The OwnerRez Blog

Many of you have probably already noticed that the charges grid (in both the booking and quote areas) has a new style and some new features.  While we were working on the new custom surcharges and taxes feature, we spent some time updating the charges grids to make editing faster and more convenient.

Open an existing quote or booking, click on the Charges tab, click on the 'Change' button and you'll see how it looks.

The grid itself is wider so there's more room to see everything.

The delete button, on each row, has been moved to the far right which is a more intuitive place for it to be.

A new 'add row' button has been added to the far left of each row which allows you to quickly add in-line rows directly above the row you click on.  This enables you to insert new line items in the middle without having to manually re-order all the line items below it.

The reset links are now at the bottom of the form where they take up less room and are easier to read.

These updates were made on both quote charges and booking charges.  There are other features we'd like to add to these grids, but we wanted to make some quick improvements first and push out an update so that owners can begin using them right away.

On Friday, we rolled out an update which allows owners to define custom surcharges and taxes instead of picking from a pre-defined list.

Open up one of your properties and click on the new Add-Ons tab (which replaces the old Surcharges tab).  You'll see a list of current surcharges and taxes for the property instead of the old list of checkbox options.

We decided to separate surcharges from taxes (instead of leaving tax as a type of surcharge) because taxes have unique behavior that is dissimilar from other surcharges.

Click the 'Change' button and you'll get an edit view of the same page.

You'll notice that surcharges have a new "Taxable" option.  This option is what determines whether tax line items, which follow the surcharge, will include tax for that item or not.

As before, all rates can be entered as dollar amounts or percentages, and they can be positive or negative.  A percentage rate calculates against all preceding line-items that come before it.  The surcharges and taxes are entered as charges exactly in the order they appear - first the surcharges, then taxes.

This new ability to enter custom surcharges and taxes should enable you to customize your quotes more accurately and cleanly.

No more having to use "cleaning fee" or "processing fee" as the type when adding a charge for firewood or pool heat.

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

There's now another way to stay up-to-date on OwnerRez updates, news and information.  In addition to LinkedIn, Facebook, RSS and Twitter, you can now follow OwnerRez on Google+!

The new OwnerRez Google+ page is here: http://ownr.es/rTQ5TU

We've also updated the sidebar (right side of this page) with a button for Google+ and put a link in the footer.

Tell your friends!

Travel insurance is a great option to offer your guests because it gives them peace of mind about cancellations.  There is nothing worse for the guest than having to cancel a vacation while realizing that they're past the refund period, which means that hundreds or thousands of dollars will be lost.  Travel insurance takes away that worry.

That being said, there may be owners who do not want to offer travel insurance to their guests and don't want the option showing up at all.

Conversely, there may also be owners that want to require guests to buy travel insurance, such that it is automatically added to every booking.

All of this is possible.  There are options both at the quote and property level to enable, disable, require or pre-select travel insurance.

Navigate to any one of your properties, click on the Billing Details tab and then click the "Change" button.  At the bottom of the page, you'll see a "Travel Insurance" section with several options.

By default, the third option is selected which allows the guest to see travel insurance on their quote and optionally choose to purchase it.  We recommend that you leave this option in place as it offers the most versatility without forcing the guest to do anything.  With this option, you can also set travel insurance to be selected by default if you want to encourage guests to purchase it.

The second option forces the guest to purchase travel insurance.  If selected, travel insurance won't appear as a selectable check-box.  Instead, it's a line item charge like any other.

The first option does exactly what it says - travel insurance is completely disabled.  Not only will it not be selectable on the quote, but all other marketing information will disappear.  The guest will never see or hear about it anywhere.

As with all the other billing details, these travel insurance options can also be configured at the quote level.  For instance, suppose that you have a guest that needs to buy travel insurance and you want to make sure they include it.  Instead of leaving it in the normal optional state, you can simply set travel insurance as required on that specific quote and it will appear as a line item that they have to purchase.

We strongly recommend that you keep travel insurance enabled, optional and unselected by default.  You may find that your conversion rate increases as guests now see that they have a way to mitigate cancellation problems.  As always, if you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to ask.

We here at OwnerRez have always prided ourselves on being kind and thorough with our customers.  Every customer service request is not only fielded quickly, but in way that covers every part of the problem.  Our goal is not only to get answers out quickly, but to provide comprehensive information.  We don't want you to have to ask a third or fourth question because our original explanation is too brief.

Get-it-off-my-plate responses from customer service have always been a personal pet peeve of mine.

While designing our new travel insurance feature, we spent a good amount of time evaluating insurance companies.

We looked specifically for a provider that would treat us like we treat our customers: kind and thorough.

When your guest needs to cancel their booking because of a medical problem, we want the claim process to be easy and straightforward.  We expect the person on the other end of the phone (at the insurance company) to care about the guest's problem and want to help, not throw up as much red tape as possible.

We also looked for a company whose sole focus is on travel insurance and travel related services.  We wanted specialists that really understood and cared about their product.

It didn't take long to find Travel Guard as the provider of choice.  Their staff was knowledgeable, helpful, kind and thorough.  We asked lots of questions and they bent over backwards to walk us through the details, even when we asked them multiple times.

Several users have asked me about this so I wanted to be clear and transparent.  Our decision to use Travel Guard was based solely on them being the best travel insurance company that we could find.  We want our guests (and your guests) to have a solid travel insurance product that they can rely on.

To read more about Travel Guard, visit their web site directly, or ask us and we'll find the answer for you.

Use the links below to read more about their insurance product:

• Overview of travel insurance coverage
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about travel insurance
• Travel insurance policy documents