This support article is out of date. For more current and complete instructions, please see the Trigger Examples support article.
Generally, we don't recommend using OwnerRez to respond to inquiries from channels like Vrbo and Airbnb. This is for two reasons:
- Those channels do not provide email addresses for the guest making the inquiry. They only provide a temporary "proxy" email that transits through their own servers. The same is true on the other end - the guest does not receive your real email address, just another "proxy" email.
- The channels filter any email sent to strip out any information that could be used to identify either you or the guest, allowing you to get into communication directly. This includes phone numbers, any web links, some names, email addresses and anything else a computer thinks is identifying information.
By its nature, OwnerRez responds to inquiries with all sorts of things that the channel proxies won't allow, like your company name, your email, your phone, links to make a booking, quotes, and so on. So the regular way of handling inquiries simply doesn't work.
That said, it is still possible to configure Vrbo to send inquiries into the OwnerRez booking system as described here. If you do this, though, you'll need to configure a special email template that includes only information that the channels will allow through their filter.
Here's a suggested response template, courtesy of Ana Sands / Sands of Alabama:
Subject:
{PDISPNAME} Inquiry
Body:
Hi {IGFIRST],
Thanks for your inquiry about {PDISPNAME}.
Those dates are available, and we'd love to have you come out. In order to reserve this unit, you can simply click the "Book Now" button at the bottom of this message. The total for your stay, as well as any taxes and fees associated with your booking, will be listed after pressing the "Book Now" button.
Once reserved, you will receive a confirmation email and rental agreement instructions from {MYEMAIL}. Please make sure to check your junk/spam folders as sometimes our emails will be directed to other folders by your email server. You may want to whitelist {MYEMAIL} to prevent this happening.
We look forward to hosting your stay! Please let us know if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
{MYCO}
The "Book Now" button referenced in the above email is automatically added to the message by Vrbo's proxy server when it forwards the email on to the guest. It leads them back into the Vrbo booking system to complete the booking.
For other examples of email Templates, check out the Email Template Library - Overview.