OwnerRez adds Google Hotels as an official channel, in public beta

OwnerRez's 30 September release adds Google Hotels as an official listing channel. It is marked public beta.

That is the headline item, and the qualifier matters. Public beta means the connection is open to customers but not finished, and OwnerRez does not state eligibility, setup requirements or which plans include it. Google's accommodation surfaces have shifted repeatedly over the years, between free booking links and paid placement, and the release says nothing about which of those a connected OwnerRez listing appears in or what, if anything, it costs. Treat it as worth testing on a few properties, not as a channel to plan a season around.

Also in the release

Claude and ChatGPT connections, marked coming soon. OwnerRez is building connections that let those assistants talk to the platform directly. Nothing has shipped, so there is nothing to switch on yet, but the direction is notable. Hospitable shipped its own assistant connection in late September, to the point where a plain English request can lock and unlock a door. Two short-term rental platforms wiring general purpose AI assistants into live operations inside a month is a pattern rather than a coincidence.

Guest language preferences. You can now record a guest's preferred language for Airbnb, Vrbo, Marriott and Booking.com messaging, with translations on Airbnb. Useful on international portfolios, where the alternative has been guessing from the booking.

PM Automated Expenses. Property managers can create expenses immediately, on a schedule, or recurring. Dull and welcome. Recurring owner-billable costs are a common source of month-end rework.

Rezzy AI model upgrade. OwnerRez's assistant moves to an improved model for booking and guest sentiment analysis. No detail on which model or what changed in output.

Vrbo reconnection. Disconnected Vrbo properties can be reconnected to an existing Vrbo channel integration instead of being rebuilt.

The change that needs checking

Airbnb's Super Strict cancellation policies are now grandfather-only in OwnerRez's dropdowns, and channel rule default cancellation policies have been updated alongside that.

Grandfather-only means existing properties keep the policy, and you cannot select it for anything new. If you run Super Strict anywhere, check your channel rule defaults after this release rather than assuming your configuration survived unchanged. A silently altered default cancellation policy is the kind of thing nobody notices until a guest cancels.

This follows the child safety field OwnerRez added on 23 September ahead of Airbnb retiring its own toggles on 1 October. Two Airbnb policy-driven changes in a week, both landing as quiet entries in a changelog.

Smaller items

Direct property links now appear on the Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy integration page. Nightly rate change history is easier to read. Bug fixes cover pet policies sent to Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy, which were going out wrong, and slow loading of Airbnb and Vrbo channel integrations for Team Access staff accounts with many listings.

What to take from it

The Google Hotels beta is the item with real upside and the least information attached to it. Ask OwnerRez which Google surface the listing lands in, whether there is a commission or bid involved, and what happens to the connection when the beta ends.

Everything else in this release is maintenance on channel plumbing. That is not a complaint. Channel plumbing is where most of the operational pain in this category actually lives.