So you are advocating for guests being able to cancel with full refund on the basis that they failed to read the listing information and booking form?
What terrible idea to promote.
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Exactly. It’s good business, I’m located in a market with strong demand year around.
If guest walks in the door and says they hate the paintings on the wall, they want to stay somewhere else–I’m the painter–I would let them cancel for a full refund.
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Yes this is listed in the ‘extenuating circumstances’ list - “poor reading skills”. Right there next to ‘natural disasters’…
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I think however in this case not seeing the total amount you are paying (you need to accept that and charge your credit card) is NOT really a lot of work - since the total amount is right there in front of you.
Candidly, it sounds very classist - they decided that the broken out cleaning fee offends them?
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I don’t want to cancel at all, neither do any of my friends. I am fine with it now, I thought the price was high but if the majority of hosts think it is fair, then coolio! I could cancel anytime I wish, the booking is for July.
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So because you personally have no problem filling cancelled dates, it’s okay to give guests the idea that cancelling and getting a full refund because they were too lazy to read the provided info that was right there in front of their eyes is perfectly okay.
Your sense of community with other hosts is just charming.
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On reflection, even if I had trouble filling canceled dates, I would still offer a full refund to any guest who walked to the door and found the space unacceptable. Or, if they messaged me in advance to say they misunderstood how much this stay was going to cost them and so wanted to back out.
Yes I can afford to do this. I also believe to my bones this is good business, good karma, and will lead to success in the long run. I’ve owned 4 different businesses in my life (I’m 65) and being kind to customers has never steered me wrong in all those decades.
Um, what host community? I don’t even know your name, or your gender identity, or the names of anybody on this forum. A year ago I met a few local STR hosts at a party (Air and Vrbo) but I’m not in touch with them or they with me.
My approach to cancellation has no impact on other hosts.
Guests can chose a filter to find properties with the most flexible cancellation policies. IF yours is not that, then those guests will never see your property, therefore there is no problem for you.
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Actually, it does impact other hosts. When you refund for anything, it trains guests to think that we’ll all refund for any reason.
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All hosts approaches to cancellations, refunds, issues, and everything else about the way they deal with guests has impact on other hosts.
“What do you mean, you won’t give me a full refund- my other hosts did. You’re a greedy jerk.”
“You gave me a bad review because I left a stack of dirty dishes and left dirty diapers in the kitchen garbage? My other hosts never did that, you should be delisted.”
And if you don’t feel any sense of community with other hosts, why are you even on this forum?
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I don’t agree with your premise, or the idea that those of us with flexible cancellation limit what other hosts can do.
I’m here because I have learned a whole lot, and I have also helped others by sharing what I know. Because of what I’ve learned here, I video before every guest check in—the single most important thing I’ve learned—and I use Instant Book with all the options toggled on. Among many other things
We can quibble about definitions but no way do I consider a chat board like this a community.
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I didn’t say that hosts with flexible cancellation limit what other hosts can do. I said that the way hosts do business sets up guest expectations that do affect other hosts. We weren’t discussing the various pros and cons of the different cancellation policies, but a host refunding a guest in contravention to the terms of the policy the guest agreed to by booking. Doing that gives guests the idea they should always get a full refund if they want to cancel. That isn’t to say that a host might not feel in some rare circumstances that refunding is the right thing to do, but doing it as a matter of course creates faulty guest expectations.
So you learn things from other hosts that have helped you, who take the time, for free, to share their knowledge and experience, but don’t consider that to be a sense of community. Rather strange attitude.
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You obviously DO need a lecture, because you re posting here asking opinions after the fact. Host is correct…House must be cleaned exactly the same and at the same overhead cost no matter if guests stay one day, 2 days, or a full week. It is on YOU that you chose a home for 2 nights…5 to 7 night stays are more economical for a guest. Don’t even think of reviewing THEM down for what was clear and YOU overlooked. Stop Complaining and GROW UP. Read BEFORE you book, and make sure you are comfortable with the choice you make before booking, and not after booking. I personally think eliminating cleaning fees and incorporating it into nightly rates is absurd for full homes and this trend being shoved down owner throats is disdainful. Cleaning fees have been standard in the Vacation Rental Industry for full homes since before AirBnb came along to ruin and control a happy cottage industry.
