyVR account, then please shoot me an email: markus at myvr dot com (it is highly unlikely we don’t already know of the problem at that point via our monitoring systems, but better safe than sorry).

Hi All,

As a MyVR integrated user, what should I do to prepare for HomeAway communications changes?

This depends on how much customization you’d like in your inquiry auto responses:

Level 1: Do nothing. Your current auto responses will be sent as is and HomeAway will remove the restricted content
Level 2: Tweak Customize templates to work well after HomeAway strips content.
Level 3: Add custom templates for HomeAway, VRBO, VacationRentals.com

Just wanted to give you a quick update. It turns out that we had already implemented text only messages for HomeAway about 10 months ago when we made a similar change for FlipKey / TripAdvisor. The messages sent to HomeAway guests do not include rich HTML versions but rather a text only version. These currently still include restricted content such as links and email addresses in the message and HomeAway has not yet started stripping away that content.

We’ve learned a number of things while verifying this will continue to work as expected.

@John-Hughes asked if messages with links will be sent. And I’ll echo @Jenny-Oest response here. If the message contains any of the restricted content, HomeAway will simply strip that content out before presenting to the renter, but will not prevent the delivery of the message. Any email addresses, phone numbers, links or attachments will be removed by HomeAway.

@Jenny-Oest mentioned creating message templates with auto responders specific to inquiries from the HomeAway brand of sites. Internally we briefly discussed and think that might be a little more than necessary.

One thing that I would consider doing is modifying the content of the message to read well, whether or not the message includes restricted content.

For example:

BAD

Hi guest, Thanks for booking our property. Feel free to email us at myprop@myprop.com or call us at 775-225-1111 with any questions about your inquiry. Or checkout our website: myprop.com. Thanks, PM

GOOD

Hi guest, Thanks for booking our property. We look forward to connecting. Many thanks, PM myprop@myprop.com 775-225-1111 myprop.com

That way when the message is stripped of any restricted content, it does not change the message.

GOOD STRIPPED

Hi guest, Thanks for booking our property. We look forward to connecting. Many thanks, PM

If small tweaks like this do not work for your situation, the next best option sounds like creating templates for HomeAway specific inquiries.

Hope that helps. We’ll be monitoring this closely and making a few small adjustments this week in preparation for the change.

@danny-eiden - I never got all of these to work, and the ones that did work no longer do. I must be doing something wrong here. I’m struggling with my facebook posts because I can’t post a decent link. 😞 Any advice?

@john-hughes & @jenny-oest, thanks for the input. I’ll try out the PriceLabs Trial and see how it goes.

@thomas-kilmer - Um no. I don’t know CSS - I know what it is, but am not well versed in it. I know enough ONLY to do serious damage to anything I touch, so I know enough not to do it.
Just using the editors in MyVR is enough to hose up my own websites…LOL

Are you guys for hire? LOL

Also, my client is wanting the GET A QUOTE page like this page: >http://www.sonomasquarecottage.com/rates-and-calendar/ who is using your service.

Is that a form you offer your customers too if someone has their own website? like maybe a link similar to the BOOK NOW link?

Unfortunatly we do not offer a pre-built widget to get a quote. If you are comfortable writing custom HTML and JS, you can create your own form and use the MyVR.js Quote function to get a quote based on user input. However, as I mentioned earlier, using both MyVR.js and widgets on the same page can cause issues.

@Tracy-Lucente

Hi! That’s how it currently works.

I can’t speak for HomeAway or what changes they’ll make down the road, but currently the traveler pays the Service Fee when the booking is initiated on the HomeAway family website.

An inquiry that is converted to a booking later, but was submitted on the HomeAway family website and booked later in the software (and not on the HA website) currently does not have this fee applied.

Of course, the protections and benefits that come with the Service Fee (namely, the “Book with Confidence Guarantee”) also would not be applicable. More on that: https://help.homeaway.com/articles/What-is-the-service-fee-and-how-does-it-work

@Carole The current ticket is sufficient. Thank you.

@Jonathan-Murray - YAY! Thank you!!! 🙂

Ok thanks so much for your guidance.

@Carole - you could create two responders - one for calendar available, and one for calendar not available. In that case, one of the two would always send.

@Carole - oh dear - double bookings - yikes!

You should be able to apply this same logic to your calendars too.

Property 3 = Alpha
Property 4 = Beta
Property 3/4 = SkyVilla

But I’m afraid I can’t do it for you. I’m just a mere user - not an all-powerful MyVR staffer…

@jenny-oest awesome- thank you!! You’re always so helpful!!

The bookings for both my cabins were hit hard in the Fall 2015. HA/VRBO had generated most of my bookings. In December 2015, I integrated MyVR’s Flipkey channel. I was able to salvage some of the losses from the major decline in bookings.

I really liked MyVR’s format to manage my properties with Flipkey. I took the plunge in January 2016 and integrated MyVR’s HA/VRBO channel. Being able to bypass the traveler’s fees has really boosted my bookings. I am on track to match or exceed my highest annual revenues.

I have noticed a trend that bookings are no longer made far in advance. My high season generally books 6 - 9 months in advance. Other times are booking 2 -6 weeks in advance.

I feel it is to my advantage to be seen by as many travelers as possible. So, I just integrated MyVR’s AirBnB channel. I’m excited to see results!