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I feel the same way. If the guests are booked for a long time under different rules and you did not collect the $25/day payment in advance, then the loss is on you. That should be done immediately upon approving the reservation.
I agree with @KKC - at this point you should probably eat the cost.
And then there’s this.
I’d do what @muddy suggested and explain that you should have collected the $2,250 up front at the time of booking and that you’ve changed the costs to factor in the pool heating costs.
Cancel, fight the guest, or eat the cost. Either way…
Not really. You didn’t collect the money at the time of the booking a month ago. That would have solved this issue.
They are still there, even for my past reservations.
Like that. However, I just looked and because of all of the issues I had with my last stay, invasive guy with the pool in Nov, I remember his house rules. And I remember them being there prior to and during my reservation.
And the ones that show on the reservation, just now when I checked, are brand new. They aren’t the rules he had at the time of my stay. ( And now they’re a 2 paragraph rant so hard to miss lol.) They are what he has currently on his listing. But they are not the ones from my stay.
So this guest of yours, @DesertHost, is seeing your current house rules and not the ones that you had when she booked.
I’m sorry this is happening to you but I am glad that it’s come up because that’s not how it used to be. In fact, it must be some kind of glitch, because it doesn’t make any sense.
That wouldn’t be practical. I can’t see why a guest would ever send a host $2250 at the time of booking. I wouldn’t and I’ve paid extra fees for pools and other amenities. It’s not like a $50 pet fee. Even through the resolution center it would be unprotected with no way for a guest to be guaranteed to get that fee back if they had to cancel. It’s convention/traditional to pay a fee like that shortly before check-in or at check-in.
There are a lot of things Airbnb does that don’t make any sense, though, right? How does suspending hosts’ listings for days or weeks pending an “investigation” if a guest lodges a complaint about cameras, make sense, when Airbnb could spend 3 minutes looking at the host’s listing to see that the cameras are fully disclosed? Instead they spend way longer fielding messages and calls from angry, frustrated hosts, as well as upsetting guests whose bookings they cancelled due to a non-existent “safety issue”.
Unless you screenshot and saved something like previous versions of the extenuating circumstances policy, for instance, good luck ever finding it anywhere. Airbnb manages to scrub all history from Google searches, etc., I’ve noticed.
I hope it’s a glitch instead of a change in how they plan to continue. It would be very bad for guests since host could impose new restrictions or fees after the guest booked.
You “prove it” by having every guest and every booking sign an agreement that is explicit on your terms, conditions, clauses, and rules.
It keeps everyone on the same page, produces a paper trail, and ensures a “meeting of the minds”.
I always suggest that owners stop blindly trusting AirBnb to take care of our business, our property, and our bookings. They have been very successful in getting both guests and hosts to drink the Kool-aid.
Absolutely. @DesertHost, do you not have your long term guests sign a contract with you? If you do, maybe the pool heat fee is in the contract? But you should definitely have a contract for long term guests because those are tenants. And, for you, those are CA tenants. CYA.
It’s an exorbitant amount of money for you to lose. If it was a few days, I’d say you could eat it but not that amount. I’d be stern with the guest and I’d probably cancel her if she continued to refuse the fee.
They dont own my home and nobody will protect me like I will protect me. You are only reinforcing my belief that they have been successful in convincing guests and hosts that they provide a service. Believe it or not, I had a succcessful STR business prior to the existance of AirBnb.
They claim they pay for damages too.
They claim they prevent parties.
They claim that their methods assure the system is “safe”.
I don’t believe any of the above is true.
Even Airbnb admits that hosts need a contract of their own so that they can legally enforce certain rules protecting themselves and their property.
This is more important in some places than others and for some listings than others. Personally, I don’t bother for a STR because my local laws have me covered for my specific listings/need and I don’t do LTR on Airbnb but it would be more than foolish for anyone to do a long term stay without having the guest sign a contract/lease.
I agree, but the house rules issue that this thread is about doesn’t apply to only long-term stays.
I’m not really following. Are you saying that Airbnb doesn’t provide any services to you? If not, then why use them at all? I get it that some stuff is just for show, but not everything. Where do you draw your line?
It doesn’t matter. A lot of hosts have guests sign contracts for short term stays. I’m just saying I don’t but I can see why some do. Airbnb provides “services” but there’s not anything they can do when it comes to local laws and such, they don’t even try. In fact, if a guest throws a party, Airbnb tells you to call the police. In some jurisdictions, that contract will be proof that the guests are transient and/or trespassing as opposed to tenants, all of which have to be dealt with differently by the police.
They are an online middle source that sends guests to my empty dates at the last minute, if VRBO doesnt fill them. I prefer the owner control that VRBO allows. I collect damage deposits and require agreements.
Luckily I don’t have the kind of listing that I need to screenshot changes but it looks like that’s what one must do if they want to fully protect themselves and have no other options. As others have pointed out, it’s not 100% Airbnb’s fault. The OP should have collected at the time of booking and given it’s a 3 month booking, there should be a lease agreement. Hopefully the propane issue is the least of the problems with this guest.
This seems like good advice as this may be a large scale scam in the making.
Well then there should have been a comment from the host to the guest stating the additional fees in the message thread. At some point in time, the host didn’t communicate their expectations of the additional fees in the message thread.
If I ever collected additional fees, especially to the tune of $2,250, I’d make darn sure that I spelled it out in the message thread and received an “OK, great, how do I pay you before check in?” from the guest.
Seriously.
Exactly. ABB is a booking platform, nothing more. That means they give you space for a listing, a way to communicate with guests, and in turn both parties pay a fee for those services. Beyond that, it’s up to hosts to manage their businesses and guests to educate themselves about the platform they’re using.
After all, said guest wouldn’t stay in a Holiday Inn that had 3 stars, so they’d research alternatives. Why they think ABB is different is beyond me.
My business partner manages a multi-unit converted home for the homeowner. They had a deadbeat tenant who was abusive to the owner, my biz partner, and other tenants and said tenant decided to not pay rent during Covid and take everyone to court and generally be a PITA. It took TWO YEARS to get him to leave. Two years. And they had a lease.
Seriously, you should have a written long term lease if you’re doing 3 months via AirBnB. And ABB isn’t set up for LTR.
Heat the pool, to 60 degrees.
or use one of those floating covers, solar heat.
Ah hell, this guest sounds like an extra special problem, @DesertHost, just heat it with one of those tea water things, an immersion heater. Just one of them. If she can’t remember that she owes you a pool heating fee of $2250, how could she possibly remember how “heated” the pool is supposed to be?
This one is a 12v so that you can just tell her to attach it to her car plug and heat away to her hearts delight
I would NEVER rent for such a long period with Air. I would always do a lease with a definite end date. Collecting for things like a pool heater are the exact reason.
It’s better to do a month-to-month so that you can raise those fees if you need to And then you also don’t get stuck with anyone that you’d rather be rid of for more than 30 days.
And then you also don’t get stuck with anyone that you’d rather be rid of for more than 30 days.
