Problems with the Webervations move

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Maybe someone can answer this for me: Why would the "500 error" message for Webervations have a link to the support email at Webervations if it is a guest who is the one trying to make a reservation?
I just went onto the Inn's site as a "guest" to see what happened. It put up the 500 error message. Why would a guest contact the Webervations help desk???? What is Webervations going to do to help our guests make a reservation? I don't get it
 
Maybe someone can answer this for me: Why would the "500 error" message for Webervations have a link to the support email at Webervations if it is a guest who is the one trying to make a reservation?
I just went onto the Inn's site as a "guest" to see what happened. It put up the 500 error message. Why would a guest contact the Webervations help desk???? What is Webervations going to do to help our guests make a reservation? I don't get it.
A 500 error is an "internal server error" meaning the server is completely unable to return a meaningful response. The server can't give you an email link to the property because it is so "confused" that it can't even figure out what property it is dealing with.
That being said, a 500 error can be caused by complex things like way too many people hitting a site and overloading the processor with too many calculations (not enough memory allocated) or simple things like a semicolon out of place.
NOTE When I moved Egoodell's post from the other thread I screwed up the sequence of the posts in this thread, so it is behaving oddly...replies made to one person are being attached to others. Sorry for the confusion this will cause :(
 
Maybe someone can answer this for me: Why would the "500 error" message for Webervations have a link to the support email at Webervations if it is a guest who is the one trying to make a reservation?
I just went onto the Inn's site as a "guest" to see what happened. It put up the 500 error message. Why would a guest contact the Webervations help desk???? What is Webervations going to do to help our guests make a reservation? I don't get it.
A 500 error is an "internal server error" meaning the server is completely unable to return a meaningful response. The server can't give you an email link to the property because it is so "confused" that it can't even figure out what property it is dealing with.
That being said, a 500 error can be caused by complex things like way too many people hitting a site and overloading the processor with too many calculations (not enough memory allocated) or simple things like a semicolon out of place.
NOTE When I moved Egoodell's post from the other thread I screwed up the sequence of the posts in this thread, so it is behaving oddly...replies made to one person are being attached to others. Sorry for the confusion this will cause :(
.
Swirt said: "A 500 error is an "internal server error" meaning the server is completely unable to return a meaningful response. The server can't give you an email link to the property because it is so "confused" that it can't even figure out what property it is dealing with.
That being said, a 500 error can be caused by complex things like way too many people hitting a site and overloading the processor with too many calculations (not enough memory allocated) or simple things like a semicolon out of place."
So why now?
 
Maybe someone can answer this for me: Why would the "500 error" message for Webervations have a link to the support email at Webervations if it is a guest who is the one trying to make a reservation?
I just went onto the Inn's site as a "guest" to see what happened. It put up the 500 error message. Why would a guest contact the Webervations help desk???? What is Webervations going to do to help our guests make a reservation? I don't get it.
A 500 error is an "internal server error" meaning the server is completely unable to return a meaningful response. The server can't give you an email link to the property because it is so "confused" that it can't even figure out what property it is dealing with.
That being said, a 500 error can be caused by complex things like way too many people hitting a site and overloading the processor with too many calculations (not enough memory allocated) or simple things like a semicolon out of place.
NOTE When I moved Egoodell's post from the other thread I screwed up the sequence of the posts in this thread, so it is behaving oddly...replies made to one person are being attached to others. Sorry for the confusion this will cause :(
.
Would it be too much to ask for some karmic restribution by having guests email them? That will only hurt us in the long run, I know, but still. Now, if they had posted a phone number instead...
devil_smile.gif

