Items to Consider BEFORE Connecting Lodgix to Airbnb
In addition to the Airbnb host fee, Lodgix will assess a 1/2% commission, which will be billed to the credit card on file at Lodgix, once per month. This commission is calculated off the original invoice generated in Lodgix, based off of only the nightly rate setup in Lodgix, before taxes and before the Airbnb payout. Fees, taxes, etc are not utilized when calculating the 1/2% fee. Lodgix commissions are not adjusted when an invoice is changed post booking.
Lodgix will receive payout notifications when funds are released to the host by Airbnb. Payout amounts will be posted to the Lodgix invoice. All Airbnb payout amounts are reduced by the Airbnb host service fee. The host service fee is calculated from the booking subtotal (before fees and taxes) and is automatically deducted from the payout to the Host.
Airbnb does not map to the fees setup in Lodgix. They offer cleaning fees, community fees and management fees.
Smart pricing must be TURNED OFF within your Airbnb listing. Failure to disable smart pricing will fail to sync the rates setup in Lodgix with your Airbnb listing. Lodgix has integrated to Beyond Pricing and PriceLabs for those that wish to use dynamic pricing.
The cleaning fee can only be a flat amount. NOTE: The cleaning fee is factored into the nightly rate on the search results page. The fee is divided by the length of stay, then added to the nightly rate. For example a 3 night stay at $200 per night, with a cleaning fee of $150, will display as $250 per night including the prorated cleaning fee.
Airbnb SUPPORTS any automated last minute discounts setup in Lodgix. Note that these discounts are not very visible on the Airbnb quote. The nightly rate is simply updated, without alerting the guest that they are receiving a discount. Additionally, Airbnb only supports discounts up to 28 days. If a last minute discount is configured for 29 days or longer, it will not be sent to Airbnb.
Airbnb SUPPORTS any automated length of stay discounts setup in Lodgix. These discounts will appear as a line item on the Airbnb quote, alerting the guest that they are receiving a length of stay discount. NOTE: Airbnb only accepts whole numbers for the discount percentage, and all figures are rounded down. For example, a length of stay discount of 8.75% would be rounded down to 8% when it is sent to Airbnb. NOTE: Fixed amount discounts are per night discounts, not per stay. Airbnb does not allow for per stay, fixed amount discounts.
Airbnb DOES NOT SUPPORT any promotion discounts setup in Lodgix. Only last minute or length of stay discounts are sent to Airbnb.
Airbnb will collect sales and use tax in most areas. Lodgix DOES support passing through Occupancy Taxes to Airbnb that Airbnb does not collect.
Full availability is synced between the two platforms. NO ICAL IMPORTING OR EXPORTING IS NEEDED WHEN USING OUR AIRBNB INTEGRATION.
Invoices created on Lodgix from Airbnb bookings will not always match the Airbnb invoice. It should be close in most instances, but some tweaks to your business model may be required to get the invoices to match.
Airbnb only supports integers for check in and check out times. This means that check in and check out times are only on the hour. For example, a 4PM or 5PM check out is acceptable, but not 4:30PM.
IMPORTANT - After integrating, Airbnb will still allow changes to the listings through their interface. This is not recommended. As with all other integrations, we recommend that all changes be made in Lodgix and pushed to the channel. Any changes made at Airbnb will not be reflected in Lodgix. Furthermore, the fields that are edited at Airbnb may become "locked", meaning that they will no longer be updated through the API. More information on that can be found here.
Getting Started
New to Airbnb? Please go to Airbnb and sign up for a new account.
First create an Airbnb account. Then connect your Airbnb account to your Lodgix account. Finally, use your Lodgix listings to create new Airbnb listings.
An existing Airbnb user? Please connect your existing Airbnb account to Lodgix. Once connected you will map your Lodgix listings to your existing Airbnb listings.
Connect with Airbnb
The connection process must be initiated through Lodgix by clicking the “Connect with Airbnb” button within Lodgix at Settings > Integrations > Airbnb. Note that a certified phone number is required at Airbnb to connect the accounts.
