In the past I’ve never had a problem sending an additional payment request for a pet fee but the last two times I’ve tried it comes up with an error message that reads “validation failed. This reservation is not fully paid”
These guests booked last Friday, 4 days ago. Any ideas?
What did Airbnb say? Were you fobbed off?
I apologise. I’m brand new to the group. I’ve been with Air for 9 years and my experience has been that it’s often hard to get clear answers from them. I was hoping someone here had some insight.
I’m sorry I didn’t understand the rules of the page. Please feel free to delete the question. Once again, sorry for the confusion.
It is likely that the guest is only paying half of the reservation until it gets closer. In which case then maybe you can’t request additional fees?
That was my first thought but their stay begins May 16th so that shouldn’t be the case?
I also accept pets and have also had a problem with my pet fees lately. Twice recently I’ve gotten the notice that they accepted the fee and then a notice that it failed to go through:
This was a same day booking so it could not be that they only paid half. Another guest had issues and agreed that they would just pay outside of Airbnb and sent the money via Venmo. I expect Airbnb to do two things for me: bring me guests and collect the money. I don’t ask much else of them and when they can’t deliver on the simplest of tasks I’m going to look to do it myself. So as of yesterday I changed the text in my listing and I’m now going to try collecting pet fees outside of Airbnb and see if that is less PITA than Airbnb.
When An’s payment (screenshot above) didn’t go through I escalated in the resolution center. After 24 hours I hadn’t heard anything from them. I called and got a “case manager” (LOL) who couldn’t do anything but she’s going to check with An, blah de blah, get back to me and so on. 2 hours later I got this message from yet a different “case manager.”
Shortly thereafter I got notice that my money was on the way, only about 30 hours later than usual, not too bad. OTOH, not acceptable. Not acceptable that it takes an escalation/message in resolution center, a phone call and a 30 hour wait for $15. And with several people a month coming through with pets, I’m not going to let this get any further out of hand. 3 incidents of trouble in a 6 week period is too much. So I’m going to try a different way. I love pets and I like hosting them and it’s a good way to make a little extra money. If Airbnb tells me to stop accepting payment for pets outside of Airbnb I will make another change.
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If the guest only partially paid you can’t add the additional fee until about a week before they are schedule to arrive which is what I found is the timing it takes for them to have to pay the second part of the reservation.
May 16th is very likely that they have only paid half. As I understand it they don’t have to pay in full until 2 weeks before, so May 2nd.
I offer guests an option to pay outside Airbnb. I indicate all methods I accept in my House Rules. They censor Venmo so I think I changed it to Vemno or Vennmo, depending on the listing. I also accept Zelle, CashApp, ApplePay and cash. None of those were censored.
“Payment can be made via Zelle, Vennmo, CashApp, ApplePay or Airbnb prior to check-in or cash at check-in.”
I generally don’t ask for pet fee payment until the day of check-in as it is in the House Rules and I try to give them a chance to offer the payment without me having to ask. When they do, I know I probably have a really good guest. When they don’t…well, it seems to be par for the course. A majority of my bookings are same day though so that is also not a huge indicator.