Introduction

As we nudge up to the holiday long weekend, we wanted to kick off with this article - 'RV Travel Trends Shaping the Holiday Season and Year Ahead' - which shares some intriguing & exciting recent survey findings on just how many people are thinking of road travel in 2022 and doing so in an RV! Check out highlights from the survey results below.

We're so fortunate to be part of this vibrant & thriving network of adventure seekers. Happy Thanksgiving from all of us over on the Wheelbase team. Looking forward to continued growth and prosperity for 2022 and beyond!

The Wheelbase support team will be here to assist should anything come up over the next 4 days, however please keep in mind it will be skeleton crew as we aim to give our team well earned time with their families this holiday weekend.

Product updates

Improved Driver Verification flow

We know that Driver Verifications can be a headache and we've made the first set of improvements that will streamline this process as a whole and reduce how often you need to reach out to Wheelbase Customer Support for assistance.

What has been improved now?

Renters booking online: renters will be prompted on the confirmation page to complete the secondary screening if they have failed the initial driver verification risk assessment.
Bookings finalized by you & your staff in the Wheelbase dashboard: the secondary screening will be automatically requested if the renter did not pass the initial risk assessment (no need to reach out!) & renters will receive email reminders automatically to complete the additional screening.

Benefits:

The system will automatically trigger the secondary driver screening when a renter fails the initial Driver Verification Risk Assessment.
Drastically reduce how often you need to go back and forth to the Wheelbase Customer Support to get additional screenings requested & drivers verified.
Once this additional screening is completed by the renter, our insurance Trust & Safety officers will be informed automatically and review the screening results same day.

Outdoorsy Keeping & Remitting Taxes on Outdoorsy.com reservations FOR US USERS ONLY Applies to users doing businessin the United States only (& US users should've received this email on Nov. 12th).

Outdoorsy.com is updating how they handle sales taxes for customers renting on Outdoorsy.com to align with recent legal requirements by states requiring online rental websites like Outdoorsy.com to charge, collect, & remit sales taxes to the state for bookings transacted on Outdoorsy.com.

Outdoorsy will begin charging their tax rates & withholding the money for bookings/quotes that are created starting November 26th (currently existing bookings are unaffected).

Updates to the Tax Report, Reservation Details Report & Transaction Log Report now reflect taxes remitted by Outdoorsy. Click here for more details, including 2 videos.

Auto Refund on Outdoorsy reservations

Outdoorsy bookings will now automatically refund when they are cancelled.

When a renter cancels the booking (from their Outdoorsy.com dashboard), the cancellation will automatically trigger the appropriate refund based on the Outdoorsy cancellation policy that the owner has selected. Click here for more details about Outdoorsy Cancellation Policy, and click here to select/confirm the one you have in place does in fact best suit your business (keeping in mind too that more flexible policies lead to higher renter conversion rates & more bookings).
When an owner cancels the booking from the Wheelbase dashboard, this denotes you (the owner) are unable to or no longer wish to facilitate the booking, and will thus trigger a 100% refund to the Renter.

Therefore, Wheelbase owners should only click the cancel reservation button for Outdoorsy bookings if they are no longer able to facilitate the rental, as this will trigger a 100% refund to the Renter. However, if this booking is being cancelled at the Outdoorsy renter's request, the Renter needs to cancel it from their Outdoorsy profile to trigger the appropriate refund in accordance with the cancellation policy in place on that booking.

Pro tips

Interior Damage Protection (trending up)

Did you know that the vehicle accident / collision insurance included in the renter Protection Packages does not cover interior damage? An emerging trend of top fleet managers is having the Interior Damage Protection toggled on and 'required' under Premium Services. Doing so gives you and the renter additional peace of mind, reduces security deposit claims, and increases 5-star reviews. Plus you receive $10 for each direct booking where this protection is in place. Win-win-win!

Roamly - The Golden Puzzle Piece

Speaking of pro trends...more & more pros are taking advantage of our Roamly insurance offering. If you're reading this and haven't been in touch with the Roamly team yet, click here and take the 60 seconds to reach out over the holidays for a quote. Roamly is the golden puzzle piece to ensuring your fleet is covered commercially; 24/7, 365 days a year. And the best thing is we are saving those who switch around 25% & 30% (on average). Only available for dealers in the United States at this time (sorry Canada)

Security Deposits - Some Key Points

We are continuing to receive a notable amount of inquiries and questions on security deposits, so thought this was a good time to go over a couple key points on the subject.

First & foremost, security deposits are in fact 'authorized & released' vs. 'charged & refunded' - ultimately this charge acts as a hold of funds on the renter credit card. You have the option to 'manage' the security deposit until 7 days after trip return date - if this time frame has elapsed and you have not managed or held the security deposit it will automatically release back to the credit card originally used for the authorization.

Lastly, when claiming a portion of the authorization, the remaining amount will automatically release back to the card (you can only claim funds one time).

Please refer to the following help centre articles; Are Security Deposits Authorization Holds on My Renter's Card, or is it Actually Charged? & What is the security deposit? How does it work? for more info!

Highlights from the latest travel trends report, read the full article here.

91% of survey respondents indicated that they are planning to take a road trip next year
83% of travelers added that they would be either somewhat likely or very likely to vacation via RV or camper van if there were COVID surges in 2022
80% of survey respondents cited cleanliness as the deciding factor when considering renting an RV
68% believe that their families will be more in need of a road trip vacation in 2022 compared to previous years
63% said that they had decided to drive instead of fly to their final destinations since the start of the pandemic

(There are some very interesting emerging trends around pricing & renter demographic as well. Definitely worth the 3 minute read).

Resources

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