COVID-19 Vacation Rental Features

We sure hope that everyone is staying healthy. And though COVID-19 sure seems to be trying to wreck this Summer, Bookerville has introduced new features to alleviate and help with the impact.

Minimum Days Between Bookings

Some areas are now doing a "soft open" for vacation rentals. This is good news for businesses, but also presents some challenges. Some locations are requiring a minimum number of days between bookings, so that any COVID-19 present on surfaces will die before the next guests arrive.

Bookerville has implemented a new optional setting to force a minimum number of days between bookings. On the Bookerville internal booking system, this is enforced when guests choose dates on the Public Booking Calendar. It can be found in the Property Setup page:

Channel Managers, Listing Sites

Bookerville is also vending this new setting now on our Property Details API feed. For those of you using the Bookerville API directly, the name of the new field is <MinDaysBetweenBookings>. We have asked both Channel Managers whether listing sites are supporting this feature, but it appears that so far, they are not.

Availability Feeds

To alleviate this, we are offering a new option for your iCal feeds as well as the Bookerville Availability API that the Channel Managers read. These new options will automatically "pad" bookings on either side with enough days to cover your minimum-days-between-bookings setting.

You can control whether this setting will cause your iCal feeds to "pad" days around each booking to reflect this in the availability that listing sites see. It will do the same thing to the Availability API if you (or a Channel Manager you're with) are using that. This should prevent guests from booking on those sites too close to existing bookings.

Please note: this new exploratory feature may not work with 3rd-parties reading your availability data, and there are two things to be aware of:

1) If there are existing (future) bookings that are already closer together than your minimum-days-between-bookings setting, the system cannot (will not) go change those bookings. You will have to manually deal with those existing bookings.

2) It's possible that due to the placement of existing bookings on your calendar, if you make this minimum-days-between-bookings setting, it could cause iCal feeds (and/or the Availability API) to express overlapping bookings. This could confuse groups reading that availability data, so if you use this new feature, be sure to monitor it carefully, and work with your partners to make them aware of what you're doing and why.

Unearned Revenue Report

Bookerville also has provided a new report called "Unearned Revenue", which shows payments received for future-arriving bookings. This can be helpful for potential relief and/or insurance claims, as well as identifying your potential liability for refund requests, etc.

Moving Forward

Bookerville is paying close attention to the COVID-19 crisis, and making sure we are doing everything possible to help our partners through this unprecedented event. If you have ideas for improvements, or feedback on the features we have implemented so far, please let us know.

How Bookerville Sends Email

Bookerville has no choice but to default to sending out emails with a "From" address of noreply@bookerville.com, because the emails are in fact being sent from the Bookerville email servers. One of the first things spam filters look at is where (what ip address) the email came from, and then they do a reverse DNS lookup to see what domain that ip address belongs to. Of course, for Bookerville it's going to come back as bookerville.com, as it should.

If we place your email address in the "From" address and send it from Bookerville, it has an extremely high chance of getting rejected as spam, because the "From" address must be the domain that the email is sent from.

The Almighty "From" Address

So we instead place "noreply@bookerville.com" as the "From" address, and then place your email address in the "Reply-To" address. For most modern email clients, this will cause replies to be automatically drafted to go to your email address, but sometimes this doesn't happen: we do in fact get some correspondence that clearly is meant for the property manager, and then we have to reply to them and make sure they send it to you.

This also still causes some email systems to flag it as spam because they don't even really like it when the "Reply-To" address is a domain other than the one the email originated from.

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) Records

The real solution is to put your email as the "From" address. But in order to do that, you must grant bookerville.com permission to send email on behalf of your domain. This is done with something called Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records. These are simple records that your domain-name provider sets up, and these SPF records are visible to the Internet. Mail servers will look up your SPF records and see that you've granted Bookerville permission to send email on behalf of your domain, and then let your emails through, even though the "From" address isn't the same domain as the one sending the email.

Clear As Mud?

In short: we are asking everyone to please go through the steps to establish SPF records to grant bookerville.com permission to send email on behalf of your domain, so that we can reduce rejected email, and also reduce the number of emails we are having to manually re-direct back to you. Everyone wins, including the confused guests!

