Reservation processing

Request-to-book

Rentals United allows you to set the booking policy for your listings. You can select the booking mode for each individual Vrbo Advertiser IDs and it will affect all your properties assigned to this Vrbo Advertiser ID. You can choose between Instant bookings and Quote & Hold. See here.

When the booking policy is set to Quote & Hold, no instant bookings are possible. Instead, guests can create a request to book while browsing your property on Vrbo. You have 24 hours to confirm or decline a booking request. You can use this time for the guest verification purposes, for example.

For Vrbo, requests can be differentiated from leads by the text in the comments “This is a request to book. Confirm or reject it as soon as possible”.

While booking a property, the guest will see the Request to book option in Vrbo. After they book your property via Request to book, you will receive a booking request in Rentals United (it will be marked in a blue colour). This booking will not block your calendar’s availability yet.

Booking requests can be confirmed or declined in the Rentals United platform and via API. You can see the step-by-step instructions on how to confirm and decline requests in the platform and via API here.

Confirm a request

1. Open Guest Planner and find the request you wish to confirm. Requests have a blue label and are in the Request status.

   

2. Click the Accept this request button. The status changes now to Confirmed. The availability is blocked now.

   

3. The request becomes a Confirmed reservation.

Reject a request

1. Open Guest Planner and find the request you wish to confirm. Requests have a blue label and are in the Request status.

   

2. Click the Reject this request button.

   

3. The request will change its status to Rejected.

Contact host

While booking a property, the guest will see the Contact host option in Vrbo. You will receive a lead in Rentals United (it is marked in a blue colour). This booking will not block your calendar’s availability, but contain less information than a booking request. For Vrbo, leads can be differentiated from requests by the text in the comments “This is a lead. You cannot accept or reject it. Please encourage the guest to book directly on Vrbo”.

Leads cannot be confirmed or declined. Their purpose is to let you know that the guest has tried to contact you. You can reach out to the guest via Guest Communication or the chat on the Vrbo website and ask them to make a booking through Vrbo.

Reservation details

When a reservation is received, Vrbo provides us with the standard guest personal data (name, surname, phone number etc.) and booking details (property name, number of guests, date, price). Some channels also include additional information. All these details can be accessed in Guest Planner > Big Card or via API methods used to retrieve reservations, for example Pull_ListReservations_RQ.

Inserting reservation manually

Bookings made offline, for example through a phone call or at the reception of your property, can be created in Rentals United. Sales channels will not have access to this reservation details, however they will receive blocked availability for the days booked in the reservation.

Vrbo will not have access to this reservation details, either, unless you click the Transfer to Vrbo button. Once you click this button, the reservation will be copied to the Vrbo system. Just make sure that you are connected to Vrbo via Rentals United, otherwise there will be no such option available.

Inserting new reservation through Guest Planner

1. Go to the Guest Planner tab in the main menu.

   

2. Guest Planner opens and you can see all the bookings for all the properties.

   

3. Add a new booking by clicking the plus button.

   

4. Enter the guest details and click the Start guest journey button.

   

5. The Booking details page for your new reservation is opened and displays a short summary. If you leave the reservation as it is now, you will find it in the Request status. You can see that in the top bar. It is also indicated by the blue frame under the booking details header.

   

6. Click the Edit booking button in the top bar. You will notice that the Booking details slightly changed. You can provide additional guest details, if needed. Click the Assign first property button to select a property when your guests will stay at.

   

7. The Property information section is opened. Fill in the details of the property your guest will be staying at. Select the property from the dropdown list, select the dates and provide the number of guests. The reservation price will be calculated based on the property prices introduced in Step 5: Price and availability.

   

8. Go to the Payments section and provide the guest credit card details. For more information, please see Payments.

9. Once you introduced any changes, the saving button on the top changed from greyed-out to active. Click the Save changes button.

   

10. In order to confirm the reservation, select the Confirmed status from the dropdown list. Save changes.

Inserting new reservation through the Bookings tab

With Rentals United, you can insert and manage reservations that have been made offline, for example through a phone call or at the reception. You do not have to manage your offline reservation in an external location, but instead you can create them in Rentals United system and have all the needed information in a single place. Read further to learn how to create such a reservation.

In most cases, sales channels will only receive blocked availability and will not have access to this reservation details. If it is possible to transfer such an offline reservation to any particular sales channel, such an option will be displayed in Rentals United. This is possible for Vrbo, for instance.