 
"It remains to be seen if bandb will bring in the 10-fold dollars that a good marketing campaign should. But that's a decision for next November. "
I've been working in marketing for almost twenty years... heck I even got my masters in marketing. On average we deliver even more than that. Maybe we've spoiled people, but a 10-fold return is an unbelievable, record-breaking, career-making, too-good-to-be true return on investment. I'd be thrilled to death with a 3X return, and happy as the day is long with a 2X return. I'd happy just to see a break-even campaign in a lot of instances. 10X may be what you feel is appropriate, but in marketing worlds, that is not a threshold very often even considered.
If you look at marketing as a financial investment - good financial investments over a long period of time often return 10-15% (obviously huge generalization), and secure investments more like 4%. So if you are deciding to take your money out of the bank and spend on marketing, or leave it in there - and you can make 10X on your money through marketing - you have found the Holy Grail of what to do with your resources..
JBanczak said:
"It remains to be seen if bandb will bring in the 10-fold dollars that a good marketing campaign should. But that's a decision for next November. "
I've been working in marketing for almost twenty years... heck I even got my masters in marketing. On average we deliver even more than that. Maybe we've spoiled people, but a 10-fold return is an unbelievable, record-breaking, career-making, too-good-to-be true return on investment. I'd be thrilled to death with a 3X return, and happy as the day is long with a 2X return. I'd happy just to see a break-even campaign in a lot of instances. 10X may be what you feel is appropriate, but in marketing worlds, that is not a threshold very often even considered.
If you look at marketing as a financial investment - good financial investments over a long period of time often return 10-15% (obviously huge generalization), and secure investments more like 4%. So if you are deciding to take your money out of the bank and spend on marketing, or leave it in there - and you can make 10X on your money through marketing - you have found the Holy Grail of what to do with your resources.
John,
Are you seriously telling me I should only expect to pull in $800-$1200 off my $400 paid subscription to bandb? You're kidding, right? Why would I even bother if I could only plan on getting a return of 4 room nights out of my listing in an entire YEAR? I'm expecting that kind of return per MONTH. You can't be serious because you guys keep touting how some innkeepers have increased occupancy by 20% by listing with you. You said yourself somewhere in here that your site has a proven record (in most locations) for very good traffic, lots of click-thrus and low bounce rates, that certainly has to translate into more than $400 in bookings.
If you are serious then your marketing should state that. "Most B&B's on our directory can expect to see and additional $400/year in revenue once their listing is placed."
Break even is a joke. No one lists on a directory to break even. No one buys an ad to break even. And if that's what happens they're spending their money in the wrong place. I expect listing with you to provide real revenue. Simply paying for the listing is not revenue. 2x the listing price isn't worth it, either.
Given this has been discussed to death and we really can't know where guests found our listings online, I always figure that they err in your favor sometimes, and in someone else's favor other times. That said, I would not have renewed if you weren't hitting close to 10X return for me. A little more, a little less, but a good average hovering around 10X these past 5 years.
.
"Are you seriously telling me I should only expect to pull in $800-$1200 off my $400 paid subscription to bandb?"
Do you really think that is what I was saying?
If you require a 10X return on any marketing spend - then you will be disappointed. If you only got $800-$1200 back on your $400 subscription from us, then you would be far below the results we regular see and hear from innkeepers. But if I was an innkeeper, and I got $1200 back from a site that was $400 - I'd pay for that site all day long, and I'd be wealthier because of it.
Particularly becuase $1200 is what you positively, absolutely KNOW you got from the site, there is always business you cannot track, and if at the end of the year you would have more money in the bank than if you didn't advertise there.
The big reason we went monthly is to make the financials more manageable and match revenues better for innkeepers. Going monthly is not easy for us - 12X the CC charges, 12X the billing issues, but you revenues don't all come in during one month, so seems like your costs shouldn't. Putting up $400 in January if you are seasonal slow may be a lot to lay out if you don't see a ton of reservations until April - but with monthly payments your cash outflow is much better , for reservations you might get in April... which should further help make a positive ROI more affordable.
.
I'm trying not to nitpick here, but you keep bringing up more issues...keep in mind that I PAY for the privilege of monthly billing. It's not coming out of your pocket, I'm paying the cc processing fee by being charged more for monthly billing.
And let's not forget that this is now yearly billing. I am stuck with this bill for a year. Can't get out of it. Can't terminate. Stuck. So if my state starts showing returns like VA does, I have NO recourse. You have your money and I have squat.
.
btw - has anyone checked google for Virginia Bed and Breakfast lately? We've been on page one the last few times I have checked, and again today.
.
Edited: I moved this to this thread as it was in the unrelated directory price thread. -swirt
No, I never check for Virginia Bed and Breakfast. I'm interested in Charlottesville Bed and Breakfast.
Meanwhile, I don't see an 800 number for finding out why Webervations won't let my InnReserve system work. Imagine my suprise on Sunday morning when I could not enter a new booking or print an invoice while my people were standing there to check out.
It is telling me "Error accessing file. Network connection may have been lost"
I was not on the internet - was just trying to print an invoice. So I tried it with my dialup connection and it still will not work. I'm getting pages and pages of code and when I exit it tells me that "This action will stop the debugger"
InnReserve is an access based software that connects to Webervations when a reservation is entered so I can only assume the move of Webervations has created this problem.
But you have no number for me to call for help. At least none that are accessable on a Sunday morning when I'm checking out guests. It appears I have to wait until a normal work day.
Riki
.
We are the first listing on that term...
Innreserve should not have been affected with the Webervations move, but we should certainly figure out what is going on.
I'm not sure I fully understand what you are doing though - Innreserve is on your PC and is a standalone program. Printing an invoice from Innreserve should have nothing to do with Webervations at all from what I know? Particularly if you are not connected to the web - Webervations is online only... so it seems like an innreserve issue to me.
Webervations has never had an 800 number to my knowledge, but the actual phone number is listed right on the homeapge. There isn't anyone in until tomorrow though. I already emailed our product manager who tends to work weekends, so I'll let you know what I hear.
.
I don't know if this is an unhappy coincidence but Webervations is down now for me - I can't log in to the home page - there is a '500 error' and my website shows no availability calendar. I don't use any other GMS but am on Webervations 2.0.
I guess I'll be accused of being glass half-empty again, but this will be the second time since the transition that my online booking will be unavailable for more than 12 hours (assuming no one works on the problem until tomorrow). I've received two online bookings in the last 24 hours and of course, that is the main way to book at night. Not happy
sad_smile.gif

.
My glass is empty too, I get a technical difficulty, please retry notice... Never happened before..
.
Confirmed. I am getting the same error on client's sites who use Webervations 1 and those that switched to Webervations 2. :(
.
So, swirt or maybe Bree, just asking again since I can't seem to find it on their website - how much does Superinns cost?
.
muirford said:
So, swirt or maybe Bree, just asking again since I can't seem to find it on their website - how much does Superinns cost?
It is based on the number of rooms up to a certain point. For three rooms we paid $40 per month. I think it is roughly $10 per room plus a $10 per month base.
 
Maybe someone can answer this for me: Why would the "500 error" message for Webervations have a link to the support email at Webervations if it is a guest who is the one trying to make a reservation?
I just went onto the Inn's site as a "guest" to see what happened. It put up the 500 error message. Why would a guest contact the Webervations help desk???? What is Webervations going to do to help our guests make a reservation? I don't get it.
A 500 error is an "internal server error" meaning the server is completely unable to return a meaningful response. The server can't give you an email link to the property because it is so "confused" that it can't even figure out what property it is dealing with.
That being said, a 500 error can be caused by complex things like way too many people hitting a site and overloading the processor with too many calculations (not enough memory allocated) or simple things like a semicolon out of place.
NOTE When I moved Egoodell's post from the other thread I screwed up the sequence of the posts in this thread, so it is behaving oddly...replies made to one person are being attached to others. Sorry for the confusion this will cause :(
.
Would it be too much to ask for some karmic restribution by having guests email them? That will only hurt us in the long run, I know, but still. Now, if they had posted a phone number instead...
devil_smile.gif

.
I don't think that would be too much to ask for at all ;)
 
