Siteminder Set up Instructions

[Ursula100]

Dear Community,

Having used both Airbnb and Siteminder for years, we are eager to get our listings set up to be compatible with our channel manager.   When we saw that the channel was now available on Siteminder, we decided to start setting up the connections ourselves.  We have so far experienced the following:

1.  On the Siteminder Channel for Airbnb, it says that even if you have an existing listing on Airbnb, you will need to set up a new listing in order to be able to sync with the channel manager.

2.  We set up a completely new listing, with new email, passwords, etc and then manually transferred our 4 apartments to the new listing.  When we were about 75% complete with all 4, we returned to our siteminder channel to set up the apartment mapping.  Once this was started, when we returned to our new Airbnb listings, we saw Restricted message saying all further changes should be done in the channel manager.  We went back to the channel manager and continued on with the process of setting up the remaining information for our apartments, including mapping, setting the rate configurations, min/max stays, CTA/CTD, photos, etc.

Now we are at the point where we could go no further without "enabling" our listing on the channel manager.  This, however, we were not willing to do as we currently have our old listing up and sellable on Airbnb.

We also were faced with some specific questions:

1.  As a superhost with over 70 reviews, how will these be transferred to the new listings?

2. When setting up photos in the channel manager, there was no way to add a caption, even though the photos themselves showed CAPTION underneath them

3. On Airbnb, when hitting the channel snych, it says YOUR LISTINGS ARE ALMOST READY.  When new listings are imported, you will be able to review them here.  Does this mean that once the listings are completed via the channel manager, they will be exported back to the Airbnb site where any further alterations can be made?  Or will the listings be maintained/updated completely through the channel manager?

4.  Is there a team of "account managers" at Airbnb who are responsible for integrating both new and existing property listings with Siteminder?  If yes, how may we contact them?  Will they contact us?

5.  Has Airbnb set up step by step instructions for the setup/integration with Siteminder?

6.  Will the "old listing" on Airbnb be merged with the new listing or will the old listing simply be cancelled.  In either case, it this something handled by Airbnb or is this something that the accommodation provider must do at some stage in the setup process?

We contacted Siteminder with these questions and also asked them to look at our listing setup as we were experiencing an issue where the channel manager was saying that it could not find our mapped apartments on Airbnb.  The rep at Siteminder then went through the process of setting up the rate config/mapping of the apartments, exactly as we had done and also received the same issue.  The rep responded to us saying that, yes, they also see that there is an issue with communication between the Siteminder Channel and Airbnb.  We were told to contact our "account manager" at Airbnb whom would be assisting with the entire setup. 

We have contacted Airbnb and hope to have someone to assist with the remainder of the setup.

If anyone else has started with the integration with Siteminder and has any further information, please let us all know. 

Kind regards,

Ursula **** and Chris ****

*[Personal information hidden for safety reasons]

[Lilian20]

Hello @Ursula100

Siteminder and Airbnb partnership is very recent (Feb 2018) 

Also it is targeting hotels (about 28000 registered with siteminder)

All of this tells me only trouble especially for a few listings...

Is this channel manager expensive on top of being confusing and time consuming ?

[Ursula100]

Hi Lilian,

Yes, Airbnb is on the march.  Because Airbnb does not have channel manager partnerships up until now (with Siteminder), accommodations that advertise on multiple channels had to do all allocations, pricing, etc. manually on Airbnb as well as in the channel manager for all other channels that are set up.  

We have worked with a few different channel managers over the years for a small hotel with 21 rooms and can honestly say that we are extremely pleased with Siteminder's channel manager.  We found that they offer the most capabilities in a very easy and user friendly format.  Granted, getting set up with mapping your rooms to the channels, setting all the Min Stay, Rate Plans, etc takes a bit of time and trial and error.  This is true with other channel managers as well.  However, once it is up and running, it is very easy. 