How Do I Do It?

To setup the proper SPF records to do this, you are going to have to work with your email/website and/or DNS provider, because it's different for all of them. Usually this is the same group, like GoDaddy, Network Solutions, HostGator, Enom, DreamHost, Namecheap, etc. Or you may be using Yahoo, Web.com, WordPress, or other services that combine domain-name, email, and web-hosting all in one package (this is very popular). They will need to work with you to setup your SPF records. Tell them you want to set up SPF records to grant bookerville.com permission to send email on behalf of your domain. They should know what to do, but feel free to loop us in wherever we can be helpful.

If you don't have your own domain name, or even if you do but you're not using it for your email address, then it really is time to fix that. It's not at all difficult to set up an email address for your domain name, and you can ask your hosting group for help with that.

If you don't have your own domain, create one. This can be fun, and honestly it will only legitimize your business further and provide you with a more professional image.

Notify Us

Once the proper SPF records have been set up, please contact us so that we can switch your account to start using your own email address as the "From" in all your Bookerville-generated email.

More Material

Here are some other articles which go into some more detail:

Adding SPF records, GoDaddy Help

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) - Wikipedia

Email Spam and SPF Records

Setting up SPF Records With GoDaddy

You have probably started to hear the term Channel Manager kicked around lately. It's a relatively new concept in the vacation rental industry that has been growing in facility and popularity.

So What Is a Channel Manager?

A Channel Manager is software that facilitates rich data integration with many different listing sites ("channels") for convenience in a single dashboard. Channel Managers are usually 3rd-party services, but in some cases they are a part of the property management software.

What's So Great About a Channel Manager?

Channel Managers can take your property data (features/amenities, rates, taxes, photos, etc.) from Bookerville and automatically distribute it to listing sites like Booking.com, AirBnB, Expedia, HomeAway/VRBO, FlipKey, etc. This convenient arrangement enables you to manage all your properties and bookings from one (beautiful!) dashboard in Bookerville. Extending rates every quarter? Do it once in Bookerville, and you're all set everywhere.

Full, real-time calendar synchronization is provided, which all but guarantees no double-bookings. And bookings from the listing sites appear in your Bookerville calendar, complete with guest contact information, booking amounts, and ready to be managed with all the Bookerville tools you can't live without. Channel Managers provide a vastly superior calendar sync than iCal, for example.

What Does a Channel Manager Cost?

There is no additional fee to use the Channel Managers, and you don't have to pay anything above your Bookerville subscription fee to use them.

The Channel Managers are commission-based. The cost of using them is the cost of the commission the channel itself charges, plus the commission of the Channel Manager. However, you can choose to pay any portion of those commissions yourself, including zero. They will inflate your rates by whatever it takes to cover the difference, so the guests are unwittingly paying the commissions. This concept is often referred to as Net Rates.

How Do I Get Started With a Channel Manager?

Bookerville integrates with two Channel Managers: BookingPal and Rentals United. Follow these links to learn more, and also find short forms to submit for them to contact you for more information, and how to get started:

BookingPal

Rentals United

Channel Managers provide a very easy, very risk-free way to get your properties exposed to multiple listing sites, without going crazy trying to update your data and synchronize your calendars in numerous dashboards. Additionally, the platform should only improve with time, as more listing sites ("channels") are being added all the time. Another bonus: forcing the various listing sites to compete like this should also help reduce commissions over time.

I know that many property managers feel very strongly about refundable security deposits. I have spoken to many of them over the years, and they have outlined several advantages - both real and imagined - most of which can be learned about in this VROG video. But here, I'm going to focus on the dark underbelly of security deposits, so readers beware: it's not for the faint of heart...

Guests Hate Them

Don't they? Who wants to have to cough up another $200, $300, $500, or whatever it is for the property manager to hold over their heads to ensure that they don't damage the property? This "guilty-until-proven-innocent" policy runs against the grain of American values. Plus, it's just another stressor for the guests as they feel they have to babysit this to make sure they get refunded when they return. So they've got this liability nagging in the back of their minds throughout their whole vacation. Fail!

