Where do returned emails go?

[Jenny Oest]

@Carole - delivered means it reached their server - the green check mark means it was opened. But it would be nice to have an indicator saying that the email bounced. This would be a good feature request?

[Carole]

@Jenny-Oest But my emails did NOT reach their server. When I used the same email address to write to them from my own gmail account I received a reply instantly that the email was not delivered because the domain was not found. This was sent to my gmail address. Presumably the same email should have been sent to my MyVR account each time I sent an automated email to my guest using the wrong email address/invalid domain name email address.

[Carole]

@Jenny-Oest Submitting this as a feature request.

[Jenny Oest]

@Carole - I see what you mean - I usually only look for the green check mark. Otherwise I assume it may not have been received. BUT, all of the HomeAway emails will be delivered but not received…

[Carole]

@Jenny-Oest That just means we need to work towards 100% direct bookings

[Jenny Oest]

@Carole - A-MEN!

[Ann D Liptak]

This post is deleted!

[Carole]

@Ann-D-Liptak That’s interesting - thanks for sharing. I am assuming these were direct bookings/inquiries, not ones that come into your MyVR system via an integrated site?

[Danny Eiden]

Hi All,

Thank you all for investigating what’s going on with the “delivered” and “opened” indicators. I would like to clarify a couple of things. First and most importantly, we just fixed a bug that erroneously marked all emails as “delivered” even if delivery failed. Going forward, bounced emails will not be marked as delivered. They will instead look like this.

Secondly, I want to confirm that @Ann-D-Liptak is correct. If anyone is CC’d or BCC’d to a message, the message will be marked as delivered or opened if any recipient receives or opens the email respectively. Thank you for doing that bit of digging, Ann.

Finally, as Jenny mentioned, feel free to submit a feature request for an indicator for bounced emails. We like to develop features that are important to our customers, and feature requests are the best way to get your desires in front of our product team.

Cheers,
Danny

[Carole]

@Danny-Eiden Can you clarify what will happen if the email address is bad and the inquiry comes via an integrated OTA?

[Danny Eiden]

@Carole, that is a great question. The answer is that it depends on whether you are sending messages via a proxy email address. If you are sending messages directly to the renter (e.g. renter@gmail.com), then you will see what I posted above when an email bounces. There will be “no delivery information available”. On the other hand, if you are sending messages to a proxy email address (e.g. renter-dsf546sdfsd5s8@guest.airbnb.com, renter.7896548@guest.booking.com), the behavior is channel dependent. Airbnb will always show “no delivery information available” regardless of whether the renter entered a valid email address or whether the renter has viewed the message in Airbnb. Booking.com, on the other hand, will properly track the separate “delivered” and “opened” events for when your message is delivered to Booking.com and when the renter reads the message in Booking.com. As far as I know, these proxy email addresses prevent you from seeing whether the message was delivered or opened in the renter’s true email inbox.

I hope this helps.

Best,
Danny

[Carole]

@Danny-Eiden Thanks - my full integration is with HomeAway/VRBO, what happens with them?

[Danny Eiden]

Hi @Carole,

With HomeAway, inquiries begin with a proxy email address like dvqg5ds8-2b4h-46bc-b864-d8d5c42e1opm@messages.homeaway.com. Messages sent to this email address will always be marked as delivered but never as opened.

Once an inquiry becomes booked, HomeAway gives MyVR access to the true email address of the renter. From then on, all of your messages will be sent to this email address. Because of this change, you’ll be able to see whether all messages post-booking have been delivered or opened.

Best,
Danny