Important updates to the Owners Direct Booking Platform

[The Olive Grove]

If you put your email address in the reply surely it will simply get screened out? It's what all other commission portals do - TA, HL, ebay and more. You need to be extremely creative to communicate how to reach you within the confines of a messaging system.

Of course, that is why I put "xxx at yyy dot eu"

[Giraffe]

Owners Direct has now formally died - RIP.

Until next February I'm on subscription with no online booking, no online payments. If I stay after that it will be on a commission basis. It's not worth paying nearly £500/year when you cannot deal directly with customers and charge an appropriate price for their particular requirements.

At the moment I
. Have an extra cleaning charge for dogs
. Have discounts for a small party (house sleeps 7)
. Offer short breaks at an appropriate cost that includes the high cleaning charge
. Offer a discount in particular circumstances - eg this week I have a family with a severely disabled son. After booking they had to change their holiday dates and could not afford the higher price - so I charged at the lower original rate, with no cancellation fee.

Can anyone please tell me how these are managed by OD when you have online booking - I am assuming that online payments are also imposed? I suppose my main query is can I alter the OD quote before accepting the booking? I'm really nervous about these changes as I've read the horror stories on LMH. Many thanks in advance.

[newtimber]

"I would like to give you a more detailed reply privately, but the HomeAway portal does not make your email address or telephone number available to me until after a booking is confirmed, nor mine to you. Many owners are unhappy about this, as we like to build up a relationship with potential guests. If you are happy to communicate with me outside of the HomeAway portal please email me at "xxx at yyyy.zz" - suitably corrected of course."

Above is the text I used in my reply to an enquiry this morning. I think I will save this as a standard reply.

HA uses email tracking with hidden images. I'm not sure exactly what they can do, but I think they can tell is a guest has replied to an HA email not using their system if the guest just changes the HA garbled address with your email address when they reply to your email.

HA will disable your listing without any compensation if they think you are trying to avoid the service fee so be very careful.

[The Olive Grove]

Fair enough if I was on commission basis but I have just in May renewed my subscription. We will see next May whether we decide to continue with subscription, or go over to commission.


My techie husband says it is possible to get around this by turning off image display in your email client, and using plain text and not using the HTML email.

[newtimber]

Fair enough if I was on commission basis but I have just in May renewed my subscription. We will see next May whether we decide to continue with subscription, or go over to commission.


My techie husband says it is possible to get around this by turning off image display in your email client, and using plain text and not using the HTML email.

My understanding is that if you paid extra not to have OLB enabled, you can still see the guest's contact details. Otherwise you'd have no means of completing the booking.

It would be a bit irritating to have to turn off image display and use plain text for all emails in your email client to get round the tracking problem.

[AndrewH]

If you put your email address in the reply surely it will simply get screened out? It's what all other commission portals do - TA, HL, ebay and more. You need to be extremely creative to communicate how to reach you within the confines of a messaging system.

Well, I would have thought so too. I doubt if the average guest wants to get into some subterfuge with an owner. He or she just wants to book a holiday, or at least enquire, and do so as simply as possible. But failing that move on.

[Jenster]

Owners Direct has now formally died - RIP.

Until next February I'm on subscription with no online booking, no online payments. If I stay after that it will be on a commission basis. It's not worth paying nearly £500/year when you cannot deal directly with customers and charge an appropriate price for their particular requirements.

At the moment I
. Have an extra cleaning charge for dogs
. Have discounts for a small party (house sleeps 7)
. Offer short breaks at an appropriate cost that includes the high cleaning charge
. Offer a discount in particular circumstances - eg this week I have a family with a severely disabled son. After booking they had to change their holiday dates and could not afford the higher price - so I charged at the lower original rate, with no cancellation fee.

Can anyone please tell me how these are managed by OD when you have online booking - I am assuming that online payments are also imposed? I suppose my main query is can I alter the OD quote before accepting the booking? I'm really nervous about these changes as I've read the horror stories on LMH. Many thanks in advance.

In answer to your question, yes you can alter the quote before you accept an online booking. The guest then has to accept the new quote (or not) before paying the deposit, which is worked out on the new quote, and service fee. I had a booking request at the weekend for 10 nights which I didn't want to accept so altered the dates and the quote to a week, sent to guest with explanatory message, and they accepted the new quote and paid the same morning.

[AndrewH]

Can anyone please tell me how these are managed by OD when you have online booking - I am assuming that online payments are also imposed? I suppose my main query is can I alter the OD quote before accepting the booking? I'm really nervous about these changes as I've read the horror stories on LMH. Many thanks in advance.

I am on 'online booking' with OD and as I have that I am also automatically on 'online payments'. Payments are by card only to HolidayRentRipoff in Ireland. I don't think there is a way you could alter your listed price at the booking/enquiry stage, but someone else might know better.