"It remains to be seen if bandb will bring in the 10-fold dollars that a good marketing campaign should. But that's a decision for next November. "
I've been working in marketing for almost twenty years... heck I even got my masters in marketing. On average we deliver even more than that. Maybe we've spoiled people, but a 10-fold return is an unbelievable, record-breaking, career-making, too-good-to-be true return on investment. I'd be thrilled to death with a 3X return, and happy as the day is long with a 2X return. I'd happy just to see a break-even campaign in a lot of instances. 10X may be what you feel is appropriate, but in marketing worlds, that is not a threshold very often even considered.
If you look at marketing as a financial investment - good financial investments over a long period of time often return 10-15% (obviously huge generalization), and secure investments more like 4%. So if you are deciding to take your money out of the bank and spend on marketing, or leave it in there - and you can make 10X on your money through marketing - you have found the Holy Grail of what to do with your resources..
JBanczak said:
"It remains to be seen if bandb will bring in the 10-fold dollars that a good marketing campaign should. But that's a decision for next November. "
I've been working in marketing for almost twenty years... heck I even got my masters in marketing. On average we deliver even more than that. Maybe we've spoiled people, but a 10-fold return is an unbelievable, record-breaking, career-making, too-good-to-be true return on investment. I'd be thrilled to death with a 3X return, and happy as the day is long with a 2X return. I'd happy just to see a break-even campaign in a lot of instances. 10X may be what you feel is appropriate, but in marketing worlds, that is not a threshold very often even considered.
If you look at marketing as a financial investment - good financial investments over a long period of time often return 10-15% (obviously huge generalization), and secure investments more like 4%. So if you are deciding to take your money out of the bank and spend on marketing, or leave it in there - and you can make 10X on your money through marketing - you have found the Holy Grail of what to do with your resources.
John,
Are you seriously telling me I should only expect to pull in $800-$1200 off my $400 paid subscription to bandb? You're kidding, right? Why would I even bother if I could only plan on getting a return of 4 room nights out of my listing in an entire YEAR? I'm expecting that kind of return per MONTH. You can't be serious because you guys keep touting how some innkeepers have increased occupancy by 20% by listing with you. You said yourself somewhere in here that your site has a proven record (in most locations) for very good traffic, lots of click-thrus and low bounce rates, that certainly has to translate into more than $400 in bookings.
If you are serious then your marketing should state that. "Most B&B's on our directory can expect to see and additional $400/year in revenue once their listing is placed."
Break even is a joke. No one lists on a directory to break even. No one buys an ad to break even. And if that's what happens they're spending their money in the wrong place. I expect listing with you to provide real revenue. Simply paying for the listing is not revenue. 2x the listing price isn't worth it, either.
Given this has been discussed to death and we really can't know where guests found our listings online, I always figure that they err in your favor sometimes, and in someone else's favor other times. That said, I would not have renewed if you weren't hitting close to 10X return for me. A little more, a little less, but a good average hovering around 10X these past 5 years.
.
"Are you seriously telling me I should only expect to pull in $800-$1200 off my $400 paid subscription to bandb?"
Do you really think that is what I was saying?
If you require a 10X return on any marketing spend - then you will be disappointed. If you only got $800-$1200 back on your $400 subscription from us, then you would be far below the results we regular see and hear from innkeepers. But if I was an innkeeper, and I got $1200 back from a site that was $400 - I'd pay for that site all day long, and I'd be wealthier because of it.
Particularly becuase $1200 is what you positively, absolutely KNOW you got from the site, there is always business you cannot track, and if at the end of the year you would have more money in the bank than if you didn't advertise there.
The big reason we went monthly is to make the financials more manageable and match revenues better for innkeepers. Going monthly is not easy for us - 12X the CC charges, 12X the billing issues, but you revenues don't all come in during one month, so seems like your costs shouldn't. Putting up $400 in January if you are seasonal slow may be a lot to lay out if you don't see a ton of reservations until April - but with monthly payments your cash outflow is much better , for reservations you might get in April... which should further help make a positive ROI more affordable.
.
I'm trying not to nitpick here, but you keep bringing up more issues...keep in mind that I PAY for the privilege of monthly billing. It's not coming out of your pocket, I'm paying the cc processing fee by being charged more for monthly billing.
And let's not forget that this is now yearly billing. I am stuck with this bill for a year. Can't get out of it. Can't terminate. Stuck. So if my state starts showing returns like VA does, I have NO recourse. You have your money and I have squat.
.
btw - has anyone checked google for Virginia Bed and Breakfast lately? We've been on page one the last few times I have checked, and again today.
.
Edited: I moved this to this thread as it was in the unrelated directory price thread. -swirt
No, I never check for Virginia Bed and Breakfast. I'm interested in Charlottesville Bed and Breakfast.
Meanwhile, I don't see an 800 number for finding out why Webervations won't let my InnReserve system work. Imagine my suprise on Sunday morning when I could not enter a new booking or print an invoice while my people were standing there to check out.
It is telling me "Error accessing file. Network connection may have been lost"
I was not on the internet - was just trying to print an invoice. So I tried it with my dialup connection and it still will not work. I'm getting pages and pages of code and when I exit it tells me that "This action will stop the debugger"
InnReserve is an access based software that connects to Webervations when a reservation is entered so I can only assume the move of Webervations has created this problem.
But you have no number for me to call for help. At least none that are accessable on a Sunday morning when I'm checking out guests. It appears I have to wait until a normal work day.
Riki
.
We are the first listing on that term...
Innreserve should not have been affected with the Webervations move, but we should certainly figure out what is going on.
I'm not sure I fully understand what you are doing though - Innreserve is on your PC and is a standalone program. Printing an invoice from Innreserve should have nothing to do with Webervations at all from what I know? Particularly if you are not connected to the web - Webervations is online only... so it seems like an innreserve issue to me.
Webervations has never had an 800 number to my knowledge, but the actual phone number is listed right on the homeapge. There isn't anyone in until tomorrow though. I already emailed our product manager who tends to work weekends, so I'll let you know what I hear.
.
I don't know if this is an unhappy coincidence but Webervations is down now for me - I can't log in to the home page - there is a '500 error' and my website shows no availability calendar. I don't use any other GMS but am on Webervations 2.0.
I guess I'll be accused of being glass half-empty again, but this will be the second time since the transition that my online booking will be unavailable for more than 12 hours (assuming no one works on the problem until tomorrow). I've received two online bookings in the last 24 hours and of course, that is the main way to book at night. Not happy
sad_smile.gif