If you sell your property on multiple channels using different rate plans as we do, you will know how much time is required to do them all separately.  Whether you require a channel manager to save you that time, only you would know based upon your business and on what channels you sell your property. For us, the time saved more than pays for the channel manager and the booking engine which we also use.

[Jayesh0]

Hey @Lilian20

Hope you are keeping well.  We have 2 accounts with Little Hotelier who are part of Siteminder.  They are less than $100 AUD each per month.  Some of the price is based on how many "rooms" you are renting and some is extra for a booking button on your website for example.  You create your own package and the price varies with that.  

The reason we have 2 is because one account will connect you with one listing on BDC or Expedia for example.  So, if you are working with different addresses, it is not practical to have them all on the one account and therefore all under the one listing on the big OTAs.  If your properties are at multiple locations you would pretty much have to have a separate account for each address.

Once it is set up the time you save is amazing.  The hotels that they are inviting to list have to have minimum requirements to have a listing - it is not automatic that they will be accepted on AirBnB just because they are with Siteminder.  See:  https://www.airbnb.com.au/help/article/1526/what-are-airbnb-s-standards-for-hotels

I love Siteminder.  If you are looking for a channel manager, it is a great one.  Lisa

[Jayesh0]

Hi Ursula,

I am also tapping my toe waiting for Siteminder connectivity.  I have been checking the dropdown box with the blue "Connect New Channel” and we do not have AirBnB listed yet in our area.  I believe they also have to approve our listing and get in touch with us prior to being able to map.

I have spent a bit of time on the phone with AirBnB and Siteminder and the best help I have found is this article:  https://thechannelmanagerhelp.com/s/article/000003004

As far as I can tell, you do not have to set up a new listing.  This is only for properties that are new to listing on AirBnB not existing hosts.  Yes, this is confusing and the CS also told me I had to set up new listings which would mean all reviews were lost.  As far as I can gather, this is not the case - you use your existing listings.

I just started adding photos last night and so have not got to the stage of putting captions.  If I find out I will let you know.

The listing will be maintained / updated completely through the channel manager.  Each rate type will show as a separate listing which is a bit of a pain as the one night rates still shows in the search results for multiple nights and makes your price look higher if they don’t happen upon your multiple night rate listing.

Siteminder did inform me that I must contact my “Area Manager” for AirBnB.  Unfortunately none of the CS Reps nor their supervisors are aware of any Area Managers.  Hmm.  Hopefully they are at least training them now as they are going to be bombarded once they are up and running!

A couple of the CS Reps that I spoke to were not even aware that Siteminder is on the cusp of setting up connectivity.  So, as far as having instructions goes, I am imagining that is likely a pretty solid no.  The Siteminder article I found with the link above is pretty comprehensive so it should be helpful to you.  I think it is Australian but may work the same way for you?

Don’t cancel your old listing until it is clear that you need the new one.  It is just an information gathering exercise at this stage for us so I am only passing on what I have found but not experienced personally. 

Thank you so much for posting this.  I have been checking for Siteminder in the search box to see if any other community member are working on this as well but this is the first post I have seen.

Any updates would be appreciated!  I will in turn let you know if I come across anything that may be helpful to you.  Lisa

[Jayesh0]

Hi @Ursula100

I am still trying to figure out if the listing text and the photos will populate on their own once the connection is made.  The help page seems to indicate it will but it is difficult to have this confirmed.  It certainly would save a lot of time!  There do seem to be a number of help pages with Siteminder that are specific to AirBnB.  I am wondering if some of the steps noted cannot be completed until the connection is established.

If you do manage to connect your existing AirBnB listing can you let me know if all the information was automatically transfered to Siteminder or if you had to load photos or text independantly.

Here is one about photos that has addtional links in it:

https://thebookingbutton-help.siteminder.com/s/article/000003109

Hope that helps, Lisa

[Ursula101]

Hi Lisa,

Thank you for your helpful posts.

