Aug 10, 2012 11:02 PM
More issues due to website changes!
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In just the last hour, more changes have appeared on the VRBO website. Now the calendar dates are spread across the page under each listing by city. My dates defaulted to November 27 to December 27, without any date input on my part. The dates are only indicated at the top of the city listing page, and so the user assumes that the dates indicated at each listing are for the current month, so they are showing availability when in fact the current month is likely already booked. What a mess they have created due to not thoroughly testing their changes. Lets "help" vrbo to identify all of the issues so that they can "fix" or should I say "improve" them?
I'm afraid I don't understand what you are describing. When I look, what I see is
No dates at all, and guaranteed to befuddle anyoneone who wants to search availability by date.
Since I think your idea of a central repository of issues is valid, I'll throw out the top issues I have seen:
I am all for changes if they are improvements, but among all the changes I have seen every new feature is simply horrid.
Try entering arrival and departure dates at the top of screen and you should see what I'm talking about. Dates defaulted to 11/27 and 12/27 without my entering them. This is very confusing to the user.
Terrible use of space on the new pages. It looks like something a 6th grader would come up with.
debj
Hi dbmeyer,
I understand what you're trying to commuicate....I, too, see default arrival / departure dates already filled into the *search* field at the top of the page(s)...and the default dates I see are 11/20/2012 and 11/27/2012.
Just for the heck of it, I tried entering different dates and I could not.....clicking on that little calendar icon didn't work.
I'm sure this is why owners are getting inquiries for dates that are already booked. If the search dates are defaulting to november dates due to a bug in the system, the potential renters do not know that, and the list of dates that appears under each listing (from 1 to 31) without a month indicated, are showing available (because it is for November and not for August)! What a real nightmare they have created. I hope the programmers are working this weekend to fix their errors. When I was a programmer I tested and tested EVERY change individually before I would ever 'release" a programming change to end users. They made too many changes all at once which makes it very difficult to identify the cause of the bug (in this case multiple bugs).
My calendar reserved dates in November are not showing up on the calendar the public sees.
Based on another support posting I just read, I will add that one here since I suspect it is due to the website changes as well. When a guests submits a review, the owner is typically notified that the review has been submitted and will be posted once it has been reviewed/approved by VRBO staff. One other owner as well as myself were told by renters that they submitted reviews. No notification has been received by VRBO to even let us know this, it has been 5 days in my case. I believe that this delay is mostly like due to the website issues we have been experiencing this week, either directly affecting the review submission process (hope the reviews didn't just disappear) or due to the unavailability of staff to review the reviews because they are tied up in helping to address all the other issues/bugs created this week. POSTING OF REVIEWS IS A CRITICAL NEED.
Search-by-date feature is useless - they really need to fix this, along with the position of the Availability Calendar, which is now located way (!!) down the listing.
We all need to register our protests to Customer Service ASAP. See my comment on the Discussion thread dealing with the Availability Calendar for C.S. contact information.
here is the link to leave a support issue for VRBO:
http://help.homeaway.com/KnowledgeSupport?brand=VRBO&type=Owner&lang=en
Re: VRBO Calendar has incorrect data
I don't know if anyone else is experiencing this problem, but I have discovered that my VRBO and HomeAway calendars are no longer in synch with the HomeAway Connect calendar. Or, rather, I should say that the VRBO calendar is out of synch (wrong) while HomeAway is correct.
According to the HomeAway Connect site, they are both still connected to the calendar, but changes I made on AUG 14 (when VRBO started these non-tested changes) have not been reflected in the VRBO calendar. The updates are being reflected in the HomeAway calendar.
What is evern weirder is that if I click on the button to indicate my calendar is up-to-date, VRBO picks that part up and shows that as my calendar date -- but is still showing the old calendar data before the last AUG 14 update I made.
It's been working properly for years and I just happened to notice that VRBO is out of synch. Does anyone else have this problem????
When I created my ad at VRBO and HomeAway two years ago, I enrolled for HomeAway Connect. But very quickly stopped using HomeAway Connect because I learned that, updating my calendar at either VRBO or HomeAway, updates the other as well. So, I never even bothered to use HomeAway Connect anymore.
The new update went really bad - it was a functional website before, now that with all these "new" features I can't search for property i want to rent, or they did not get displayed properly, picture is not shown, date range is not honored,.. As a renter I got very frustrated.
OMG, I wish I could show how many inquiries are coming in for the dates above. I really hope these are legitimate and I am completely not loosing my marbles. The inquiries for November and all around the dates you mention above were making me wonder if they were the same guests seeing what price I might offer. Seriously what the heck is happening. I cannot even think right now
Kristin
Come on HA/VRBO...every day sees a new issue! And how many times, in the middle of the work day, are we going to see this message as we try to update and/or book reservations?
Management: how about performing these "updates" during the early morning hours...kinda like the way other companies do it so as to inconvenience their customers as littleas possible?
"Sorry but we are temporarily
down so we can upgrade a
few very important things
to our sand castle."
Can't get on either HomeAway or VRBO but I can get on VacationRentals.com today. It must be on a different server. Glad I don't use Reservation Manager and I was able to update my calendar through VactionRentals.com. It is really annoying to have your major advertising sites down so often.
How can the site still be named VRBO and not show any icon or wording or anything to distinguish between owner or manager. Having the ability to filter by owner or manager is not the point. What does the O in the name represent? Obviously not owner anymore.I'd have to say that's the number one part of the new layout I don't like.
A very close second is the mention of safest payment methods and not mentioning anything about checks, inferring they are not a safe payment method.
"A very close second is the mention of safest payment methods and not mentioning anything about checks, inferring they are not a safe payment method."
I totally agree. It makes it seem like a rental that only accepts checks is not worth booking.
If you have ever been hurt as a result of accepting credit cards, you have learned the hard way. Charge-backs are a way that someone can fight damage when it was clearly their fault. And since the credit card companies rule in favor of the buyer and not the seller the vacation home owner loses. If we are forced into accepting credit cards to help in listing ranking, the only thing we can do is make sure the security deposit is in the form of a check. We will also need to raise our rates to cover the credit card processing fees - bummer... Or we could offer a 2% discount for those paying by check.
More recurring site problems;
Seems VRBO/HA cannot permanently resolve basic issues and yet they continue to introduce ever more "enhancements".
In the past, Reservation Manager had an issue with accepting leases /agreements (pdf files) and would reject a file stating the file name was incorrect and that the file name can ony contain certian symbols.
Even though the file name was correct, ( and have tried uploading prior leases that had been accepted by RM), the system is again issuing the same rejection message.
So they "fixed" the problem once, and now the problem needs to be "fixed" again.
TIME TO PLAY WHACK-A-MOLE.....AGAIN.
PLEASE, MANAGEMENT: FOCUS ON STABILIZING YOUR WEBSITES!
Nearly a week ago I received a review notification indicating that it would post automatically in two days... A week later, it still has not posted... It is still in the pending state.... Is this due to the VRBO software update? Anyone else have this issue? Thanks
I uploaded two properties OVER two weeks ago - and they are still not live - its infuriating especially as one is available over the holidays this year and I need the exposure now ...not next month
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