.
My glass is empty too, I get a technical difficulty, please retry notice... Never happened before..
.
Confirmed. I am getting the same error on client's sites who use Webervations 1 and those that switched to Webervations 2. :(
.
So, swirt or maybe Bree, just asking again since I can't seem to find it on their website - how much does Superinns cost?
.
muirford said:
So, swirt or maybe Bree, just asking again since I can't seem to find it on their website - how much does Superinns cost?
This is one thing that ticks me off, a service that will not post their prices...makes me have no trust...
.
Me, too. We are in the lesser of evils search again, since having the Webervations system go completely offline two times in 10 days for more than 12 hours doesn't make me have a lot of faith in the new owners of Webervations. I'm really not interested in hearing how they can't afford to do more testing. Where do those rate increases go?
They could have built the software on their servers and wrung it out - even use some innkeepers as beta testers, there's a novel idea - before making the switch. That's no more costly to bandb.com than wringing out the problems after moving to new servers - but it would have been less costly and frustrating to both their innkeeper customers and guest customers.
 
"It remains to be seen if bandb will bring in the 10-fold dollars that a good marketing campaign should. But that's a decision for next November. "
I've been working in marketing for almost twenty years... heck I even got my masters in marketing. On average we deliver even more than that. Maybe we've spoiled people, but a 10-fold return is an unbelievable, record-breaking, career-making, too-good-to-be true return on investment. I'd be thrilled to death with a 3X return, and happy as the day is long with a 2X return. I'd happy just to see a break-even campaign in a lot of instances. 10X may be what you feel is appropriate, but in marketing worlds, that is not a threshold very often even considered.
If you look at marketing as a financial investment - good financial investments over a long period of time often return 10-15% (obviously huge generalization), and secure investments more like 4%. So if you are deciding to take your money out of the bank and spend on marketing, or leave it in there - and you can make 10X on your money through marketing - you have found the Holy Grail of what to do with your resources..
JBanczak said:
"It remains to be seen if bandb will bring in the 10-fold dollars that a good marketing campaign should. But that's a decision for next November. "
I've been working in marketing for almost twenty years... heck I even got my masters in marketing. On average we deliver even more than that. Maybe we've spoiled people, but a 10-fold return is an unbelievable, record-breaking, career-making, too-good-to-be true return on investment. I'd be thrilled to death with a 3X return, and happy as the day is long with a 2X return. I'd happy just to see a break-even campaign in a lot of instances. 10X may be what you feel is appropriate, but in marketing worlds, that is not a threshold very often even considered.
If you look at marketing as a financial investment - good financial investments over a long period of time often return 10-15% (obviously huge generalization), and secure investments more like 4%. So if you are deciding to take your money out of the bank and spend on marketing, or leave it in there - and you can make 10X on your money through marketing - you have found the Holy Grail of what to do with your resources.
John,
Are you seriously telling me I should only expect to pull in $800-$1200 off my $400 paid subscription to bandb? You're kidding, right? Why would I even bother if I could only plan on getting a return of 4 room nights out of my listing in an entire YEAR? I'm expecting that kind of return per MONTH. You can't be serious because you guys keep touting how some innkeepers have increased occupancy by 20% by listing with you. You said yourself somewhere in here that your site has a proven record (in most locations) for very good traffic, lots of click-thrus and low bounce rates, that certainly has to translate into more than $400 in bookings.
If you are serious then your marketing should state that. "Most B&B's on our directory can expect to see and additional $400/year in revenue once their listing is placed."
Break even is a joke. No one lists on a directory to break even. No one buys an ad to break even. And if that's what happens they're spending their money in the wrong place. I expect listing with you to provide real revenue. Simply paying for the listing is not revenue. 2x the listing price isn't worth it, either.
Given this has been discussed to death and we really can't know where guests found our listings online, I always figure that they err in your favor sometimes, and in someone else's favor other times. That said, I would not have renewed if you weren't hitting close to 10X return for me. A little more, a little less, but a good average hovering around 10X these past 5 years.
.
"Are you seriously telling me I should only expect to pull in $800-$1200 off my $400 paid subscription to bandb?"
Do you really think that is what I was saying?
If you require a 10X return on any marketing spend - then you will be disappointed. If you only got $800-$1200 back on your $400 subscription from us, then you would be far below the results we regular see and hear from innkeepers. But if I was an innkeeper, and I got $1200 back from a site that was $400 - I'd pay for that site all day long, and I'd be wealthier because of it.
Particularly becuase $1200 is what you positively, absolutely KNOW you got from the site, there is always business you cannot track, and if at the end of the year you would have more money in the bank than if you didn't advertise there.
The big reason we went monthly is to make the financials more manageable and match revenues better for innkeepers. Going monthly is not easy for us - 12X the CC charges, 12X the billing issues, but you revenues don't all come in during one month, so seems like your costs shouldn't. Putting up $400 in January if you are seasonal slow may be a lot to lay out if you don't see a ton of reservations until April - but with monthly payments your cash outflow is much better , for reservations you might get in April... which should further help make a positive ROI more affordable.
.
I'm trying not to nitpick here, but you keep bringing up more issues...keep in mind that I PAY for the privilege of monthly billing. It's not coming out of your pocket, I'm paying the cc processing fee by being charged more for monthly billing.
And let's not forget that this is now yearly billing. I am stuck with this bill for a year. Can't get out of it. Can't terminate. Stuck. So if my state starts showing returns like VA does, I have NO recourse. You have your money and I have squat.
.
btw - has anyone checked google for Virginia Bed and Breakfast lately? We've been on page one the last few times I have checked, and again today.
.
Edited: I moved this to this thread as it was in the unrelated directory price thread. -swirt
No, I never check for Virginia Bed and Breakfast. I'm interested in Charlottesville Bed and Breakfast.
Meanwhile, I don't see an 800 number for finding out why Webervations won't let my InnReserve system work. Imagine my suprise on Sunday morning when I could not enter a new booking or print an invoice while my people were standing there to check out.
It is telling me "Error accessing file. Network connection may have been lost"
I was not on the internet - was just trying to print an invoice. So I tried it with my dialup connection and it still will not work. I'm getting pages and pages of code and when I exit it tells me that "This action will stop the debugger"
InnReserve is an access based software that connects to Webervations when a reservation is entered so I can only assume the move of Webervations has created this problem.
But you have no number for me to call for help. At least none that are accessable on a Sunday morning when I'm checking out guests. It appears I have to wait until a normal work day.
Riki
.
We are the first listing on that term...
Innreserve should not have been affected with the Webervations move, but we should certainly figure out what is going on.
I'm not sure I fully understand what you are doing though - Innreserve is on your PC and is a standalone program. Printing an invoice from Innreserve should have nothing to do with Webervations at all from what I know? Particularly if you are not connected to the web - Webervations is online only... so it seems like an innreserve issue to me.
Webervations has never had an 800 number to my knowledge, but the actual phone number is listed right on the homeapge. There isn't anyone in until tomorrow though. I already emailed our product manager who tends to work weekends, so I'll let you know what I hear.
.
I don't know if this is an unhappy coincidence but Webervations is down now for me - I can't log in to the home page - there is a '500 error' and my website shows no availability calendar. I don't use any other GMS but am on Webervations 2.0.
I guess I'll be accused of being glass half-empty again, but this will be the second time since the transition that my online booking will be unavailable for more than 12 hours (assuming no one works on the problem until tomorrow). I've received two online bookings in the last 24 hours and of course, that is the main way to book at night. Not happy
sad_smile.gif

