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Affiliating a VRBO Review with Specific Guest

Lydia B
Dec 13, 2019 9:02 PM
Joined May, 2019 159 posts

I'm being dumb, again.
I know how to import reviews from OTAs. But, when I look at specific bookings, the only ones which display the guest's review are those who booked thru AirBnB. I know my VRBO reviews have imported to OR because I can see them in the list of reviews. But when I go to that booking, there's nothing under "Reviews." What am I doing wrong?

Val Rogers
Dec 14, 2019 11:14 AM
Joined Oct, 2016 33 posts

Hi Lydia,

I recently downloaded all of our reviews from both VRBO/Homeaway and Airbnb. I hadn't realised you could see the guest's review on the booking until you mentioned it in your post.

I just checked my reviews, and I see the same thing. I can see Airbnb reviews on the guest's booking, but not the VRBO/Homeaway. So, I don't think this is only happening to your reviews.

I'll be interested in hearing what the OR Support staff has to say about this.

Lydia B
Dec 17, 2019 7:34 PM
Joined May, 2019 159 posts

Bumping this in hopes Chris or Ken can tell us what's going on. THANKS!

Paul W
Dec 18, 2019 11:13 AM
OR Team Member Joined Jun, 2009 825 posts

Hi everyone,

Reviews can either be "global" or affiliated with a booking specifically. It's the same review record under the covers, just tied to a booking or not. If not tied to a booking, then it's global by default.

Now... Our desire is to link every review to a specific booking because that's helpful to certain business processes, but the only automated way to do that is with Airbnb reviews. Both VRBO and TA reviews do not have the proper reservation #'s on them to allow our system to know WHAT dang booking they are for. Their reviews have other reservations #'s, but not ones that are used elsewhere so the automatic matching isn't possible (or at least easy). Airbnb reviews DO have the same reservation #'s on them so our system matches those up automatically.

Now our plan is to do a "fuzzy match" to find the probable bookings because we know the property, general dates of stay and a display name on the review. We believe that those attributes should allow us to make a best guess on the right booking and do auto-matching.

We also plan to add a "match this review" button reviews so that you can explicitly pick and assign the right booking on your own. Just haven't gotten to it.

So that's why VRBO reviews aren't associated to a specific booking and the background on what's going on there.

Megan D
Dec 17, 2021 9:00 AM
Joined Jun, 2021 2 posts

Still not fixed 2 years later?

Paul W
Dec 18, 2021 10:57 AM
OR Team Member Joined Jun, 2009 825 posts

Hi Megan,

Yes, Vrbo reviews auto-match against bookings. Read this blog post about it:

Blog Post - More Settings for Refundable Security Deposits, Airbnb Status, Weekend Rates on Rate Table, Vrbo Reviews Auto-Match to Bookings

Make sure to subscribe to the blog and read the product update post each week!