Sign in to Airbnb and allow the connection between Lodgix and Airbnb
Configure the Airbnb Integrations Page within Lodgix
Once the connection is allowed the Airbnb Settings in Lodgix must be configured.
This can be found at Settings > Integrations > Airbnb. The various options are explained below...
Commission: Enter a commission percentage to pass through to owners for bookings through Airbnb (optional). More information here.
Rate/Rules Export Period: Choose how far in advance you want to export your rates. Note: If you have the Rates/Rules Export period set to 12 months or less, anything beyond 12 months will be blocked and not bookable on Airbnb. That is the best option. If you choose the 18 month option, ALL dates will be bookable. Lodgix however will only send rate / rule data for the first 18 months. Booking will be allowed for any date, however if the reservation is 18 months or greater in the future, the default rate will be used which could be significantly different than the actual rate you might have in place for that period of time.
Booking Lead Time: Airbnb calculates backwards from 11:59 PM on the day the guest intends to check in, in the timezone of the listing. For example, if you set the Booking Lead Time to 3 hours, a guest can make a reservation for that same day until 9 PM. Supported values are 0-24, 48, 72, and 168.
Allow Request to Book
Fetch Inquiries: This must be set to "Yes" to manage Airbnb messages through the Inquiries component of Lodgix.
Damage Protection Fee: Only matters if using Lodgix damage protection products.
Management Fee: A management fee can be added to either the nightly rates or the cleaning fee when displayed on Airbnb. Either way, the fee will get passed back to Lodgix from Airbnb as a line item in the invoice.
Enter your Airbnb house rules
Configure the Individual Property Settings
Use Marketing Title: Select whether to use your property name or property marketing title as the title on Airbnb
Cancellation Policy: Choose an Airbnb cancellation policy.
No Refund Discount: Optional discount for no refund bookings.
Occupancy Taxes: Configure taxes to be collected at Airbnb. Please refer to this support article.
Other Things to Note: Optional additional information
Instant Booking. Select the guest qualifications for allowing Instant Book. Options are Everyone, Experienced Guest, Verified ID, Experienced and Verified ID.
Rate Multiplier. A rate multiplier of 1.10 will increase rates by 10% on Airbnb only. The original rate set in Lodgix will still be used for all other channels.
Base Guests. You can elect to set a base number of guests included in the nightly rate, and then for #9 charge per person for additional guests beyond the base number of guests.
Cleaning Fee + Damage Protection. Airbnb does NOT pull in any fees that you might have setup within Lodgix already. Airbnb uses a generic cleaning fee to be the catch all fee for cleaning fees and any other misc fees that are being assessed to the guest. The damage protection fee will be auto populated ONLY if using the Lodgix damage protection products.
Short Term Cleaning Fee: Optional cleaning fee that would be used for stays of 1 or 2 nights.
Management Fee: A management fee can only be a flat amount. This fee can be added to either the nightly rates or the cleaning fee when displayed on Airbnb (see previous setting earlier). Either way, the fee will get passed back to Lodgix from Airbnb as a line item in the invoice. On Airbnb it will be displayed as part of the nightly price; these fees will not show as separate items in the price breakdown to the guest.
Community Fee. This is a percentage based fee only. It will be rolled into the nightly rate when displayed on Airbnb, but broken out as a separate line item on the Lodgix invoice.
Pet Fee: Optional Pet Fee that is sent to Airbnb. This is pre-populated based on your pet fee settings in Lodgix, but can be updated specific to Airbnb. Airbnb only supports fixed amounts and does not take into consideration number of pets. Also, there is no daily fee option. Note if using Limited Sync you must manually enable pet fees for the listing in Airbnb.
Airbnb ID. The assigned Airbnb property ID.
Status: This will show you the status of your Airbnb listing. Once it is "Created - Approved" your listing is all set.
Create / Update button: Use this button to create the listings or sync to an existing listing on Airbnb
NOTE!! SOME COLUMNS ARE NOT DISPLAYED BY DEFAULT TO SAVE SPACE. To see all fields, select the from the drop down:
Create New or Link to Existing Listings on Airbnb
Scroll to the far right of the Airbnb integrations page and click the "Create" button for each property that you want to integrate with Airbnb.