.
My glass is empty too, I get a technical difficulty, please retry notice... Never happened before..
.
Confirmed. I am getting the same error on client's sites who use Webervations 1 and those that switched to Webervations 2. :(
.
Same with us... Webervations 1.0 error message:
"We're sorry. We are experiencing technical difficulties.
Please use the back button on your browser and try again.
If you still cannot reach the page you want, please try again later.
Again, we apologize for any inconvenience.
This error is being logged and will be reviewed and corrected as soon as possible.
If you have any questions, please contact [email protected].
Thank you."
.
It's 8:57 p.m. CT - Webervations back up for me...
 
"It remains to be seen if bandb will bring in the 10-fold dollars that a good marketing campaign should. But that's a decision for next November. "
I've been working in marketing for almost twenty years... heck I even got my masters in marketing. On average we deliver even more than that. Maybe we've spoiled people, but a 10-fold return is an unbelievable, record-breaking, career-making, too-good-to-be true return on investment. I'd be thrilled to death with a 3X return, and happy as the day is long with a 2X return. I'd happy just to see a break-even campaign in a lot of instances. 10X may be what you feel is appropriate, but in marketing worlds, that is not a threshold very often even considered.
If you look at marketing as a financial investment - good financial investments over a long period of time often return 10-15% (obviously huge generalization), and secure investments more like 4%. So if you are deciding to take your money out of the bank and spend on marketing, or leave it in there - and you can make 10X on your money through marketing - you have found the Holy Grail of what to do with your resources..
JBanczak said:
"It remains to be seen if bandb will bring in the 10-fold dollars that a good marketing campaign should. But that's a decision for next November. "
I've been working in marketing for almost twenty years... heck I even got my masters in marketing. On average we deliver even more than that. Maybe we've spoiled people, but a 10-fold return is an unbelievable, record-breaking, career-making, too-good-to-be true return on investment. I'd be thrilled to death with a 3X return, and happy as the day is long with a 2X return. I'd happy just to see a break-even campaign in a lot of instances. 10X may be what you feel is appropriate, but in marketing worlds, that is not a threshold very often even considered.
If you look at marketing as a financial investment - good financial investments over a long period of time often return 10-15% (obviously huge generalization), and secure investments more like 4%. So if you are deciding to take your money out of the bank and spend on marketing, or leave it in there - and you can make 10X on your money through marketing - you have found the Holy Grail of what to do with your resources.
John,
Are you seriously telling me I should only expect to pull in $800-$1200 off my $400 paid subscription to bandb? You're kidding, right? Why would I even bother if I could only plan on getting a return of 4 room nights out of my listing in an entire YEAR? I'm expecting that kind of return per MONTH. You can't be serious because you guys keep touting how some innkeepers have increased occupancy by 20% by listing with you. You said yourself somewhere in here that your site has a proven record (in most locations) for very good traffic, lots of click-thrus and low bounce rates, that certainly has to translate into more than $400 in bookings.
If you are serious then your marketing should state that. "Most B&B's on our directory can expect to see and additional $400/year in revenue once their listing is placed."
Break even is a joke. No one lists on a directory to break even. No one buys an ad to break even. And if that's what happens they're spending their money in the wrong place. I expect listing with you to provide real revenue. Simply paying for the listing is not revenue. 2x the listing price isn't worth it, either.
Given this has been discussed to death and we really can't know where guests found our listings online, I always figure that they err in your favor sometimes, and in someone else's favor other times. That said, I would not have renewed if you weren't hitting close to 10X return for me. A little more, a little less, but a good average hovering around 10X these past 5 years.
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"Are you seriously telling me I should only expect to pull in $800-$1200 off my $400 paid subscription to bandb?"
Do you really think that is what I was saying?
If you require a 10X return on any marketing spend - then you will be disappointed. If you only got $800-$1200 back on your $400 subscription from us, then you would be far below the results we regular see and hear from innkeepers. But if I was an innkeeper, and I got $1200 back from a site that was $400 - I'd pay for that site all day long, and I'd be wealthier because of it.
Particularly becuase $1200 is what you positively, absolutely KNOW you got from the site, there is always business you cannot track, and if at the end of the year you would have more money in the bank than if you didn't advertise there.
The big reason we went monthly is to make the financials more manageable and match revenues better for innkeepers. Going monthly is not easy for us - 12X the CC charges, 12X the billing issues, but you revenues don't all come in during one month, so seems like your costs shouldn't. Putting up $400 in January if you are seasonal slow may be a lot to lay out if you don't see a ton of reservations until April - but with monthly payments your cash outflow is much better , for reservations you might get in April... which should further help make a positive ROI more affordable.
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I'm trying not to nitpick here, but you keep bringing up more issues...keep in mind that I PAY for the privilege of monthly billing. It's not coming out of your pocket, I'm paying the cc processing fee by being charged more for monthly billing.
And let's not forget that this is now yearly billing. I am stuck with this bill for a year. Can't get out of it. Can't terminate. Stuck. So if my state starts showing returns like VA does, I have NO recourse. You have your money and I have squat.
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btw - has anyone checked google for Virginia Bed and Breakfast lately? We've been on page one the last few times I have checked, and again today.
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Edited: I moved this to this thread as it was in the unrelated directory price thread. -swirt
No, I never check for Virginia Bed and Breakfast. I'm interested in Charlottesville Bed and Breakfast.
Meanwhile, I don't see an 800 number for finding out why Webervations won't let my InnReserve system work. Imagine my suprise on Sunday morning when I could not enter a new booking or print an invoice while my people were standing there to check out.
It is telling me "Error accessing file. Network connection may have been lost"
I was not on the internet - was just trying to print an invoice. So I tried it with my dialup connection and it still will not work. I'm getting pages and pages of code and when I exit it tells me that "This action will stop the debugger"
InnReserve is an access based software that connects to Webervations when a reservation is entered so I can only assume the move of Webervations has created this problem.
But you have no number for me to call for help. At least none that are accessable on a Sunday morning when I'm checking out guests. It appears I have to wait until a normal work day.
Riki
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We are the first listing on that term...
Innreserve should not have been affected with the Webervations move, but we should certainly figure out what is going on.
I'm not sure I fully understand what you are doing though - Innreserve is on your PC and is a standalone program. Printing an invoice from Innreserve should have nothing to do with Webervations at all from what I know? Particularly if you are not connected to the web - Webervations is online only... so it seems like an innreserve issue to me.
Webervations has never had an 800 number to my knowledge, but the actual phone number is listed right on the homeapge. There isn't anyone in until tomorrow though. I already emailed our product manager who tends to work weekends, so I'll let you know what I hear.
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I don't know if this is an unhappy coincidence but Webervations is down now for me - I can't log in to the home page - there is a '500 error' and my website shows no availability calendar. I don't use any other GMS but am on Webervations 2.0.
I guess I'll be accused of being glass half-empty again, but this will be the second time since the transition that my online booking will be unavailable for more than 12 hours (assuming no one works on the problem until tomorrow). I've received two online bookings in the last 24 hours and of course, that is the main way to book at night. Not happy
sad_smile.gif