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I incorporate cleaning fees into the nightly fee but I wish airbnb would increase the pet fee for number of nights booked.
There is now an option to search with fees included. Airbnb can’t save guests or hosts from their unwillingness to read everything.
If they would make it easier to find the right place with better filters maybe we guests could spend more time reading.
I keep thinking Air will level the playing field by eliminating cleaning fees and request to book.
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You paid a total of $1,750, which you agreed was fair or you wouldn’t have booked. Why does it matter that $300 of that is in the cleaning fee?
Then why’d you ask the question? Did you just want everyone to say “OMG yes, what a crazy fee, you’re completely right!” – or did you want honest feedback?
IMO this is just being dishonest. I could bury all sorts of fees in my nightly rate, but why wouldn’t a guest prefer to know what they’re paying for? Or perhaps most guests don’t care.
But how would we bury a cleaning fee in our nightly rates, anyway? E.g. the cleaning-fee-amount-per-night depends on the length of the stay. Airbnb would have to allow us to enter the cleaning fee separately, and also be able to mark it as “absorb into nightly rate”. Then the nightly rate would change based on the number of nights booked, as the cleaning fee would be spread out across all the nights.
Not sure if this is how it is/does work or will work in the future. Just noting that it’s not as easy as “hey, just include it in your nightly rate”.
Exactly. We need to stop propping up laziness and allowing it to be an excuse. Before I book an Airbnb I read the entire listing. This really is not difficult to do.
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Why? As a guest, I do not want the cleaning fee to increase with the number of nights that I book.
I want the cleaning fee to be fair. I want it to reflect the cost of cleaning. I do not want to be ripped off. It is not fair to charge an increased cleaning fee for an increased length of stay. It is a rip-off.
As a host, I know for sure that it doesn’t cost more to clean for a 6-day stay than it does for a 3-day stay.
As a guest, it is glaringly obvious to me that I will pay more for a listing that doesn’t have a cleaning fee than I will for a comparable listing that does have a cleaning fee.
I know that the cleaning fee didn’t disappear, it wasn’t forgiven or deducted. I know that it is included in the nightly price. I know that I will be paying more for cleaning if I’m not charged a separate cleaning fee. To say that you don’t have a cleaning fee is dishonest. It’s a scam.
I’m not the only one that’s figured it out. I’ve seen other discussions about it. You can fool some people but you won’t fool them all. Personally, I want the guests that aren’t so easily fooled, not the dumbstubbornbadatmath ones that are 
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I can see that. That’s true. It is especially valuable when you admit to not knowing basic Airbnb policies, like the Privacy Policy that prohibits sneaking into the unit when it’s rented to a guest. There’s probably someone else reading the forum that also needs to be schooled on that but was afraid to ask.
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That is probably quite true for the vast majority of listings, but isn’t always true. I have never had a cleaning fee because I do my own cleaning, have a private room listing for one, so there is only so much mess they can create. I have a 3 day minimum and most of my guests stay far longer than that. So I figured the hour and a half- 2hrs it takes me to clean and prepare for a guest is not a big deal and just part of my job as a host.
In other words, I would not lower my nightly rate, which is already budget-minded, if I decided to also charge a cleaning fee.
Then why would you “decide to charge a cleaning fee”?
I don’t imagine I would as long as my booking settings remain as they are. If, for instance, I decided to accept 1 night bookings, or drop my advance notice, or remove the one day prep time block, then I might add a cleaning fee, as it would mean I might have to drop whatever else I was doing, some of which is lucrative work, to rush to clean and prepare the space, possibly only for a one nighter, which would be a big inconvenience and stressor I would want to be compensated for.
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