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Hello everyone!

We're excited to announce our changes for 2024! We already released the first update in March 2024 (you may have noticed a few of the improvements) and we will be putting our 2nd release into BETA during the month of May, with our third release in the Fall of 2024.

We have made important and significant updates which are a culmination of almost 2 years worth of improvements to the platform. Here is a quick bullet list of the changes and we'll go more in-depth below:

Live - March 2024

• Parent / Child Rate System
• Group Reservations
• Enhanced Problem Guest "Grey List"

BETA - May 2024

• Guest Verification Tools
• MyTrips - An entirely new post-booking guest flow for direct bookings as well as OTA reservations
• Unified Messaging Inbox with Auto Responder (LocalOTA, Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia)
• RemoteLock Door Lock Integration
• Send Custom Email Content

If you are interested in joining our beta program for this release, please let us know at [email protected]

Coming Soon to BETA - Fall 2024

• SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Google My Business Integration
• MyTrips Guest Self Check-in
• Online Guest Signatures
• Automated payment collection
• Automated security deposit collection and refund

Parent / Child Rate System

You can now set a single unit to be the "parent" with as many of your other units as "children" of that specific unit. You can then update the "parent" rate and the children's rates will automatically be modified by a percentage of the parent rate.

Group Reservations

You can now create "Group Reservations", which act as a container to all the underlying reservations. You can create as many reservations in a group or even import already created reservations into a group. You can then add transactions at the group level (for a single payer), or, you can add transactions on each individual reservation if they are paying separately, or any combination of both.

Enhanced "Grey List"

Fraud has become an ever increasing problem in the world. We've had hosts tell us terrible stories of the various ways that guests try to scam them, and we want to do everything possible to help address the issue. One of the ways we are helping to tackle this is by expanding our "Grey List" and our "Guest Verification Tools" (see below).

Our "Grey List" is a system that allows hosts to catch bad actors before they ever arrive at your property. When any host writes a bad review for a guest, that guest gets added to the "Grey List". From that point forward, when ANY host attempts to add that guest to a reservation, they will see that this guest has been flagged and can read about why.

On top of that, when a flagged guest tries to make a purchase online, we will detect that they have been flagged and automatically move them into our "Request to Book" flow (similar to Airbnb). That gives the host time to read about the guest, contact them if need be, and make an informed decision on whether or not to approve the booking.

Guest Verification Tools

Continuing on with our attempt at reducing fraud, we have introduced a new set of tools to help verify guest identity. Hosts can now specify if they require a guest to provide a form of government ID (driver's license, passport, etc) as well as a selfie picture so that you can verify that the guest is really who they say they are. 

This may not be something you want to require on small value reservations, so we've added a feature that allows you to set a minimum price for a reservation before we will require a guest to provide this documentation.

Early Check-in and Late Check-out Request System

Guests can now request an early check-in or a late check-out through their MyTrips (see below) Hosts can specify the time range that they will accept a request, as well as whether or not there is a cost to arriving early or staying late. For example, if your check-in is normally 4pm, you can set that you will allow requests as early as 1pm. You can then specify that there is a price of $15/hour for early check in.. Your guest could request a 1pm arrival and when they check-in, we calculate how many hours early they arrived and add a fee as an Extra to the reservation. 

Hosts can also set an "auto approve" window. For example, In the same scenario above, you could specify that you want to auto-approve any request at 3pm or later. If the guest requests a 3pm arrival, they will be notified automatically that their request was approved. The billing process remains the same.

Allowing guests to add early check-in and late check-out with fees can be a large additional revenue stream with little effort for hosts.

MyTrips

With all of these new tools, we needed a better way to interact with the guest starting at the time of purchase and the pre-arrival phase, all the way through post-departure, which inspired us to create "MyTrips". MyTrips is our new guest facing dashboard that a guest will land on right after making a purchase and provides all of the details they need during each "phase" of the reservation. MyTrips will change during each phase to try to put the most relevant information at the guest's fingertips.

How can hosts utilize MyTrips?

• Require ID and selfie from guest
• Can collect email addresses and phone numbers from OTA reservations where they are blank
• Upsell Extras for the reservation
• Upsell early check in/out
• Allow self check-out
• Request guest payment or security deposit payment
• Reduce generic questions from guests such as "What time is check-out?" or "What is the wifi code?"

How does MyTrips make the guest experience better?

• Guests can contact the host directly through MyTrips chat
• Easily request early check-in and late check-out
• Guest can easily self cancel if policy allows
• Guest can mark themselves as check-out
• Guest can see all purchased reservations and extras
• Easily update their documentation and contact information

We recommend adding a link to MyTrips in auto-response messages (see below), as well as a QR code in each unit so that guests can easily access their MyTrips dashboard during their stay.

We plan on many more updates to this feature in the future, such as allowing Self Check-in, auto generating door codes via RemoteLock, collecting agreement signatures, electronic “House Guides” (instead of a physical binder on-site), upselling extra nights on a current stay at a discount, etc.

Unified Messaging Inbox with Auto Responder

We now have a single, unified messaging inbox for communicating with guests on:

BigBear.com

Hipinn.com

GoHostels.com

Airbnb

Booking.com

Expedia (coming soon)

This means that you can send and receive messages to/from any of those platforms from our Inbox without having to log into each one individually. We hope to include SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Google My Business in our inbox system as well later this year.

You can also set up auto-response messages when certain actions occur on any platform, such as receiving an "Inquiry" or "Request to Book", when a new reservation is made, or on the day of arrival and the day of departure. You can also specify which channels each of these actions and messages occur on, so you can customize the content your guest receives depending on where the communication is occurring.

You are also able to Approve / Decline "Inquiries" and "Requests" from Airbnb directly from the FDX reservation editor. 

RemoteLock Door Lock Integration

We have partnered with RemoteLock to bring automated locks to our system! You can now set up wireless door locks for all of your units, common areas, etc and when a reservation is made, we will automatically generate a door code for your guest. When the guest checks in, you can manually or automatically notify them their door codes and that their unit is ready. The door codes will also appear on their MyTrips page for easy access.

Send Custom Email Content

The problem with email providers today is that they are difficult to set up with SPF, DMARC, GDPR requirements, etc. On top of that, they all require you to pay a monthly fee for them to just store your email list, regardless of whether or not you actually send emails. So if you only send emails twice a year, you're paying every month regardless!

We've fixed all of these problems! We now provide a way for you to create custom content directly in our platform and email it to your guests, no setup required!

Want to email all of the guests currently staying with you about an occurring event? You can do so. If you want to e-blast all of your past guests with a discount, you can do that too! You only pay a 0.005 per email sent, no strings attached (½ a cent / email).

To summarize…

That was really long, but I hope that you found at least one feature that you're excited about! If you have any questions or want a quick demo of any feature, please send an email to [email protected].