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My glass is empty too, I get a technical difficulty, please retry notice... Never happened before..
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Confirmed. I am getting the same error on client's sites who use Webervations 1 and those that switched to Webervations 2. :(
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Same with us... Webervations 1.0 error message:
"We're sorry. We are experiencing technical difficulties.
Please use the back button on your browser and try again.
If you still cannot reach the page you want, please try again later.
Again, we apologize for any inconvenience.
This error is being logged and will be reviewed and corrected as soon as possible.
If you have any questions, please contact [email protected].
Thank you."
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It's 8:57 p.m. CT - Webervations back up for me...
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Yes, back up here, too. Someone must have heard the alarm.
 
What does printing an invoice from Inn Reserve have to do with webervations??? Your innreserve is a separate program working from your computer. There is no reason webervations would have anything to do with printing a reservation. OR were you trying to upload or download reservation requests from webervations? I do not understand your issue..
If it is not webervations why does the error say it can't connect online? I was not trying to upload, I'm jjust tring to enter or print and it immediately states it has online problems. I know others have had problems operating their software which connects to webervations as well and they had to call this fellow to get it straightened out. Just another reason I would not want to depend on a web based management system.
I'll find out tomorrow.
Riki
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Hmmm .. curious.
I don't know why it would need to connect online if you are not trying to synchronise one way or the other. It is possible that the scripts are written so that it must connect online even if you are not trying to synchronise, but from a developer point of view that seems pretty silly. Also seems silly that if it was unable to connect you could not print out a receipt or otherwise use the program. That would incapacitate the local program every time a phone line is out or high speed connection is down, which is supposed to be the advantage of having a local system like Innreserve.
It is possible that with webervations being down or moved that Innreserve is incapacitated, but it just seems like a real flaw in the system AND unlikely, since it is completely possible to use Innreserve without ever having to use webervations. They are two completely separate things that have the ability to talk to each other, but are not required to talk to each other.
(This part is for our readers who aren't familiar with InnReserve) InnReserve is a Guest Managment application for Microsoft Access that is created by a company that is not affiliated with the old Webervations company (American Dreams) or bedandbreakfast.com. It is supposed to be a stand alone program for managing guest records, but it has the ability to import information from Webervations and export to Webervations. So the two separate systems can be used together ... usually ;)
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I just spoke to Jeff of InnReserve (talk about service again! I emailed and he called me back within an hour of the email. On Sunday night. Unbelieveable!)
He seems to think that it is not connected to the move and had me winzip my file to him to look at it.
Riki
 
Yes, we were alerted to it and had it fixed roughly three hours ago. Here is what I received from my CTO:
__________
This Sunday was a rough day for our database L First, we discovered a configuration mistake that cased one of the disk arrays to fill up. This happened around 4am and we fixed it by 5:40am. Hopefully, there were not a lot of users on the system at this time. But then we had another issue at 6:30pm, and it took us almost 90 minutes to fix. We’re going to investigate the logs and find out what caused it. Also, I am not proud of our time to fix with both of these issues, so we’re going to reconfigure our monitoring process and escalation policy to provide a much better response time if and when we experience another system wide issue in the future…
Thanks,
Denis

________
JB
 
Yes, we were alerted to it and had it fixed roughly three hours ago. Here is what I received from my CTO:
__________
This Sunday was a rough day for our database L First, we discovered a configuration mistake that cased one of the disk arrays to fill up. This happened around 4am and we fixed it by 5:40am. Hopefully, there were not a lot of users on the system at this time. But then we had another issue at 6:30pm, and it took us almost 90 minutes to fix. We’re going to investigate the logs and find out what caused it. Also, I am not proud of our time to fix with both of these issues, so we’re going to reconfigure our monitoring process and escalation policy to provide a much better response time if and when we experience another system wide issue in the future…
Thanks,
Denis

________
JB.
John, thank you for the follow up.
Question for you: Is it possible to revise the error message listed to remind a potential guest to go back to the pevious screen and call the innkeeper to check availability or book, as well as having the current contact info for the innkeeper?
 