[newtimber]

At the moment I
. Have an extra cleaning charge for dogs
. Have discounts for a small party (house sleeps 7)
. Offer short breaks at an appropriate cost that includes the high cleaning charge
. Offer a discount in particular circumstances - eg this week I have a family with a severely disabled son. After booking they had to change their holiday dates and could not afford the higher price - so I charged at the lower original rate, with no cancellation fee.

It is more sensible for OD to persuade the guest to book the house that sleeps 4 rather than book your place and then find there is no place for the 7 guests who are also enquiring. If your place doesn't book, they don't mind - they've booked the other property and got their service fee from that.

OD are really not going to be interested in why a booking is being cancelled. If you cancel, OD will hide your listing for a few months as a penalty. If the guest cancels they pay the service charge to OD.

[The Olive Grove]

Fair enough if I was on commission basis but I have just in May renewed my subscription. We will see next May whether we decide to continue with subscription, or go over to commission.


My techie husband says it is possible to get around this by turning off image display in your email client, and using plain text and not using the HTML email.

My understanding is that if you paid extra not to have OLB enabled, you can still see the guest's contact details. Otherwise you'd have no means of completing the booking.

It would be a bit irritating to have to turn off image display and use plain text for all emails in your email client to get round the tracking problem.

We have OLB but before we had the choice of whether or not to use it, which is why we went ahead with the subscription. I am very annoyed that they now seem to have taken away that choice.

[Mouse]

OK. Please help my understanding of OB (and OP)

1. I assume there is no longer an 'enquiry'?
2. The contacts will all be 'bookings' or a booking request?
3. There is 24hrs to either accept or decline.....but what if enqiries asks a question, you reply and you are waiting on an answer that takes you past the 24hrs?
4. What happens if the quote/period is altered by you and it's too high/not suitable to the booker - what is the next step?
Does this all have to be done with in 24 hrs.
5. If the guest doesn't follow through within 24hrs....what happens.
6. When is a cancellation charge liable for the guest?
7. When is a cancellation charge liable for the owner?

Thank you to anyone who can answer these questions.

Mouse
x

[The Olive Grove]

If you put your email address in the reply surely it will simply get screened out? It's what all other commission portals do - TA, HL, ebay and more. You need to be extremely creative to communicate how to reach you within the confines of a messaging system.

Well, I would have thought so too. I doubt if the average guest wants to get into some subterfuge with an owner. He or she just wants to book a holiday, or at least enquire, and do so as simply as possible. But failing that move on.

Even if it could cost them up to £250 more? I doubt it.

[Jenster]

OK. Please help my understanding of OB (and OP)

1. I assume there is no longer an 'enquiry'?
2. The contacts will all be 'bookings' or a booking request?
3. There is 24hrs to either accept or decline.....but what if enqiries asks a question, you reply and you are waiting on an answer that takes you past the 24hrs?
4. What happens if the quote/period is altered by you and it's too high/not suitable to the booker - what is the next step?
Does this all have to be done with in 24 hrs.
5. If the guest doesn't follow through within 24hrs....what happens.
6. When is a cancellation charge liable for the guest?
7. When is a cancellation charge liable for the owner?

Thank you to anyone who can answer these questions.

Mouse
x

In answer to your questions (as far as I know):
1+2. I think the guest can still enquire, or can submit a booking request (or booking if you have instant book)
3. You have 24 hrs to accept, decline, respond, or alter the quote. Any of these responses with 'stop the clock'
4. If the revised quote is unacceptable to the guest I guess they can either message you to say as much or can ignore it. In this case you can respond with another revised quote, cancel the quote, or I'm guessing the quote will expire at some point and the tentative booking will be removed from your calendar but not sure exactly how long this takes (edit - just looked it up, it expires in 3 days if not paid).
5. Again if the guest doesn't follow up I expect HA will send multiple reminders and eventually the quote will expire. It doesn't have to all be done within 24 hrs, just the initial response
6+7. You control cancellations and refunds through your dashboard so choose how much to refund, but obviously this should be in line with your cancellation policy. The service fee and payment processing fees are only refunded if you refund all of the rental fee; if only part of it is refunded they will keep the fees.

Hope this helps and I've got it right

[Mouse]

Thanks Jenster!

Well that's a relief that as soon as you engage with the enquirer the clock stops. I respond with an hour so that should be ok.

Mousie
x

[Marks]

If you put your email address in the reply surely it will simply get screened out? It's what all other commission portals do - TA, HL, ebay and more. You need to be extremely creative to communicate how to reach you within the confines of a messaging system.

Of course, that is why I put "xxx at yyy dot eu"

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but eventually you will get found out and get kicked off. Do you really think that these companies won't have thought of the various ways someone might circumvent the booking platform and have designed software that spots this sort of thing in messages via their platforms?