Mid-term taxes for Basic

We've added an optional length of stay parameter to Direct Basic taxes. If sales or lodging taxes in your area no longer apply on bookings over a certain duration, you can now specify that threshold so Hospitable knows to remove the taxes. Direct Basic taxes are managed in Preferences < Taxes.

Payment Terms for Basic

We expanded our new Payment Terms feature to all Direct Basic beta hosts on Monday. We're monitoring the performance and will finish rolling out to all Direct Basic hosts soon. The feature is already available to all Premium hosts.
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We enable payment terms by default, but Hospitable can only offer guests multiple payments if you have a cancellation policy with sufficiently spaced refundable checkpoints. Read more or jump to your booking policy manager to manage your settings.

Direct site photos

We solved a weird issue with the photos we pull in from Airbnb listings. Some hosts were seeing their accessibility photos synced to the top of their images. If you deleted the photos or changed the sort order, it would get written over on the next. We finally got to the bottom of it and fixed the issue.

Guests on qualifying Direct Premium reservations now have the option, at no additional cost, to pay in up to three installments. This should really help improve conversions on large bookings and long lead times.

We will be extending the feature to Direct Basic over the next two weeks.

How does it work?

Based on your booking policy, the booking amount, and the lead time of the reservation, Hospitable may offer the guest the option to pay in two or three payments, instead of one upfront payment.

Booking policies is the new home for cancellation policies and payment terms, as they are related. We've enabled payment terms by default, but Hospitable can only offer guests multiple payments if you have a cancellation policy with sufficiently spaced refundable checkpoints. Read more or jump to your booking policy manager to manage your settings.

All Hospitable hosts can now share images with guests from the inbox on all channels. Share multiple images in a single message, max 5MB per image.

We offer several methods to upload an image:

• Copy and paste in the Inbox text field
• Drag and drop from your desktop
• Tap/click the 📎 icon to use the file picker
• Use your phone's camera

Images can behave differently depending on the channel. If images are not supported at the current stage of a reservation, the 📎 attachment icon will be hidden.

• Airbnb - images disabled until the booking is confirmed; send images with or without accompanying text
• Booking.com - images disabled until the booking is confirmed
• VRBO - images allowed at all stages
• Direct/Manual - send images as email attachments at any stage of the booking; message text is required

While working on image sharing, we found a bug that was causing images shared by VRBO guests not to be displayed in the Inbox. This has been fixed.

This feature will suggest potential 1-5 star reviews and private feedback for your Airbnb guests when they check out, based on your conversation with them, in the Inbox.

This does not affect your Review rules configuration. If you active review rules, Hospitable will continue to use a random 5-star review template from your account.

Guest Portal

Our new guest portal is live for all Direct reservations! The initial version is an online itinerary manager for guests, making sure they can find your property, see the house rules, contact you, and cancel, if needed. Video and details here. We're super excited about the guest portal and look forward to adding lots of new features in the future.

Guest vetting on custom quotes

Custom quotes for Direct Premium hosts will no longer require returning guests, who have already gone through Autohost once, to re-verify. You'll see a new Guest verification field on the custom quote screen that will let you know if we have a previous verification on file for the guest. More about custom quotes.

Property search improvements

Although the Direct property search widget supports a maximum length of stay of 90 days, it was possible to select more than 90 days. We now make that limitation clear to the guest when selecting dates.

For any host who has a property with a maximum guest count of one, we now set the default guest count in the property search widget to one instead of two.

Tax updates (Premium)

We implemented the New York "bungalow exemption" so that state and county sales tax are no longer collected on transactions.

Ohio state sales tax is no longer collected on transactions.

Other fixes and improvements

There was an issue with the request money feature for Direct Premium hosts in Australia. This has been fixed.

We added an email spellchecker and other checks to prevent a typo from blocking us from communicating with guests.

If you have your Hospitable preferences enabled for beta features, you now have early access to our new feature, AI review suggestions for Airbnb.

This feature will suggest potential 1-5 star reviews and private feedback for your Airbnb guests when they check out, based on the conversation you've had with them, in the Inbox.

You now have access to our newest feature, Guest reviews for Airbnb.

This feature will allow you to reply to reviews from your Airbnb guests in the Inbox. What's more is that Hospitable will craft a reply for you with the help of AI, so you can just click the 'Submit' button and you're good to go.

Our highly anticipated Device Dashboard is now available to all users!

With this feature-packed dashboard, managing your smart locks has never been easier. Here's what you can expect:

• Comprehensive View: Keep track of reservation access codes, monitor first usage, and check battery status.
• Access Management: Create manual 'operations' codes, edit/delete codes, and easily lock/unlock devices.
• Custom Notifications: Stay informed when a guest arrives, a battery is low, or there's an issue that requires your attention with personalized notifications.
• Seamless Setup: Streamlined setup process and settings management in the unified Setup page.

Check out our Device Dashboard Walkthrough article to get a full rundown of the new feature.

We are also delighted to announce an expansion in our supported locks!

Check out the full updated list here.

Remember, all locks must have a keypad or connected keypad accessory to be supported, and be connected to wifi. Here are some highlights:

• Yale App: Yale Linus Smart Lock L2, Yale Assure Lock 2, and more.
• SmartThings App: All connected SmartThings locks are supported via the integration.
• Nuki: Nuki Smart Lock 4.0 Pro

Stay tuned for more updates and features!

If you are currently using the Device Dashboard in beta, you can now receive notifications related to your devices and codes!

The option to enable dashboard-only, or push and/or email notifications is available from the new setup page in your device dashboard. If you have any secondary users with permissions to the device dashboard, they will also be able to set their own notification preferences.

We will release the dashboard to all users after beta testing is complete.

If you don't want to wait and you're already using our smart lock integrations, be sure to enable beta features on your account!

Please note: this dashboard is not for third-party integrations, like RemoteLock or Jervis Systems.

Please share any feedback or issues with our support team!

We've made some exciting Booking.com improvements!

Previously, if a listing had a non-standard rate plan or increased prices per extra guest, you couldn't connect them. But now, you can! You can even set up extra guest fees for your current Booking.com listings in your Hospitable property page's pricing section:

We've also enhanced the connection process itself, making it faster and simpler than ever before. So whether you're adding a new Booking.com listing or updating an existing one, you can sit back, relax, and enjoy a smoother experience!