1. Log in to Rentals United and hover over the Bookings tab. Select the New booking option from the dropdown.

   

2. The New booking page opens and informs you that the current status of this reservation is a request. You can change its status already at this point, if you wish. You can proceed with the request, too, and update it in the end or come back to this place anytime later, as described in Reservation processing.

   In contrast to sales channels, the Channel name row and logo contain the data you provided, as described in Company profile. You can easily differentiate an offline reservation from booking coming from sales channels.

   

3. Provide the guest personal information. Only name and surname are mandatory, the rest of information is optional. You can also fill in the Comments section, for example if guests has any special wishes or requests.

   

4. If you insert the reservation offline, you need to charge the guest on your own. Rentals United integrated with the payment provider, Stripe. If you use Stripe, you can collect the credit card details of your guest and charge them automatically from Rentals United. For more information, please seeMy services.

   If you do not use Stripe, you can log in to any other payment gateway and charge your guest's credit card. Also, you can charge your guest upon arrival, if you only wish to.

   

5. Click the Add property button and provide the stay details and select the property your guests will be staying at. First, provide the time range of the stay and, additionally, the check-in and check-out hours. Click the Property dropdown list and start typing the property name. The list filters out the matching properties. Finally, provide the number of guests in the reservation. Upon this selection, Rentals United will use the pricing data available in the Step 5: Price and availability of the property you selected and calculate the exact reservation price.

   

   If you find that some of the pricing should be adjusted or the guest has any extra-charged special wishes, you can change the Guest price and Price to you and update the Comments section. Also, remember to update the Already paid field in case your guest paid only part of the reservation price or did not pay at all. You can get back to this anytime and update, as described in Reservation processing. Also, if you need more details of what the two above types of prices are, please see Price components.

6. If you have not done it earlier, change the status of this reservation from Request to Confirmed, as described in this Step. If you are still waiting for any confirmation, you can always come back to this later.

7. Click the Save button.

8. To copy this reservation to Vrbo system, click the Transfer toVrbo button.

   

1. Go to the Guest Planner tab in the main menu.

   

2. Guest Planner opens and you can see all the reservations for all the properties.

   

3. Search for the reservation or booking request to be edited or filter it out. Click the reservation. The Booking details page opens. You can see in the top bar that this is now a Request. It is also indicated by the blue frame under the booking details header. Click the Edit booking button.

   

4. Update the guest details or the property information. You can also change the status of the reservation to Confirmed or Cancelled.

5. Click the Save changes button.

   

1. Go to the Guest Planner tab in the main menu.

   

2. The Guest Planner dashboard opens and you can see all the reservations for all the properties.

   

3. Search for the reservation or filter it out. Once you find the correct card, click on it. The Booking details page opens. You can see in the top bar that this is now Confirmed. Unfold the dropdown with the property statuses and select the Cancelled status.

   

4. Select who is the initiator of this cancellation: you or guest. Vrbo requires this information as bookings cancelled by hosts are subject to additional costs. Click OK.

   

5. Click Save changes.

Transfer reservation to Vrbo booking actions

Did you find that the reservation exists in your Vrbo extranet, but is not in Rentals United? If you already have future reservations in Vrbo and started working with Rentals United, you will need to transfer them to Vrbo. With this functionality, you can link a reservation existing in the Vrbo extranet with a manual reservation created in Rentals United - and manage all your bookings from one place, including modifications and cancellation. Transferring reservations to Vrbo may also be useful in case of a synchronisation error that prevented the creation of a reservation in Rentals United.

Before you start

• Make sure you are connected to Vrbo - see here.

• Reach out to Vrbo for a list of reservations that you need to transfer to Vrbo.

• Make sure the reservation details in the reservation created in Rentals United are identical as in the reservation available in Vrbo.

• Make sure the reservation's price is not '0'. If the price is '0', you will need to change it before transferring to Vrbo.

• Transferring reservations is available only for reservations created manually and in the 'Confirmed' status.

1. Create an offline reservation in Rentals United. Follow the steps here.

2. Once the booking is created, click Booking actions and choose Transfer to Vrbo.

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3. You will see a confirmation pop-up. Click Proceed.

After the process is complete, Vrbo will link the reservation in their system to the reservation that you have just created and transferred. Thanks to it, you can manage the reservation directly in Rentals United. Note that this reservation will be marked as it originated in Vrbo and Vrbo will charge the commission on this booking according to your contract.