Create new Airbnb listing. A new listing will be created on Airbnb from the selected Lodgix property data.
Link to existing Airbnb listing. If selected, a list of available Airbnb listings will be displayed. Choose an existing Airbnb listing to link with your Lodgix property.
Note: if an error occurs, take careful note of the error, make the necessary corrections, return to the Lodgix Airbnb integration page and click on the "Update" button.
Cancellation Policies
Airbnb cancellation policies are unrelated to Lodgix cancellation policies. BEFORE USING AIRBNB PLEASE REVIEW THE AIRBNB CANCELLATION POLICIES CLOSELY.
Hosts are able to select the super strict cancellation policies only if they have successfully completed the following two-step verification process:
If you update a listing using one of these cancellation policies for a host who has not completed the verification process, you will receive the following error: “You are not yet eligible to apply a Super Strict cancellation policy. To apply a Super Strict policy, please complete business verification (https://www.airbnb.com/hosting?bavi=1) and identity verification (https://www.airbnb.com/account-verification/).”
Request to Book
While most Property Managers choose to allow Instant Bookings on Airbnb, it is possible to configure Lodgix to allow for Request to Book at Airbnb instead. Instructions to configure that option can be found here.
Disconnecting from Airbnb
Once you've synced a Lodgix property to an Airbnb listing, you can manage the status of that sync from within Lodgix. Click here for instructions.
Airbnb Promotions
Airbnb allows special promotion discounts to be applied to listings from the multicalendar: https://www.airbnb.com/multicalendar
These discounts may include New Listing Promotions, Fill Your Calendar Promotions, etc. Special promotion discounts applied through the multicalendar will override any rate settings provided by Lodgix.
Airbnb Listing Minimum Requirements
Airbnb expects their Channel-connected listings to meet a set of minimum content requirements, including:
Minimum 8 characters in Listing Title
Minimum 50 characters in Listing Description
Minimum 70 days available with the next 365 days
7 or more images (there is a limit of 110 images per listing)
At least 3 photos have a minimum resolution of 1024 x 683 pixels @ 72 dpi
5 or more amenities
Post-Booking Communication
Once an Airbnb booking is confirmed, a guest will be able to view the property address, check-in instructions, and House Manual on the Airbnb platform. Airbnb will also provide you with the guest’s phone number details, and share your preferred phone number with the guest to facilitate better communication before and during your trip.
City Registration
City registrations are sometimes required in areas where the municipality is mandating that all VR managers / owners register their property and display the license id on all listing sites. If this applies, the registration code must be entered from within the Airbnb dashboard for each property.
Airbnb Service Fees
Airbnb has an option (see above) to allow the property manager to include the entire Airbnb service fee (host + guest) included in the host fee. This is a setting that is set at Airbnb. It will increase your Airbnb host fee by 10-11%. To compensate for that, many will use the rate multiplier feature that Lodgix offers and increase the rates they pass to Airbnb by 10-11%. This can be done by setting your rate multiplier to 1.10 or 1.11 within Lodgix for each property.
Excluding Airbnb Reservations from Lodgix Triggers
Because Airbnb does not share guest credit card data and instead collects guest payments themselves, Lodgix invoicing and guest communications can be distrupted. It will be important for users of the Airbnb integration to exclude Airbnb reservations from many of their normal guest communication processes, especially those emails related to payment due remainders, etc..
Please make sure to add an exception to all triggers in Lodgix in which you do not wish Airbnb guests to receive those emails.
Leaving a Review for an Airbnb Guest
Within the Conversations tab of the Guest Control Panel, and only for completed Airbnb reservations, a Review Guest button will be displayed, allowing the host to leave a review of a guest.
Per Airbnb rules, the Review Guest button will only be active for 14 days. A guest review can only be edited, if the guest hasn’t submitted their review (of you the host) yet. As soon has both parties submit a review, “both reviews are automatically published and no more changes can be made."
