VR Referrals Blogs

We are building a new system that will allow you to earn points for sending your extra booking requests to other owners.  We will be implementing this in the upcoming days. 

Basics: Each time you send a referral on VR Referrals, you will earn a point.  Points will count toward a cash back and you will receive payments from us for your referrals.

Indian Shores is a small town located just northwest of St. Petersburg in Pinellas County. Most well-known as the home of the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary, a refuge that shelters up to 500 injured, recuperating and permanently crippled birds. This non-profit organization is open daily to the public and admission is free.

Update: Jan, 2014: This feature is no longer offered

You can now create invoices on VR Referrals and send them to your clients.
Once you create your invoice you can print it, save it as PDF or email it. 
It's easy to create an invoice for your Vacation Rental.  Simply add your guest information and rates.  After saving your invoice you'll see icons to print, save as PDF or e-mail to your clients.
View an example of an invoice below (Please note that you can also copy/paste your logo)
We hope that you'll enjoy this new tool.
- VR Referrals Team

Did you know that you can link to your Vacation Rental Listing pages, Articles and Blogs using any of the badges on our Link To Us page?
It's easy! Simply replace the code with your own URL to point to your listing pages, Articles or Blogs.
Feel free to display the badges on your own website or in your emails.
Several sizes are available.  Here are some examples taken from the page:

Having a Vacation Rental Blog can help you market your property online and get more bookings.
Some of the main advantages of having your Blog are:
1. Use your Blog to drive additional traffic to your website or Vacation Rental listing(s) - increase your bookings
2. Inform visitors and guests about recent changes to your rental property
3. Attract visitors interested in the local events near your Vacation Rental.

Writing a blog can be a challenge, especially when you first start one.  Here are some tips and ideas you might want to consider.

1. Updated photos or videos of your property, close ups or new additions will add more interests in your rental.  If you added new features to your property or changed something, write about it and add a photo/video.
2. Add lots of information about the local area, links and travel resources.
3. Write about upcoming events to add more interest in your location.  Add related articles or news information about such events from the web.  This will help people who are interested in finding out about local events in your area find you and possibly book your property.
4. Don't forget to write about recent events that you attended.  Add related videos, photos and your comments.  Write about what it is that you enjoyed at such events.
5. Write about what makes your property unique.
6. Don't forget to write your own opinion about the advantages of renting a vacation home over a hotel or motel room(s).
7. Share your thoughts about recent additions that might have happened because of a recent feedback that you've received.
8. Add a page with frequently asked questions together with answers.  Encourage visitors to ask additional questions, if they feel that something is still not covered by the already given answers.
9. Ask your readers questions.  This is a great way to get your readers involved with your Blog and create connections.  Not to mention that you can get valuable feedback to your questions!
10. Offer discounts to your readers for booking early or during seasons that you know might be slow.

Premium and Gold Members can now upload UNLIMITED number of photos to their Vacation Rental Listing pages!  Free or Basic Members can add up to 8 photos (instead of 4) to Vacation Rental Listings. 
Please log in to edit your listing and to add more photos of your rental property.  This might be a good time to update your property description and / or rates as well.
Detailed photos and descriptions are one of the most important keys to successfully market your vacation rental properties online.
Enjoy!!
- VR Referrals Team

It happens to all websites - visits from spam bots and spammers trying to post spam or send it through other forms.
When it first happened to us, we've implemented CAPTCHA (word verification) that many sites use.  Visitors had to complete the CAPTCHA before sending a message or adding a comment.  This system worked great against spam bots, but not necessarily against spammers.  Sure, we can always block such person from visiting our site again, but we did not like the fact that the message was sent and a member received it.  In addition, we were not happy with the fact that ALL visitors had to complete the word verification (CAPTCHA).
Last week we have implemented a new filtering system in order to avoid and block such messages - Mollom. If a message triggers the spam filter, it will not be sent.  Most of the time there will be no CAPTCHA challenge for the visitor to complete.  CAPTCHA will only appear if the filtering system is not completely sure that the submitted comment / message is spam (or completely sure that it's a good content).

Here are some upcoming events in the Catskill Mountains.

Visit the Catskill Mountains, upstate New York and join the fun!

Update Jan 2014: This feature is no longer offered as it served no real additional benefit and simply created identical content as the VR listings.

Update Feb 2014, this feature is no longer being offered.  (Because of problems with final layout and general look of the listings, this is no longer being offered)
You can now copy/paste addition photos of your Vacation Rental into the description of your VR listing.
While uploading photos is limited to 8 (unlimited for Premium and Gold Membership) you can also copy/paste photos from your own website when editing or creating your vacation rental listing.
Copy paste up to 6 photos to add to the description or "Additional Information" section.
Note: We might edit the size of the copy/paste images if they are too large.