This forum is dedicated to connecting hosts with other hosts. Sign up to get the latest updates and news just for AirBnb hosts! Note that we are not affiliated with Airbnb - we are just passionate hosts!
This guy is crazy! We run back-to-back bookings so we have strict check-in and check-out times. We need the 3 hours in between to wash all the sheets and towels, clean the bathroom and get their room ready. So, he writes to me yesterday and says the following:
“I do note that your check in and out times are firm. May I enquire how firm are your times? Reason I am asking is that my convention finishes after breakfast on 30 March (probably 9am-ish) and my flight on 6 April departs at 10pm. Would be nice if I could perhaps do some laundry on the first day and perhaps a quick shower before I head to JFK. If not, would someone be around for me to leave luggage there on the first day and pick it up later on the last day?”
So he wants to come in before check-out time on his arrival day and do some laundry and take a shower! In the meantime other guests will be here. Suppose they want to use the bathroom (during the time they’ve paid to be here), while he’s taking a shower! Or suppose they want to do a quick load of laundry before they leave. Or suppose all the noise he’ll make doing his laundry wakes them up!
And I’m left wondering, what hotel in New York would allow him to use a room hours before check-in time to take a shower? And what hotel would allow him to do laundry - at all!? If not for Airbnb he’d be paying $400 a night (at least) in Manhattan. Thanks to Airbnb he’ll pay around $80 a night. So for a price 5 times less than what he would have paid - he demands much, much more than he would ever get from a high-priced hotel.
I wrote him and nicely explained why it wouldn’t be possible and he wrote back and said he’d look for another place. In the meantime, we received a booking overlapping the dates he wanted.
Thank goodness for me that most guest leave super early either for the airport or the keys so most of the time I can accomadate early check ins. Be glad he didn’t book your place I can see that he would be high maintenance and probably would be a red flag guest anyway.
So… He could not leave his luggage also? That was another option he was asking about.
I travel a lot, and often to Europe. It’s transatlantic flight and I can never sleep on a plane. In addition to jetleg, if I can’t check in right away it’s another 7-8 hours for me of not having any rest and lay down after I already spent 15 hours on a plane. Every time I book Airbnb I ALWAYS ask about early check in. I am ok with any answer but I need to know if I can arrive early in a morning. If a host says NO, then I book a hotel for that first night and I don’t care how much more expensive it is: there is a chance that they will put me in a room right away or … At least will store my luggage.
80% of the time in a large hotel there is a room available for me. Once they only had very noisy room for me at 8 am and i asked for quiet room. Because i just wanted to lay down, i asked if there is a chance for me to switch room at the regular check in time. While i was asking i mentioned that i know how crazy my request is.
What do you know, i got a smile, and “sure, madam”.
I get in a survival mode when i travel, when i am exsausted i dont care if they think i am a terrible demanding guest. All i want is to be catered to, and i am not afraid to ask.
Now, as a host, i dont get mad when guests ask me besides the fact that if ican accomodate them, i do.
Because i know how much it means to me when i am in a similar situation. What bewilders me though is when guests dont ask and just assume that they can arrive anytime.
You are in your rights to say no. But I’ve had early check-in lots of times at hotels. Recently my sister and I checked out of a hotel we hated and drove around looking for an alternate. The one we chose didn’t have a room available at 9am, no worry. However, as we were getting a coffee on our way out the clerk called us over, happy to tell us a room had just become available. What a wonderful hostess she was. It really changed the tone of our stay.
In Times Square the Howard Johnsons has a locked area crammed with luggage for people like us, who arrived on the train at 9 am. They helped us cheerfully.
Traveling is stressful and planning around flights and meetings is tricky. People might get crazy ideas that we can’t accommodate, but we just say ‘no’ and move on.