I did some more "trial and error" and enabled my new listing to see what the next steps were.  I had set up everything manually, photos, text, etc.  Once enabled, my new listing came up perfectly on the channel manager.  I then went to Airbnb and saw that the data I had input to set up our apartments was then exported to my new listing.  Once our new listing was enabled on the channel manager, I was given a list of the 4 apartments I had set up, to map again.  At this point I was hoping to see our old listings to show up.  Unfortunately, they did not show up.  I then mapped them to the corresponding apartments on the new listing.  I then previewed each listing on airbnb.  They were all the new ones I had set up, but with no reviews/superhost status.  Everything populated on airbnb as expected, photos, text, etc.  I then disabled the new listings on the channel manger.

I was contacted by a person at siteminder who said that they are awaiting an update from Airbnb and that he thinks they have worked on a way to transfer data from the existing listings to make it easier in the setup process, which would be great as it does take some time to set up multiple listings from scratch again.  They should then also be able to transfer over the reviews/superhost status as well.  

I was told by siteminder and airbnb staff that since there was such an interest in this new partnership, now that the ball has started rolling and people starting to set up their listings where available, airbnb has been a bit busy.  I was recommended to wait for an Airbnb to contact us with a person assigned to assist with each property setting up their new integrations.

Having "jumped the gun" as I readily admit, it does seem that for new listings, the process works.  I am confident that Airbnb will resolve the issue of transfering data from existing listings.

Properties will receive assistance, it just migt take a bit of time.  

Hope this helps.  Chris  

[Jayesh0]

Hi Chris and @Ursula100

Thanks for the great reply.  I believe there is something that you have to activate on existing listings to make them compatible.  If you click on your profile photo and go to settings, the 3rd from the bottom on the left menu is "Connected Apps".  Supposedly there should be something about Siteminder to activate here.  This has not appeared for us yet. 

If you have something about Siteminder in the "Connected Apps" that you can activate, the old listing may then show as an option in the dropdown box to connect.  You also need to have the old listing open on another browser window - if you are in the mood for further experimenting!  I think we are probably in for a long wait on this side of the globe so I will just be resigned to being patient.  

Out of curiousity, what are you going to do with setting the derived rate?  Are you just going to do -10 % or -12%?  Are you running with an already existing rate plan or did you set up a dedicated one?  I am tempted to set up a sub rate plan that is tied in with the standard rates.  We usually sell hoiday dates on another site because of the lack of ability to nominate different cancellation policies for different periods through the year so this would allow for those dates to be blocked I suppose.  It is also nice that when you update the standard rate it updates both rate plans.  Just wondering what the norm may be.

Pretty windy here at the moment.  We had a last minute AirBnB booking a couple of nights ago and the guests booked for a Fraser Island day trip and also asked about the cancellation policy due to adverse weather.  Jayesh told them that they had to give 24 hours unless there was a cyclone come through.  Everybody had a bit of a laugh as it always seems so unlikely.  Lo and behold, the next morning the tail end of Cylone Nancy is passing by the other side of the island!  What are the odds??  Had a bit of a chuckle about that especially as the guests went anyway.  This blustery weather makes for quiet times - a little break before the Easter Holidays.  The children have 2 weeks off here so things should pick up a bit then.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply and for doing the test.  Really appreciate the assurances that the information transfer should be seamless.  

Lisa

[Ursula100]

Hi Lisa,

Thanks for your friendy reply.  We have just received an email for a contact person from Airbnb who said they could transfer the Superhost status / Reviews.  They needed the listing numbers (both old and new) as well as the email addresses associated with the old and new accounts.  I will let you know how it turns out. 

You are spot on as always with your Connected Apps.  Just looked into my old listing and did not find it.  I did find it, however, in my new listing and I assume that this will be the solution for people transferring the old data to the new listings.  This will be a HUGE help in saving time.  As we are only lacking the Superhost Status and Reveiws, I think my experimenting is over now that I have someone from Airbnb onto it.

