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All of the dates have been booked or blocked so far on our calendar, but we have only been at this for 3 weeks and going forward no dates will be blocked and we will be full-on remote hosts (with an onsite house manager of course).
Just curious, do you get a lot of same day bookings? We have a keypad lock and its flexible check in (after 3pm but no limit on end time), and of course we allow instant book. So just wondering what to expect from other hosts who allow same day bookings.
We are in an apartment with walking distance to downtown, and we have another listing that is a condo at the base of a ski resort. Iām sure they will be different, would love to hear others experiences
I have a small room attached to my home but separate from me. I get about 2 same same day bookings a month on average and an average of 15 guests a month. I do mostly one or two night stays. But Iām right on a freeway with lots of people driving through and just booking here to rest as they see how their trip is going.
I have my settings at one dayās notice, but sometimes if I have the house ready to go and nobody booked I will go to the calendar and āforceā the day available for same day bookings. Almost every time I do this it gets booked.
It is amazing to me how people can just drive to a town with no reservations and not knowing where they will stay. When I travel I plan everything months ahead of time.
We get quite a few same-day bookings. When we allowed same-day bookings until midnight (11:59, I suppose), we got even more.
In the interests of keeping a ānormalā life schedule, we shut off bookings at 11 p.m. It does cut down a bit on the same-day ones, but itās okay. We stay nicely busy.
The latest same-day booking we ever got was at 11:58 p.m., for guests who asked to arrive at about 4 a.m. We allowed it.
I get that, but like I said we will be remote, and 3 hours earlier timezone too which is nice (we are going to be in CA, listings are in VT). And we have a house manager on site. Iām now thinking that we should get a back up house keeper in case something happens with our person, from the sounds of it same day bookings could be very attainable
Inspired by this discussion, we just set same-day bookings back to midnight. Our rooms are always ready, and my cell phone will wake me up if a reservation comes in.
Our same-day folks are always people who are driving through, desperate for somewhere to stop.
Theyāre easy and always out on time in the morning, even if they get here during the wee hours.
Itās going to depend on your property and your market. We donāt get ANY same-day bookings, and have never gotten anything with less than 3 weeksā notice. But we are a 3-bedroom, whole house, fly-to location.
Like Ken, I set my advance notice to prevent same-day bookings. Iāve set it to 2 days. I donāt want to get caught not being able to prep the place because Iām busy with something else.
We set our advance notice to 3-days but still accept Requests for less notice. For whatever reason we get a lot of people going to funerals and thatās usually just the day or two before and thatās why we take the Requests without notice but donāt want to be caught off-guard just in case we got lazy.
I think Iāve only had one Request for the same day and it was someone who got extended for a work assignment. Fortunately they didnāt need to check-in until that evening so we scurried and got it ready for them. We have 3 units in our house and a high occupancy rate so when we donāt have to do a same-day flip or multiple flips in one day, we tend to put it off and relish in the break.
Yes thatās kind of what Iām hoping to gather - who on this forum allows instant bookings, and what have you found to be the case for your particular listing type
How many same day bookings you will get depends on location and accommodation.
I wouldnāt have a flexible check in as a remote host or any type of host to be honest. What will you do if a guest turns up at 10.00 am when someone else hasnāt yet checked out from night before? @Kate_Barry
How are you going to vet same day guests to minimise risk of partying/prostitution etc?
I feel like Iām repeating myself a lot.
We have a house manager, once the guest checks out she turns over the room that day. So by our 3pm check in time itās ready to go if someone books the same day. This post isnāt to ask about the pros and cons of same day booking- we are doing them and we have plans to make them work.
This post is to ask those who allow same day bookings what their experience has been like, and if they found they had a lot of them or not
It hardly ever happens to us because weāre usually booked back-to-back. But itās almost guaranteed that if weāre not, and I mentally plan to do a lot of cleaning or maintenance that day, someone will book.
Itās only happened a handful of times but itās usually been fine. I think in every case itās been people who are in the area for business. Or, I remember one occasion, for a work interview. So if youāre in the same sort of location, youāll be likely to get same day bookings on the days that you have spare in between other guests.
How rude @Kate_Barry you said in your original post that you were offering FLEXIBLE check in - not a 3 pm check in - hence my comments regarding cleaning/check inās.
Perhaps you are āhaving to repeat yourselfā because you are not being clear/not using the correct terms i.e. using flexible when you mean a 3 P.M. check in .
Iām sorry you took it as rude, I am new at this, like I said, and I am sorry for not using the correct terminology. I will edit the original post for clarity
Probably should add the above to the first post in the thread, too.
BTW, some hosts do not accept same day bookings from local guests because they are more likely to be for parties and illegal activities like drugs and prostitution. I have no experience since I donāt even allow same-day bookings, but there are enough stories out there that you should be aware.