I let guests leave their luggage because I’m either in my apartment (in which case I have my eye on it) or I’m cleaning the rental (in which case my own apartment is locked and secure). I could actually let him do laundry too because I’m lucky - there is a separate laundry room here with coin-operated machines, Believe it or not, the laundry room also has a shower (and toilet) so he could have all his three requests from me
I told him he was welcome to leave his luggage here - because that in no way disrupts the experience for other guests. But, taking a shower and doing a laundry could be very disruptive. If we didn’t nearly always have back-to-back bookings I wouldn’t have minded at all. But both of our guestrooms will be occupied by guests the night before he arrives and since they’re paying for that time until 11:00 a.m. I always want them to have full access to the bathroom and laundry, should they need them. The last thing I’d ever want would be for a guest who was already here not being able to access the bathroom or laundry during the time they’ve paid for because someone else whose time hasn’t started yet had to come by early to take a shower and do a load of laundry. So that’s why I had to say no.
This is essentially a check in? What’s NOT a check in about this?? Your rules, your house! Just say no. Don’t feel guilty when guests push. I say no to most luggage-leaving requests. In some cases, I say they can leave it in the carport, and tell them it’s generally safe but I cannot be responsible… I do not offer any place inside as that will tie me up to being home to let them have access. Not really a fit to allow them to leave luggage inside.
Some are leaving on late flights and just end up booking another night to get full use out of the place.
We get this request ALL the time in Barcelona. If we don’t have back to back bookings, I’m fine with it, even thought technically I should charge them. Maybe I will add that to my listing…early check in /late check out if available will be an extra 50 Euro. We do store luggage, which I’m not keen on as it is always left haphazardly in my entry way and never in the neat and orderly manor that I am always assured it will be left.
o, absolutely. If there is another guest then of course you cant let anyone in.It just sounded like you were upset that he even asked the question. You are in control, there is no doubt about it.
I always say no. You have your times set for a good reason, so don’t be afraid to stick to them. And the reason guests ask such unreasonable and “inconsiderate” questions is that they’re only approaching it from their own perspective, they don’t think about how it will affect us
Usually I’ll have another guest either side and it just disrupts my planning for the cleaning etc. I’m inner city as well, and I’ve found that a “no” to early checkin, storing luggage and washing clothes is not usually a deal-breaker - I smile and give them the info on the nearby transit lockers and the laundromat nearby and note that it’s worked well for previous guests.
What I will do is, if for some reason there’s no following guest, I’ll tell them on the night before checkout to take a couple of extra hours checking out. That seems to be well-received.
I think the thing is - maybe it’s just me - is to learn to not get annoyed and frustrated when people ask such things. I had a guest I was expected in early evening contact me at ten and ask if they could come at 3. Yes, I was tempted to get frustrated - but then I stopped and thought about it - I was going to have to clean the room anyway, whether I did it at noon or later didn’t make any difference to me - so I said ‘yes’. At first it seemed like an imposition but with some thinking I realized it didn’t really cost me anything, it just rearranged my schedule. I’m a very black-and-white schedule-oriented cranky kind of person so this is a stretch for me.
Of course, if I couldn’t have done it, like in the OP post, then I would have been fine saying so. But I try with myself to be flexible and thoughtful and not react in a negative way when in reality, it’s not needed. It’s where I am as an individual so of course I’m going to ‘preach’ it, lol!
I don’t know if I’m making sense. To be clear, I’m not arguing with the OP decision - except to say that hotels certainly do provide these services when they can. And so should we - when we can. Because we are in a service industry.
Asking to come when there are other paying guests still there is just bad for business. You run the risk of upsetting both parties. Your rules were clear when he booked. It would be a bit different if you didn’t have guests in already. In that case it would be up to you to decide if it was convenient.
“Sorry, I have guests in the space at the time. Much in the same way you would not want another guest intruding on your stay, I will not allow you to do the same to them.”
When I started 2 years ago, I ‘played around’ with flexible hours, and every time I had back-to-back guests it turned out quickly into a royal disaster. After 2 months of that, ‘click’, check out at 11am and check-in at 1pm. End of hysterics.
Oh i see – then its no wonder why you said t me that we had no reason to complain about threats made - because airbab after all only charge % of booking fee.
@dave, you talking to me? If so, your post makes no sense. And again why do you continue to refer to AirBnB, as ‘airbab’, is this a mistype or intended as something else?
This is very nice that he cancelled his booking, because in my experience that type of guests are never satisfied enough, no matter what you do, you may be extremely polite, do almost everything, but if you cannot do an impossible thing they asked for, you are a bad host. Sad, but true.
