LATE DEPARTURE help please

Before Covid I had a notice that also said what the late checkout fee was and what time it was till.

Yes there is a solution, do not allow it. KNock on the door tell them it is time to go.

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This happened to us a couple of times. I texted them and told them that the cleaning was waiting outside. 30 mins later they still were not leaving, that’s when we knocked on the door carrying the cleaning supplies.

After the second incident, we decided to block two days in between. We now do 5 day min and block two days. It was causing us too much anxiety.

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I usually have a prep before and after each stay which is really good for me. I don’t like being stressed out about getting it done.

That being said, for the first time at this rental I let someone book the same day someone was leaving. Fortunately they left 2 hours ahead so know I can do this, but will not make it a habit.

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Not in this case RiverRock - he had gone off to work !!

Thank you for that - constructive.

One other thing i have become aware of is that as a third party booking i should have refused it, as AIRBNB does not allow them other than very specific cases.
I have had quite a number of these before so AIRBNB seems unaware/does not care that it is going on. It is only a issue for the host when their is a problem.

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That’s true. Except that you said it was an employer booking for an employee, that is the “very specific case” in which it is allowed. They likely had a “ForWork” account which is specifically for 3rd party bookings. If they didn’t have a ForWork account, it would be helpful to you and to the rest of the community if you informed them of the option and sent them this link so that they could get set-up properly (assuming they weren’t but that seems unlikely):

It is more likely that you are getting ForWork bookings which are specifically condoned by Airbnb. But, as I said, you can also help educate employers who have not signed up for the program.

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If a booker has a For Work account, do you know if that is visible to hosts? Is there wording like that on their profile? Or is it a matter of having to contact Airbnb to find out and hoping the CS rep is telling you the truth?

@muddy I’ve read a ton of material on this and looked back at my own “corporate” bookings. I noticed one profile (definitely a personal profile but person was booking for a group from her company) has verifications that include “work email”, which is required for an Airbnb Works account or for an employee to link to their company’s Works program. I’d never paid attention to that before but I will now & ask if they are part of a company Works program. Do post if you find out anything else out.

I couldn’t remember but I looked back at one. It has been almost 2 years because of Covid, so I am not sure how it looks currently (we know how much everything changes all of the time). So, yes, there is a note about the person booking. You have to scroll all the way down under the guest information, below their reviews, how many guests, the dates booked, etc and then you see this:

forwork

When it is a proper For Work account, the booker “Kierra” here, contacted me first. The Inquiry came from Kierra’s profile. She told me who she was and that she was (in this case, not exactly employees) booking a stay for some folks on behalf of their home insurance company (if the roof falls in, good insurance finds you another place to stay while it’s fixed). She asked me if it would work for me, they had dogs and she went through my dog approval questions like a professional, also assured me that they would cover any damage from the dogs (and Airbnb doesn’t) and I said great, sure.

After that, the message stream and the booking all turned into the guest’s profile and then he and I communicated from there on out. When I wrote the review, it went on the guest’s profile. I only dealt with the booker initially, but not again. You can see that this eliminates the issue of communication with a 3rd party booking as you are directly communicating with the actual guest once it’s booked. (so I guess that OPs guest was not properly booked under ForWork).

A proper For Work account is, to me, the very best booking that you can get. There is more security from a good company than there is from Airbnb.

It behooves us as hosts to educate guests in general, but especially in the case of For Work. If an employer wants to book for their employee and doesn’t have a For Work account, you can send them the link and it’s easy for them to sign up.

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They checked out 3 hours and 20 minutes late??? Please review them with 1* across the board and “would not host again.” I don’t want them.

this

Especially since, like my listing, it’s a shared home listing. YOur home, your rules.

Yes, you have to do YOUR job, which is to remind people that check out time is XXXX. Your basic hotel will send you a message and slide the bill under the door the night before you’re leaving and someone at the front desk will ask if you need anything before you leave.

YOU need to do this, too. We all do it.