We sell our apartments on booking.com and our own website using rate plans.  One rate plan is non-refundable in the case of cancellation and the other is our standard rates with 14 day free cancellation.  Our non-refundable rates are a derivative of our standard rates (-10%).  As we use the strict cancellation policy at Airbnb with 50% deducted if cancelled before 6 days before arrival, we wanted to put our Airbnb rates in between our Standard Rates and our non-refundable rates.  We used -14% off of our standard rates for Airbnb.   With the service fees that the bookers pay on top of the rates we send, this puts our rates on Airbnb where we want them.

Having all of our rates derived from one standard rate makes it super easy to change the rates to account for fluctuations in supply and demand.  Only one rate to change and all follow suit!  I am definitely a big fan of Siteminder.

Kind regards from sunny Batenberg,

Chris

[Jayesh0]

Hi Chris and @Ursula100

That is excellent service! With the other OTAs we have always been assigned our own market manager for the setup and it is SO helpful. We have actually kept our rapport with them and there have been occasions where they have really assisted us over the years. Two of them have even come for a visit which is really nice. See if you can keep this representative as a point of contact. Great news and so glad you got such a fast response.

I am envious that you have kept your rate plans so simple. We got a tip from an insider that the more rate plans you have connected, the more available rooms the engine believes you have for sale. Because ranking placement is quite heavily reliant on how many rooms you have available, I decided to play the system a bit and now have 36 room rates mapped to booking. com for the 6 apartments. Yes, 36. I have 8 rate plans mapped for the 2 cottages.

I was told that this tricks the system into thinking that we have 6 apartments available for every one apartment that is vacant. It is definitely more work though as these are not rates that are conjoined and so have to be updated independently. If you are ever in the mood to quintuple your work load and add a few grey hairs you should try it.

I love your idea of the non refundable rate. I have it already connected to Expedia but I usually just use the Promotion Wizard for non refundable discounted dates on BDC. That way there is a line crossed out on the original price and you can see the discount. But… to have a non refundable rate plan connected - hmm.

Will they catch on if I ask for 6 more room types to map to. or better yet 36 for each rate type? It would be quite a feat to have your inventory showing as 72 rooms when you really only have 6. I am pretty sure there will eventually come a point where they just tell me to buzz off and stop taking the Mickey!!

Since we can’t effectively connect the one night rate on AirBnB, I might drop the minimum night to one and add a cleaning fee for the one night supplement then play with the % from there. Thank you for the feedback about the rates - definitely something to ponder. Obviously I would like to avoid adding yet another rate plan at any cost!!

I am so happy to have found your post. Just having the process confirmed has taken away any angst about the changeover going well and I won’t mind the wait now. So, thank you once again for your time and your replies. This is much appreciated from across the miles. Lisa

[Ursula101]

Hi Lisa,

I hope you are correct and get some higher placements for your 6 apartments as well as extra bookings for all your rate plans.  We add sometimes 3 night min stay discounts in our low season, but other than that, we keep it simple.  

Our experience with the non-refundable rate is only positive.  We get a consistent flow of money into our account even in our low season. and less work in general as the ones that book non-refundable almost never cancel.   I don't know about your destination, but everyone I know here that works with booking.com is used to having folders full of cancellations.  We found that in the last years we were having an average of over 95% cancellations for every booking that was made 5 or 6 months in advance.  What we do now is simply set a stop sell for our standard rates for bookings more than 4 months in advance on booking.com.  Guests only see the non-refundable rates for such advance bookings.  We still allow those who book directly on our website to have the option.  Saves lots of time and you know you have someone who really wants to stay with you and not someone who has simply blocked your place before even having booked their flights or arranged their travel visas, etc. 

Today I found that Airbnb has simplified the process of data input by having 2 options for synchronizing.  With a full sync, all data is managed on the channel manager.  With a "limited sync" most data is entered on the Airbnb listings pages and only the calendars, rates, etc are handled in the channel manager.  Makes it easier.