Yes, we were alerted to it and had it fixed roughly three hours ago. Here is what I received from my CTO:
__________
This Sunday was a rough day for our database L First, we discovered a configuration mistake that cased one of the disk arrays to fill up. This happened around 4am and we fixed it by 5:40am. Hopefully, there were not a lot of users on the system at this time. But then we had another issue at 6:30pm, and it took us almost 90 minutes to fix. We’re going to investigate the logs and find out what caused it. Also, I am not proud of our time to fix with both of these issues, so we’re going to reconfigure our monitoring process and escalation policy to provide a much better response time if and when we experience another system wide issue in the future…
Thanks,
Denis

________
JB.
John, thank you for the follow up.
Question for you: Is it possible to revise the error message listed to remind a potential guest to go back to the pevious screen and call the innkeeper to check availability or book, as well as having the current contact info for the innkeeper?
.
Definitely a good idea - let me take a look, I'm not sure if it is or not.
 
What does printing an invoice from Inn Reserve have to do with webervations??? Your innreserve is a separate program working from your computer. There is no reason webervations would have anything to do with printing a reservation. OR were you trying to upload or download reservation requests from webervations? I do not understand your issue..
If it is not webervations why does the error say it can't connect online? I was not trying to upload, I'm jjust tring to enter or print and it immediately states it has online problems. I know others have had problems operating their software which connects to webervations as well and they had to call this fellow to get it straightened out. Just another reason I would not want to depend on a web based management system.
I'll find out tomorrow.
Riki
.
Hmmm .. curious.
I don't know why it would need to connect online if you are not trying to synchronise one way or the other. It is possible that the scripts are written so that it must connect online even if you are not trying to synchronise, but from a developer point of view that seems pretty silly. Also seems silly that if it was unable to connect you could not print out a receipt or otherwise use the program. That would incapacitate the local program every time a phone line is out or high speed connection is down, which is supposed to be the advantage of having a local system like Innreserve.
It is possible that with webervations being down or moved that Innreserve is incapacitated, but it just seems like a real flaw in the system AND unlikely, since it is completely possible to use Innreserve without ever having to use webervations. They are two completely separate things that have the ability to talk to each other, but are not required to talk to each other.
(This part is for our readers who aren't familiar with InnReserve) InnReserve is a Guest Managment application for Microsoft Access that is created by a company that is not affiliated with the old Webervations company (American Dreams) or bedandbreakfast.com. It is supposed to be a stand alone program for managing guest records, but it has the ability to import information from Webervations and export to Webervations. So the two separate systems can be used together ... usually ;)
.
I just spoke to Jeff of InnReserve (talk about service again! I emailed and he called me back within an hour of the email. On Sunday night. Unbelieveable!)
He seems to think that it is not connected to the move and had me winzip my file to him to look at it.
Riki
.
egoodell said:
I just spoke to Jeff of InnReserve (talk about service again! I emailed and he called me back within an hour of the email. On Sunday night. Unbelieveable!)
He seems to think that it is not connected to the move and had me winzip my file to him to look at it.
That's great Riki. Please keep us posted on what you find out. ;)
 
What does printing an invoice from Inn Reserve have to do with webervations??? Your innreserve is a separate program working from your computer. There is no reason webervations would have anything to do with printing a reservation. OR were you trying to upload or download reservation requests from webervations? I do not understand your issue..
If it is not webervations why does the error say it can't connect online? I was not trying to upload, I'm jjust tring to enter or print and it immediately states it has online problems. I know others have had problems operating their software which connects to webervations as well and they had to call this fellow to get it straightened out. Just another reason I would not want to depend on a web based management system.
I'll find out tomorrow.
Riki
.
Hmmm .. curious.
I don't know why it would need to connect online if you are not trying to synchronise one way or the other. It is possible that the scripts are written so that it must connect online even if you are not trying to synchronise, but from a developer point of view that seems pretty silly. Also seems silly that if it was unable to connect you could not print out a receipt or otherwise use the program. That would incapacitate the local program every time a phone line is out or high speed connection is down, which is supposed to be the advantage of having a local system like Innreserve.
It is possible that with webervations being down or moved that Innreserve is incapacitated, but it just seems like a real flaw in the system AND unlikely, since it is completely possible to use Innreserve without ever having to use webervations. They are two completely separate things that have the ability to talk to each other, but are not required to talk to each other.
(This part is for our readers who aren't familiar with InnReserve) InnReserve is a Guest Managment application for Microsoft Access that is created by a company that is not affiliated with the old Webervations company (American Dreams) or bedandbreakfast.com. It is supposed to be a stand alone program for managing guest records, but it has the ability to import information from Webervations and export to Webervations. So the two separate systems can be used together ... usually ;)
.
I just spoke to Jeff of InnReserve (talk about service again! I emailed and he called me back within an hour of the email. On Sunday night. Unbelieveable!)
He seems to think that it is not connected to the move and had me winzip my file to him to look at it.
Riki
.
egoodell said:
I just spoke to Jeff of InnReserve (talk about service again! I emailed and he called me back within an hour of the email. On Sunday night. Unbelieveable!)
He seems to think that it is not connected to the move and had me winzip my file to him to look at it.
That's great Riki. Please keep us posted on what you find out. ;)
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I was not able to get it to him right away last night so it could be some time before I find out as he will be out of town for a couple of days. I told him there was no rush as I'm small enough to operate without it for now.
Riki
 
