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]

[Jayesh5]

Hi @Ursula100 and Chris,

Did you create a whole new profile or just new duplicate listings on your existing profile?  Did you have partial sync or did you completely sync?  It seems that the complete sync has resulted in the loss of data that you describe and aparently there is nothing that can be done.  Are your old listings just on snooze until you honour all the existing reservations or did you delete them already?  That would be the best as you could still remap to the old listings and all the data would migrate.

Had lots of glitches and hurdles.  Spent 3 days with emails back and forth to Siteminder to set up the first mapping.  All is okay now and am slowly getting them done.  I am finding the biggest issue so far is not being able to edit quite a few things on Siteminder or on AirBnB.  For example if you want to change the check in time, you have to call AirBnB support and have them do it from the back end.  You also can't set the guest booking requirements.  I am happy we can have Super Strict 30 or 60 though.  That is a huge bonus.

Hope you still have the other listings on snooze as that would be an easy fix.  Lisa

[Ursula101]

Hi Lisa and Jayesh,

We created a whole new profile when we set up.  Did full synch at first to get them 3/4 of the way completed and then to partial synch for the remaining 1/4.   What you suggested (remapping with the old listings) was something we tried early in the process and unfortunately only resulted in extra work.  Since we had set the new listings up with new photos and descriptions, by remapping to the old listings, we had to manually re-input all the new photos and descriptions again.  Even after that, the data migration problem I mentioned above remained.  Like you, we also experienced certain glitches that could not be fixed from our end.   

Glad you have set up your mapping and can proceed forward.  That is a big step!  Also congratulations on being offered the Super Strict cancellation policy.   I sggest making use of it.  What is happeing with the Strict Canellation policy (esp concerning Korean nationals) is a disaster, but that is a whole different can of worms.

[Jayesh5]

Hi @Ursula100 and Chris,

Major bummer.  We managed to retain our previous reviews and so forth for the apartments but had to set up another profile for the cottages.  They will not transfer the superhost badge so they get a non smiley face for that!

I put a link to the apartment profile in the listing with the thought that guests might look and see the reviews there.  I didn't really expect they would but tonight had a guest mention all the good reviews so it did work!  And I only set it up yesterday.

Everybody who connects with Siteminder has the option in the drop down box to nominate Super Strict cancellation 30 or 60 days.  Normally this only happens when you do the full sync but I called customer support and told them that until all the bugs were fixed with the full sync I did not want to do it so could they just add it to the listing manually.  They did it in 2 minutes while I was on the phone.  You should be able to get it too.

So sorry to hear about your history disappearing.  That is just devastating.  Hopefully you have a few upcoming bookings that can start another history for you.  Don't delete the old profile as you never know if somewhere down the track they may be able to migrate the information after all.  You can always hope that it will work out that way...

Stay well, Lisa

[Jo375]

Hi,

We are also using Siteminder and went through the enitre process of getting our properties onto Airbnb.

However, now they are all duplicate.

Does anyone here know how to merge them?

Regards, Melize

[Ursula101]

Hi Melize and Jo,

When we set up our apartments to link to Siteminder, we had to create entirely new listings.  We were one of the first so maybe they have found a better way of doing it.  As we still have upcoming reservations from our "old" listings, we had to "deactivate" the "old" listings but not delete them so only our "new" listings are showing.  Once our last booking for our "old" listings has arrived and paid, the "old" listings will be deleted for good.

Our issue with duplicate listings came on our "new" listings.  In the setup process, somehow our listings all had a duplicate, which we could see on the LISTINGS page of our "new" listings.  We only activated/listed our 4 apartments and left the 4 duplicates unlisted.  There was no way to remove these duplicates from our side and we waited ubout 2 - 3 months until someone at Airbnb could finally remove them for us.

If you, like us, had to set up entirely new listings and your listings are "duplicates" because you have 2 sets of listings, then all that needs to be done is to DEACTIVATE your old listings and activate/list only your new listings.  That way only your new listings are showing when someone searches for your property.  If you have only one set of listings, but all are showing duplicates on your LISTINGS page, then you have to contact Airbnb to have the duplicates deleted. 

Kind regards,

Chris

[Nina1204]

@Nina1204 

I also love Siteminder and have worked with them over many years during my corporate life. I am extremely frustrated however after 2 months of trying to resolve an issue for guests that are trying to book a wedding early 2023. The integration agreement between Airbnb and siteminder, updates are interfaced up to 730 days out. My calendar only accepts booking 12 months out. I am in a long haul destination and increasingly we will expect long lead time bookings for weddings etc
I have lost a customer with potentially a US$ 9-10000 revenue in early 2023 and I have  onhold wanother booking on hold for another wedding, who has booked for 2022 but needs to change to May 2023
She called Airbnb Germany and was just told by the support team that it is not possible to book my property more than 12 months out without escalating this internally or offering other assistance or even contact me to try to find a solution.

I have spent an excessive amount of time to address this but Airbnb support people ( I have dealt with 6 different people)  do not seem to understand the issue and only quote from their manual

Siteminder has sent me ( after calling them 5 times as Airbnb support staff keeps referring me to them) their log files which I have uploaded but no one from Airbnb has reviewed or referred back to this
There seems to be a huge disconnect between the operational call centre knowledge and understanding and the company's resolution capabilities
Does anyone with a siteminder channel manager has  an availability window of more than 12 months in their calendar?