We were also told today that those with existing listings that the Reservations, Transcation History, etc. cannot be transfered.  What happens is you simply de-list your properties on the old listings so that they are not showable or bookable on Airbnb.  The account stays open until your last existing reservation has been paid out and no other payment issues are outstanding.  At that point the old listings can be deleted completely.

We now have 3 of our apartments up and running on the new listing, but have found a programming error that so far has kept our last apartment from joining the show.  We are hoping it gets fixed soon enough.  Airbnb has also added a feedback tab on the pages connected with the integration setup where you can mention bugs, problems, or to make suggestions.  I think these feedbacks go more directly to the programmers department.

I am happy that I have someone on Airbnb's side to assist, even if it is someone just to pass on our emails to the correct people or departments.  I have a feeling that they are a bit over-run and that the programming department is working overtime to fix the baby stage problems of the integration process to make it easier, more streamlined, and without problems.  We get an answer to our emails about 1 time per day.  Many of the issues we bring up to our Airbnb contact are definitely only solvable on the programming side so I do not expect anything different.  They are in between at the moment until everyting is properly programmed out.

[Ursula101]

Hi Lisa,

Airbnb is working hard.  The bug is fixed and we are now all of our apartments are listed.

By the time it becomes available in OZ it should be a breeze to set up.  Well, with all of your rate plans it will take you a bit longer, but it will definitely be worth the effort.

Best of luck and wishing you lots of happy guests.

Kind regards,

Chris 

[Jayesh0]

Hi Chris and @Ursula100

I am just going to use a one night and two night rates.  I figured out the one night puzzle this morning.  Sometimes the simplest things are the easiest to overlook.  All you have to do is set the maximum stay to one night and the listing does not show up for dates keyed in for a longer stay.  I'm really glad to be able to open the one night stays without the complicated cleaning fee calculations.

Thanks for all the helpful tips and updates.  It's been a pleasure speaking with you.  

All the best to you and Ursula as well, Lisa

[Ursula101]

Hi Lisa,

Thank you for your tips throughout our setup process.  They were very helpful.  I am happy that you figured out the trick with max stays for your one night rates.  

Likewise, I have enjoyed speaking with you and I wish you, Jayesh and your children all the best.

By the way, I had a look online at your cottages.  They are beautiful and definitely one of a kind!  I love ecclectic deco.

Best regards,

Chris

[Ursula101]

Data Migration Issues

Hi everyone.  For those with a Superhost status who are setting up new listings to be able to connect to Siteminder's channel manager, a word of warning.

We have seen that there is an issue with the data migration from old to new listings.  Basically, all communication with old listing guests, reservations, reviews, etc cannot be migrated to the new listings (manually or otherwise).  This can be seen in the Progress and Progress - Oportunities pages of the listings.

The result of this is that anyone with Superhost status will essentially "lose" all of the points gained from 5 Star Reviews, Reservations, Response Rates, etc.  In our case, having had Superhost status for 2 years consecutively, by changing over to the new listings, we are having to start completely over again to build up what is required to achieve the Superhost status and the extra value/placements that come with being a Superhost.

Ironically, on the same day we received two emails from Airbnb.  The first to our old listings email address congratulating us on receiving the Superhost Bonus for 4 consecutive periods of Superhost achievement.  The second was to our new listing regretfully informing us that the Superhost status for our new listings were unfortunately not met and our Superhost status revoked.

On the fair side, Airbnb was able to reinstate the superhost status for our new listing until the next review period in July.  However, without the data migration from our old to new listings, it will be next to impossible to achieve the superhost status for the next period as we are having to start all over from the beginning.

We voiced our concerns about this and were told that it has been forwarded to the programming department.  However, the situation has not been remedied and the data migration remains "not possible".

We will inform you if this gets fixed.