Credit Card Companies Hate Them

Don't they? If you think about it, there is very little good that can possibly come from a security deposit from the perspective of a credit card company, the issuing bank, or the merchant account. No matter how you implement it, it's a nuisance for them. If you issue a "hold" on the account, then the available balance for the credit card is reduced, leaving less room for more charges that the bank would receive fee revenue from, and on top of that, they don't get any fees for a "hold". Most VR managers that implement this as a charge-then-refund will only do this if they can reverse the charge and also reverse all fees. Again, to the bank, this is nothing but an expense (dealing with two transactions) with absolutely no revenue for it. Moreover, any security deposits that end up being claimed by the VR manager (i.e., for damage) statistically have a higher probability of being challenged by the consumer (guest), dragging the credit card company and/or issuing bank into an arbitration process. This is an expensive pain in the neck for them, with no chance of earning any money from it. Fail!

Booking Systems Hate Them

Don't they? Refundable security deposits cannot be accounted for the same way as other payments, because they cannot be applied to the balance due for the booking. So a completely separate list of payments has to be maintained just for the security deposit, complete with its own balance due. If the VR manager is implementing this as a "hold" mechanism, then it's important for the booking system to capture that as well, so that no one tries to refund the deposit (the hold will automatically expire after some number of days, more on this later). This also means that when it's time for the customer to pay the security deposit, a special and separate transaction has to be completed, because the booking system must communicate to the merchant account that this is a "hold" transaction, or at least that this is a security deposit payment so that when the merchant account notifies the booking system that the payment was completed, the booking system knows where & how to record this as a security deposit payment (leaving the booking balance due unaffected). Blech!

Security deposits also create more requirements around other things that a booking system may have to deal with, such as: marking a booking as not yet ready for check-in if the security deposit balance is not paid in full, and withholding key-swap/door code/final arrival instructions correspondence (emails) from being sent until the security deposit is paid. Fail!

VR Managers Hate Them

Don't they? It adds another layer of complexity to an already painstaking rental process. It's just another thing you have to follow-up on before and after the booking is complete. More transactions each year in and out of your account that may be costing you fees in both directions. Many VR managers like to wait until closer to the check-in date to collect the security deposit, partly as a courtesy to the guest, but mainly because they have a better chance of being able to refund it cost-free if it's within 30-60 days. But this creates yet another follow-up correspondence that has to be managed, and also yet another transaction that either the guest or VR manager has to process. And then un-process after check-out. Fail!

Online Payment Gateways Hate Them

Don't they? And for the same reasons that merchant accounts and banks hate them. The vast majority of the time, security deposits are not used to pay for damage. This means that they are either "held" and "released" by the gateway, or they are charged and then refunded (but VR managers almost never implement it this way unless it is totally free), so in either case it's at least two transactions per booking that the gateway gets no revenue from. Placing "Authorize-Holds" on credit cards is also a common technique used by frauders to feel out the value of an account, so a "hold" that goes uncollected for many days raises security flags.

Some VR managers are under the impression that holds are automatically released exactly 30 days after they are placed, but this cannot be relied on. Our research suggests that 30 days is the (legal?) maximum that holds can last, but it could be much less, and is controlled by the policies of the issuing bank of the card used. Some will expire holds after only one day. Some vary the hold period depending on the card tier (silver, gold, platinum, premium, whatever), the specific customer, the specific merchant, and even the specific time of the year. I'm guessing on and around Black Friday most holds might even be dropped within the hour, to make room for other sales that are not pausing on the authorization-hold during the crucial and very busy holiday shopping season. All of this sure seems to put a big question mark on the usefulness of this approach, doesn't it? Fail!

Alternatives

For many of these reasons, the trend in the VR industry is to move away from refundable security deposits. Some are simply dropping them altogether and taking the risk themselves - apparently without much regret. But many are turning to the concept of security deposit "waivers", or damage insurance fees, instead. This is usually a much smaller amount that is charged to the guest, but is not refundable. It is instead bundled in with the rest of the booking costs, and is therefore much easier to deal with as it is simply collected as part of all other cost components of the booking (taxes, cleaning fees, booking fees, etc.) The collected fees can be used to pay (in whole or in part) for the premiums of an actual damage insurance policy, or they can be used to fund a self-indemnification plan - accumulated into an account to pay for damages directly at the discretion of the VR manager. Check your local laws for regulations on these practices before deciding on pricing and policy, but this completely eliminates all of the baggage hanging on refundable security deposits. It is also often quite lucrative for the property manager. Learn more: Integrated Damage Protection.

