Hi, Im fairly new to the airbnb hosting thing. I have had a guest ask to extend their stay part-way though. Should I except cash or am I best to ask them to book through the airbnb website? Is it even possible to extend a stay through airbnb? look forward to your thoughts! allie
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rebook through air as you won’t be insured through air otherwise
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How long have they already stayed? And is this a shared space? - basically do you already see they are taking good care of the place?
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How do they extend the booking through airbnb?
Yeah it is a shared space and they have been delightful guests. They just want to stay 1 extra night which is fine with me.
Hi Alliefyfe
Ive had this before to, and I always tell them to go through Airbnb. It’s just the exact same process when they booked with you before:)
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ps: It’ll just be like a new booking
Actually, if they’re still within their original booking period, ask them to go into their profile, click “your trips”, then within the box that says current trip, and your property name, there will be a button saying “change/cancel reservation”. They can click that, amend their dates (add more time on the end) and it will revise the price.
They click ok, then you will get a reservation change request, which you can check the additional money you’ll get, and click accept if you agree.
HTH!
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Since they have been delightful and just want an extra night then I would just collect cash and provide them a handwritten receipt. There is no need for them to go through Air and get charged extra booking fees. They have already fulfilled their reservation through Air. So I would consider this a separate reservation for one night.
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As host you can extend it too, and I always keep it on air myself. Go to reservations page and click change/cancel and adjust for the new dates. If you charge cleaning fee then they don’t have to pay cleaning fee again, it’s already paid.
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If they are good guests I don’t see why you would not just rent directly to them .
They are not obligated to use Airbnb again after they booked through them and then desided to prolong their stay. When I book through booking.com and then deside to stay I always ask hotel first if they will give me the same rate or even lower since they don’t have to pay 15% fee, if I want to stay longer. Surprisingly some hotels even give me higher price despite the fact that they don’t have to pay fees if I reserve directly from them.
But in any case, I don’t feel obligated to book through booking.com of I want to prolong my stay.
I would choose not to continue the booking through AirBnB.
I did this twice and never recieved the payment from AirBnB for the extension.
It seems they don’t actually wait to recieve payment from the credit card before accepting the extension so if there is a problem with payment (as there was in my case) you won’t receive your money.
There appears to be no guarantee from AirBnB that you will get paid for an extension.
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I always do outside air bnb. Never had a problem
I always send them a change of booking request. That way, they don’t pay the cleaning fee over. I don’t like doing cash because of my accounting, particularly for taxes.
Well I don’t charge guests another cleaning fee if they extend their reservation. But it sounds like you solely only book with Airbnb since you mention accepting cash would mess up your taxes…and my guess is Air submits them for you?
Air also collects in my state, but I list on other sites and also book direct through my own website. If anything, Air makes my accounting complicated because I am now forced to back out what they have submitted, and then report the difference to the county and the state monthly.
The state wants to see total sales plus the amount that is exempt. My county only wants to see the total sales that reflect the taxes I owe.
I just don’t like charging guests Airbnb fees when it’s not necessary. But I do understand others not wanting to exchange cash outside the system.
I understand your feeling. No, Airbnb doesn’t submit my taxes for me. But I use their reports to help me make my own reports for accounting purposes. I have several different income streams. If I had to account for cash payments alongside the ones I get from Airbnb, that’s a few more steps I don’t feel like taking.
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I think it also depends on the goal of the host, and the amount the guest will save for extending their stay.
I go out of my way to make sure guests understand they can save money by booking with me directly. But they are saving a lot of money. It would not be worth my time if guests were only saving a few dollars. My Thanksgiving guests spent $171 just to book for the week and they were only going to be staying 5 nights out of the 7 booked. I wanted to scream to just find me directly, but oh well…
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But if you book guests outside of Airbnb you have no insurance covering you and if Airbnb find out they could kick you off website I think. I don’t think it’s worth it.
Not after the initial booking. After that, it’s not Airbnb’s business any more. I’ve had several repeat guests that initially booked through Air but subsequently paid direct. What on earth is the point of giving Air fees when we don’t need to? There is no Airbnb insurance anyway.
And before anyone says crossly “Why are you resurrecting such an old thread?” and closes it… We are all asked to search the forum for relevant threads before creating a new one so it’s understandable that old threads turn up. Not everyone notices the date anyway, and the topic is still relevant, no?
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O please think twice before relying on Airbnb insurance. If we can’t even get our damage deposit kept with obvious damages . Best policy is rely solely on yourself
I just had a group staying for 2 months who were rehab people. They were on their last stage of rehab and I was reassured by a very presentable real estate company that everything will be in excellent condition even better then before as the group monitored 24/7.
They gave me 5K damage deposit because of the nature of this booking. When they started taking all my things out and replacing with their own I was worried and asked to put everything in its original state.
The result was that they just dumped everything in the living room and we spent 2 days redecorating the house and trying to figure out which sheet belongs to what bed.
Also one painting was damaged in 3 places.
They did lots of other things that caused in kitchen plumbing damage and pool filter needed to be replaced.
Overall there were window screens damaged and internet wires were all rearranged so next family didn’t have internet over Christmas and New Year.
I kept 3800$ out of their deposit not even counting our time .
With a Airbnb I would never see even half of it. I already had few instances when out of 350$ claimed I got only 80$ back. Though I provided all receipts.
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