channel manager

[Susan316]

Hi does anyone use a channel manager and if so who as we are looking at a way of managing our calendars over several booking sites .

Many thanks in anticipation 

susan and rory

[Yireh0]

1. I tried Hotelrunner. It was very painful to setup. For some reason booking.com was keep waiting for the hotelrunner connection, and it was only solvable via hotelrunner online support. Their online support was very friendly. I made some mistake in the mapping process, and they helped me to correct it, but were not able to solve to wrongly mapped booking so I gave up.

2. I had a look at booking automation, but the price was too high for the 8 rooms that we have.

3. Syncbnb is a nightmare. Instead of using the official API of each site, they require you to provide them all credentials of each site. They have another function missing on their platform which is price sync. I cannot imagine having need to manually sync the pricing across 3 platforms. The customer service said price sync is still in beta mode.

4. Freetobook's interface is still from the 90's. It was a pain in the eye so I gave up.

5. Frontdesk Anywhere didn't allow me to have immediate trial account. You just have to wait for the email. I gave up

6. Smoobu has fantastic user interface and it just works. Only problem is their date/ currency unit system is based on German system, and even after changing the preference, it still doesn't change. However this is the only trial account we were satisfied with, and we decided to pay for this platform.

Following is a link where you can get 30 days trial on Smoobu, and if you chose to pay, you get 30 Euros off (and we as well)

https://login.smoobu.com/de/login/signup?hash=R18063363

[Yireh0]

Oh... and btw we also tried lodgable.com. They do not support existing booking.com accounts, you can only sign up for new platform accounts using lodgable.com

[Nina75]

You guys are way too trusting, and are over complicating things... I just use the standard  ical syncing in the platforms. I dont want any company handling my payments because its just more steps for something to get messed up also many of these companies are new THOUSANDS OF COMPLAINTS!!! . ive limited myself to the top 2 or 3 sites thats it. i don't need to be on 50 sites, some of which are only giving me 1 or 2 bookings a year.

[Kyoto-Houses0]

hi!
I'm thinking the same thing.
so iCal syncing for just a couple platforms and no worry about double-bookings? even during the nite, while you're sleeping?

[Andrew1435]

You can get double bookings with iCal syncing, as the calendar only syncs every so often.  With a Channel Manager, the availability is checked in real time before a booking makes place.

[Yireh0]

I also wanted to do the iCal thing. However found out that they don't sync in real time.

[Farisya0]

Hai @Nina75 , Farisya here. 

If you are managing only 2 channels, then iCal is relevant. However, there’s also a possibility of overbooking due to the delays of sync and broken iCal files. I respect your opinion, however, I do have my own thoughts between iCal & Channel Manager. I’ve compared both of them through this article. Perhaps you can take a look 😊

[Nina75]

@Farisya0 Ive been doing this over 9 years now and Ive had like 3 Double bookings.  and close to 3000 reservations.  Thanks for your opinion, but I got this!!!!

I limit myself to 3 sites and thats all I need.

[M-Daoud0]

Smart.

even if it takes little time to review and change daily rates?

[Leigh-And-Geoff0]

Lodgify, works very well full two way api updating. Give it a look

[Darren256]

I've been trying to set up inventory via Siteminder. Which is just about impossible.  Siteminder tell me it's working. AirBnB tell it isn't. Meantime I have no hair left and am turning into an alcoholic.  

[Lewis77]

Anyone used hostaway?

[Wes23]

Used it for about 2 years, but just left them because customer support is virtually non-existent (email only, wait multiple days for a response - if ever). I also left because pricing was too high ($35/mo/listing), and setup/config is a nightmare.  But in their defense, the system was 100% reliable once set up.

[Neven52]

Hi, I am using MyRent, my-rents.com, for two years now. I am quite happy with them They have real time sync and I can change price by guest number and the can handle discounts 

[Mario829]

Hello fellow hosts,

If you need a dedicated telephone number for your Airbnb guests to contact. I recommend Call Gecko (callgecko.com) You can purchase new telephone number that belongs to you. Any calls made to this number can be forwarded to another telephone number of your choice. You can forward calls intelligently - that is, you can forward to multiple numbers (the first to pick up gets the call) or you can forward to different numbers at different times of day. If you travel and need someone covering for you, you can forward calls to the new temporary host. There are many additional features, like call greetings, if you want to play a recording before transferring calls from your guests. You can try it at callgecko.com.