Yes, we were alerted to it and had it fixed roughly three hours ago. Here is what I received from my CTO:
__________
This Sunday was a rough day for our database L First, we discovered a configuration mistake that cased one of the disk arrays to fill up. This happened around 4am and we fixed it by 5:40am. Hopefully, there were not a lot of users on the system at this time. But then we had another issue at 6:30pm, and it took us almost 90 minutes to fix. We’re going to investigate the logs and find out what caused it. Also, I am not proud of our time to fix with both of these issues, so we’re going to reconfigure our monitoring process and escalation policy to provide a much better response time if and when we experience another system wide issue in the future…
Thanks,
Denis

________
JB.
John, thank you for the follow up.
Question for you: Is it possible to revise the error message listed to remind a potential guest to go back to the pevious screen and call the innkeeper to check availability or book, as well as having the current contact info for the innkeeper?
.
Definitely a good idea - let me take a look, I'm not sure if it is or not.
.
John,
I have had 2 Reservations go directly to Webervations and I never got an email for them, Wa that a Glitch ? How do I address the people a week later?
Will this be Fixed on Webervations?
Thanks, Josh
 
What does printing an invoice from Inn Reserve have to do with webervations??? Your innreserve is a separate program working from your computer. There is no reason webervations would have anything to do with printing a reservation. OR were you trying to upload or download reservation requests from webervations? I do not understand your issue..
If it is not webervations why does the error say it can't connect online? I was not trying to upload, I'm jjust tring to enter or print and it immediately states it has online problems. I know others have had problems operating their software which connects to webervations as well and they had to call this fellow to get it straightened out. Just another reason I would not want to depend on a web based management system.
I'll find out tomorrow.
Riki
.
Hmmm .. curious.
I don't know why it would need to connect online if you are not trying to synchronise one way or the other. It is possible that the scripts are written so that it must connect online even if you are not trying to synchronise, but from a developer point of view that seems pretty silly. Also seems silly that if it was unable to connect you could not print out a receipt or otherwise use the program. That would incapacitate the local program every time a phone line is out or high speed connection is down, which is supposed to be the advantage of having a local system like Innreserve.
It is possible that with webervations being down or moved that Innreserve is incapacitated, but it just seems like a real flaw in the system AND unlikely, since it is completely possible to use Innreserve without ever having to use webervations. They are two completely separate things that have the ability to talk to each other, but are not required to talk to each other.
(This part is for our readers who aren't familiar with InnReserve) InnReserve is a Guest Managment application for Microsoft Access that is created by a company that is not affiliated with the old Webervations company (American Dreams) or bedandbreakfast.com. It is supposed to be a stand alone program for managing guest records, but it has the ability to import information from Webervations and export to Webervations. So the two separate systems can be used together ... usually ;)
.
I just spoke to Jeff of InnReserve (talk about service again! I emailed and he called me back within an hour of the email. On Sunday night. Unbelieveable!)
He seems to think that it is not connected to the move and had me winzip my file to him to look at it.
Riki
.
egoodell said:
I just spoke to Jeff of InnReserve (talk about service again! I emailed and he called me back within an hour of the email. On Sunday night. Unbelieveable!)
He seems to think that it is not connected to the move and had me winzip my file to him to look at it.
That's great Riki. Please keep us posted on what you find out. ;)
.
I was not able to get it to him right away last night so it could be some time before I find out as he will be out of town for a couple of days. I told him there was no rush as I'm small enough to operate without it for now.
Riki
.
Jeff just emailed my InnReserve repaired back to me even though he was on his way out of town yesterday. I'm so impressed with his service! You can bet I'll make a couple of backups tonight!
Riki
 
Yes, we were alerted to it and had it fixed roughly three hours ago. Here is what I received from my CTO:
__________
This Sunday was a rough day for our database L First, we discovered a configuration mistake that cased one of the disk arrays to fill up. This happened around 4am and we fixed it by 5:40am. Hopefully, there were not a lot of users on the system at this time. But then we had another issue at 6:30pm, and it took us almost 90 minutes to fix. We’re going to investigate the logs and find out what caused it. Also, I am not proud of our time to fix with both of these issues, so we’re going to reconfigure our monitoring process and escalation policy to provide a much better response time if and when we experience another system wide issue in the future…
Thanks,
Denis

________
JB.
John, thank you for the follow up.
Question for you: Is it possible to revise the error message listed to remind a potential guest to go back to the pevious screen and call the innkeeper to check availability or book, as well as having the current contact info for the innkeeper?
.
Definitely a good idea - let me take a look, I'm not sure if it is or not.
.
John,
I have had 2 Reservations go directly to Webervations and I never got an email for them, Wa that a Glitch ? How do I address the people a week later?
Will this be Fixed on Webervations?
Thanks, Josh
.
Hi Josh,
When were these reservations taken? There were some known DNS issues for a couple days during the switch - and during that time we were hearing email issues sporadically, but I believe that has been solved now for over a week.
If these just happened, that is another issue...
 
Yes, we were alerted to it and had it fixed roughly three hours ago. Here is what I received from my CTO:
__________
This Sunday was a rough day for our database L First, we discovered a configuration mistake that cased one of the disk arrays to fill up. This happened around 4am and we fixed it by 5:40am. Hopefully, there were not a lot of users on the system at this time. But then we had another issue at 6:30pm, and it took us almost 90 minutes to fix. We’re going to investigate the logs and find out what caused it. Also, I am not proud of our time to fix with both of these issues, so we’re going to reconfigure our monitoring process and escalation policy to provide a much better response time if and when we experience another system wide issue in the future…
Thanks,
Denis

________
JB.
John, thank you for the follow up.
Question for you: Is it possible to revise the error message listed to remind a potential guest to go back to the pevious screen and call the innkeeper to check availability or book, as well as having the current contact info for the innkeeper?
.
Copperhead said:
John, thank you for the follow up.
Question for you: Is it possible to revise the error message listed to remind a potential guest to go back to the pevious screen and call the innkeeper to check availability or book, as well as having the current contact info for the innkeeper?
Looks like we should be able to do that - it is on the priority list - great idea and thanks for sharing it!
 
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