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I just purchased an advertisement listing in our community’s monthly events newspaper visiting tourists often use to book area hotels and motels last-minute while they are here. There are 20 nearby wine tasting rooms that cause visitors to decide it’s safer to spend the night locally than driving many miles home.
I will be the only private-home rental unit in this tourist information newspaper that lists my property name, telephone and website; but no street address. I want guests to call first for availability and not arrive unexpectedly at my house late-at-night asking for a bedroom.
My wife and I live full-time on our house’s upper-main floor, as we rent our two downstairs bedrooms through Airbnb, FlipKey, Booking.com and TripAdvisor websites.
My question is: Should these last-minute guests pay me in cash upon arrival, or have them register and pay through one of the four booking websites?
Rarely, do our guests stay for more than one night. And, not everyone has an Airbnb guest account; and requiring them to fill-out the Airbnb online profile and registration can be a bother for them – especially late at night.
Honestly if last min booking better to be paid cash, just make sure you have a facebook or any others page with price and you could provide a receipt after check-in/payment and for those, you prefer more formal option to offer to book through the others platform.
You did the hard work of marketing, which is part of the fees those sites are charging you. I’d have them do cash or CC on arrival rather than sending them to a middleman.
(Square readers are pretty inexpensive and the CC fee is 3%, which is hard to beat).
Personally I would hate to call a place that only has one or two rooms. The chance of both being occupied is too big. Also, do you advertise the price? If I have to call not knowing the price it would be even worse.
I would prefer to just open AirBnB (or another app) to look at availability and price. Is there a possibility to include the AirBnB-link in your advertisement?
My wife and I have a policy, we do not rent the second unused guest bedroom to those not with the booking party. This provides our guests complete downstairs privacy, including use of their full-bathroom and TV lounge. It also prevents strangers from arguing with each other in such close quarters.
She and I realize we might be losing rental revenue, but we are financial comfortable with my retirement pension and her part-time job. Our rental fees pay our annual $6,600 home property taxes.
My personal website (in this monthly newspaper advertisement) lists our seasonal per-bedroom nightly rate and has weblinks to my four online booking platforms to show availabilty. My website, city and home telephone (but no street address) are only listed in this area tourist newspaper.
@Don_Burns I agree with everyone who says just take the cash.
I have a question for you, if you don’t mind. How do you catgorise your listing on Airbnb? As an entire place? I’m thinking of converting my space to suit a group but there seems no options except ‘private room’ or ‘entire place’.
I wish Airbnb had more listing categories. I list mine as a “shared space,” as I have no other choice.
My wife and I live full-time upstairs in our large house, and rent our downstairs space: two bedrooms, TV lounge, full-bathroom and covered outdoor balcony.
We do not allow guests to use our upstairs private kitchen to cook their meals, which has been a “deal-breaker” for two bookings who canceled because of this.
We do provide guests with a small refrigerator/freezer, microwave oven, bar sink, plates, cups, glasses, utensils, packaged pastries, bottled water, and a 12-cup coffee maker (with coffee and tea supplies) in their private downstairs TV lounge.
I never rent outside of the Airbnb platform unless they sign a lease and I’ve done a credit check, criminal background check and reference check. My answer is that they should pay and use the Airbnb app. I don’t like doing last minute rentals because they tend to be disorganized and don’t read the listing description or rules. Those guests tend to be more demanding and can’t find the directions or check-in instructions. I also don’t give out packaged pastries or any beverages so we’re probably working on a completely different budget.
I think that asking people to book through one of your platforms presents them with the dilemma of additional fees on top of your quoted rates.
I get a few last minute folk via the pub next door. They can either pay me cash on arrival, via a BACS payment or cc through the pub’s landlady. No added fees.
I have already mentioned to you before that Houfy is a book direct site. All your guest would need to do is sign up and verify their email. I can view and click to accept your house rules, cancellation policy, and rental agreement. Then they can pay with credit card if you wish to offer that kind of payment. Square and Stripe are currently connected to Houfy. Got my first booking through there recently and worked like a charm. Payment was in my account as soon as Square deposited it.
All you have to do is advertise your houfy listing and guest punches in the date for one night stay into the rate quote tool and they see total breakdown of price. No traveler fees. No fees to list your property. No middleman holding your money. But I know you said you prefer to send guests from your website to go through the OTAs.
This is a help article I wrote comparing the differences between Square and Stripe. It’s not perfect and needs constant updating with the changes between the two companies, but it gives you a really good idea of which would work best for your type of business. Some of the text may mention Houfy but you don’t need to use Houfy to apply the principles. And at the very bottom of the article you can click on my listing and again see how easy it is for a guest to see your rates and they don’t need to call you.
Having said all that, I may only take cash if it is a same day booking. That depends though…if in your situation someone tries to hold your dates from morning time, and then never shows, could you have booked to someone else? Me, not likely. You, maybe. So you need to keep that in mind.