Air is a booking platform with some arbitrary rules on their end. The rest of it is up to HOSTS to manage.

Unpaid, volunteer work. And @jaquo has been in the biz and a moderator here for years and offers very blunt, real, and valuable advise for FREE.

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What you have put here is very useful so many thanks.
There is nothing to suggest the 3rd party was a legitimate AIRBNB business booker - apart from the reviews (2 in total which both mentioned the person staying was different to the booker) With hindsight i should have said no but it was a last minute booking - the man was in my house within an hour of the booking being made.
And yes i have learned not to accept last minute bookings - they seem to come back with a nasty bite !.

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Yes, now that I’ve looked back at one of my legitimate 3rd party bookings, I see that. A ForWork booking would not have shown a variety of names on reviews on the booker’s profile, you would only see reviews specific to the booker. Once it was booked, you would have been automoatically connected to the guest’s profile.

I know some people advise against them but then there are others who sort of specialize in last minute bookings, like @kkc. At times, I’ve taken a lot of last minute bookings (at other times I’ve just been lazy or already booked) and have had just as good experiences as any other booking. And, for me in my market, I make a lot more money for a last minute booking. If a date is not booked I continue to raise the price at it gets nearer. It is often from a last minute cancelation that I end up doing a last minute booking.

You had trouble with this guest but him being booked at the last minute has nothing to do with the issues. I don’t see why a last minute booking would be any different from a booking made a month prior. And you never have to worry about a last minute booking canceling, lol.

I suspect that the rumor about last minute bookings has more to do with how hosts handle a last minute booking. There might be a tendency to take a guest that they wouldn’t have if they weren’t desperate to book the dates. And if a host’s listing is very specific with a narrow audience it might also be that they get a guest who is desperate to book something and might not be the ideal audience for their booking. My last minute bookings have been some of my most appreciative guests, because they were happy to find something so last minute.

One of the issues with last minute bookings I know some hosts have had, is that there isn’t enough time for Airbnb to really confirm the guest’s payment. So hosts have had last-minute bookings arrive, then gotten a message from Airbnb that the guest’s payment didn’t go through and that the booking is no longer supported.

It could be a stolen or maxed out credit card issue, or something innocent like the guest typing in the cc number wrong.

I would imagine this wouldn’t happen with guests who had a good history with Airbnb, but with new accounts.

I know that last-minute bookings are some hosts’ bread and butter, depending on their location, like if they’re close to an airport, or a highway, where people on a road trip might wait till last minute, because they don’t know exactly how far they’ll get when they decide they want to stop for the night.

We have had a few last minute bookings, but not via Airbnb.

TBH, if there’s doubt about payment then they’d have to pay by CC before I’d check them in. Happy to refund if Airbnb come through, but if there is the slightest doubt then sorry, take it up with Airbnb if you’re not happy.

Trust level with Airbnb regarding many facets of their processes is fairly low, so not prepared to expose ourselves to a potential loss.

Hard on guest? Yes, sadly.

JF

Nowhere in this screed have I read that the host even spoke to the guest. If he lived in the same house as the ‘let’ then surely there was some communication between them? I TALK to my guests, it solves so many problems. They are people, I am a person, we are not robots.

Yes there was. This was complicated by the fact that the guest had gone to work and said he couldn’t back until 2pm to gather his belongings and check out. It was also a 3rd party booking by the guest’s employer and both were contacted.

OP said, I also called the guest at 11 am and said it was time to go - he actually thought he was staying for 4 days. He was working and could not leave until 2 pm.

I meant communication when he first arrived?
Surely that is when the length of stay would be discussed?

Why? I’ve never discussed the length of stay with guests when they arrive. I assume they know how long they booked for and they always have.

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Absolutely. Good communication avoids many problems. A good lesson learned in this case.
.
We always communicate with our guests shortly after they book, and well before the check-in. For many reasons: validate size of booking party, confirm they read house rules and to show some hospitality (in case you have not visited our area before would you like recommendations on X, Y, Z).