Some are also offering guests the choice of a traditional, refundable security deposit, or a waiver. But this strikes me as adding even more stress and complexity to the process, as not all bookings could be relied on to be handled the same way.

The Bottom Line

If it's not obvious after reading all of this, security deposits are a pain in the neck for everyone involved, and they really don't get used all that often to pay for damages. The reality is that over the long term, the amount of money you are likely to spend on damages caused by guests will be trivial compared to almost all of the other costs involved in owning and operating a rental. Advertising, taxes, carpet replacement, furniture upgrades, bathroom and kitchen maintenance, A/C and HVAC, plumbing, replacing linens and towels every year - any of these are likely to outweigh the cost of damages caused by guests. Long-term, you might even spend more on light-bulbs than on guest-induced damages.

So before you make the decision to collect a traditional, refundable security deposit for your vacation rental, consider the sum total of all the stress, complexity, potential for mistakes, paper, and leg work involved - not just for you, but for all parties involved. Then ask yourself if it's truly worth it.

Consumer Review Origins

If you need someone to blame, you can probably blame it on eBay. They are the ones who really started it, being the first apex-grade internet site to embrace consumer reviews in a major way.

Soon after, it was Amazon, who really brought reviews to the forefront of American consumerism. And once Amazon proved it worked, virtually everyone followed. Now, every online retailer that matters offers consumer reviews. Personally, I live by them; I don't make any significant purchases without looking at the reviews. And if the product doesn't have any? I pretty much just walk away. It's been a decidedly good thing for products, keeping producers and retailers alike from peddling sub-par merchandise.

And what's good for phones, TVs, and books should also be good for vacation rentals, right?

Pros and Cons

That's certainly the stance of the major listing sites, as they all actively solicit guest reviews by email a few days after the guest checks out. Some property managers protest, mostly out of fear of poor reports. However, sites like VRBO, FlipKey, and others do some amount of vetting of these reviews, and most of them offer the property manager at least one rebuttal comment, in which they can refute or counter the guest's claims, providing a balanced picture by displaying both sides of the story.

But the reality is that most reviews are favorable. Bookerville's own experience has shown an average guest review rating of 4.3 stars (out of 5), and most of the comments are glowing. Even the occasional "poor" review can often serve to enlighten guests about an aspect of the rental they may not have considered without it. If a reviewer complains about a loud, rowdy party next-door to them, that may turn off some family-oriented travelers. But it may be a lure for those looking for a more exciting experience.

Moreover, the occasional bad review, especially if it is in contrast to several other positive reviews for the rental, will usually be overlooked or deemed a rant by prospects reading them. When I see a listing with nothing but perfect reviews, I admit that it makes me a bit skeptical of their validity.

Feedback is Feedback

Glowing reviews are obviously the ultimate goal: nothing screams "pick me!" like a couple dozen 5-star ratings. But negative feedback is valuable too. No one ever improves if all they hear is what they're doing right. To achieve 5-star status, most things require improvement, and not just once, but constant improvement over time. The fastest way to learn what you're missing, or the deficiencies your rental may have, is to hear it straight from the experiences of your guests.

The Guest Review Genie is Not Going Back in the Bottle

Let's face it: consumer reviews are here to stay, and increasingly, prospects are likely to walk away if you aren't even collecting them. In fact, it could be worse to not collect and display guest reviews than to have a couple of less-than-favorable reports mixed in with the rest. By participating, you are telling the world that you are standing by what you're offering, and that alone speaks volumes about what kind of property manager you are.

Bookerville's guest reviews are also available to post on your own website (or elsewhere), using a new addition to our Widgets, and there is also a full report you can run to view, print, or export all your reviews. So your benefit is multiplied!