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I started a separate thread for this as I noticed that Air’s description of the pet fee said the cost would be spread across the booking. I’ve been thinking about that and wanted to start a thread of whether or not to go that route, or to use the Resolution Center as a host would before.
The only issue I see is that if you charge a single fee, and it’s spread out, and they leave early/get a refund, the host will lose out of getting the whole fee. However, you’ll still have to clean after the pet as once they are in, the extra cleaning doesn’t go away.
Do most hosts charge a pet fee per night, or a single fee that you get regardless of how long people stay?
The host would joy be refunded the AirBnB Integrated pet fee for an early checkout. It is just like the cleaning fee in that regard.
I will NOT be using the pet fee option:
The guest will be charged taxes and AirBnB fees on that amount
The host will be charged their portion of it
I charge PER animal and PER night and charge a different rate for house broken and not. I also offer unadvertised partial refunds equal to the discounts I offer for long term bookings (I have them increasing weekly all the way up to discounts of 35%).
I want to be PAID the pet fee BEFORE giving the guest access to the house via smart lock.
I don’t want AirBnB to decide against me getting the fees for animals.
When guests travel with pets, your pet fee is included as part of your nightly price (spread out equally over the course of the stay) and in the total price at checkout.
Useless to me, what about two dogs? I charge 2 times as much PER NIGHT
Now I worry if we do not opt in to the fee the guests will be like, well it wasn’t included in the price, the last place included it…
They are trying to control how we run our listings and drag us in to the race to the bottom.
Honestly this will likely lead to hosts not accepting pets if they cannot control the pricing.
Thanks for the replies. My thoughts were headed that way as well as it seems the pet fee can vary a bit and getting it up front where it can’t be refunded seems the best course.
I don’t accept pets & no going to (nothing personal…just already too much work cleaning). But reading your guy’s perspective makes me wonder who they’re talking to. How do they not see what you all describe?
I guess y’all are right…want yet more control & their cut.
Are you guys all seeing new settings? I watched the little video and scrolled the info page and saw the stuff about the new pet fee as well as a way to change the cleaning fee based on length of stay. And I know they roll stuff out in phases but I don’t have any new settings or anything at all that reflects any of the changes. Just curious who is seeing new settings?
Leave it to Airbnb to finally add a pet fee option at time of booking, as many hosts have been asking for for years, but do it in such a way that ends up screwing the host if the guest shortens the stay. This company is just unbelievable.
I did not even look for the settings, I am not spreading out my fee over the stay., Absolute BS
I will continue to do it as I have been.
If I get even one issue, one complaint it will be the last time I allow pets
I don’t think you are understanding. They say it is spread out for the entire stay but the way they do it they could say tha same thing as cleaning fee. It’s just that EVERYONE gets charged a cleaning fee and only those that indicate bringing pets will get charged the pet fee. If they are $10 or $100 hosts will not be getting any of it taken away when a guest shortens their stay.
I have done that and one time someone brought an unauthorized and undisclosed pet. AirBnB refunded to charge them the regular pet rate, let alone my “unauthorized pet” fee which is double. Because when they contacted the guest they claimed it was an ESA…. . They didn’t care that the unauthorized pet came with an unauthorized person either….
I do not get this, why would anyone change the fee based on the length of stay? So the toilet does not really need to be cleaned as well for a shorter stay?
I do not charge a cleaning fee so it makes no difference to me
Okay, I guess I misunderstood. But when hosts have been charging pet fees through the resolution center, haven’t they always been spread out over the length of the stay, as in they pay the same fee regardless of how long they stay ?
It is up to each host who actually has charged a pet fee. It is not that way for me. I charge PER animal PER night. I also differentiate pricing between an animal being house trained and not house trained, with the latter paying more per night.
It doesn’t make any difference to me because our cleaning fee only covers sending the laundry out and that’s the same for any length of stay. I also don’t do long term stays through Airbnb, but I know hosts that do. In that case, they want to charge a larger cleaning fee for a 2 month stay vs a 2 night stay. There is not much difference between a 2 night stay or a 6 night stay but it does take longer to clean after a 2 or 3-month stay.
We only do 1- 6-month stays directly, on FF or Zillow or Craigslist, and I don’t charge a cleaning fee because it’s illegal here to charge a non-refundable fee to a tenant. I just take a full deposit instead and give them the option of cleaning, hiring a cleaner or having a deduction from their deposit for cleaning. It is a much bigger job after a 3 month stay and I’m not doing it all for free. The law and the lease says they must leave it in the same condition as they found it. I think we all know that regular people don’t or can’t clean like an Airbnb host so it’s never up to par, even the best tenant leaves us with days of cleaning. Anyway, I think the setting gives some hosts some options and I think hosts should have options, the more the better.
For a few years in a row I rented out my house in Canada on a year’s lease, as I had started coming to Mexico for long periods of time, renting a place for myself here. I did take a security deposit.
No renter got their deposit back because they seemed to think they could manage to clean a 4 bedroom, 2 story house they’d been living in for a year, complete with dogs and kids, the day they left, along with packing up all their stuff and moving to their new place.
On top of that issue, I have been a life long tenant prior to my current property and come from a family of life long tenants. We moved, on average, once a year and we were too poor to not get our security deposit back so I learned how to clean before moving when I was only wee.
In my adult life, I have rented 22 different places (always with pets) and have always received my entire security deposit back, usually with a thank you note, except for my first apt when I was 18 when I lost $30 for not pulling out the stove and cleaning underneath it (never missed it again). So my standards are pretty high, lol. And obviously, a fully-furnished apt is more complicated.
I actually gave one long term tenant MORE than their deposit back because of how well they had cleaned, even getting down on their hands and knees to scrub the floors. It was very easy to rerent it the way they left it. I also provided them a reference letter for future landlords indicating such, even with their multiple pets.
Later on it turns out that a potential landlord lived near me (my rental was in a different state so the tenants were actually moving to the state I live in) and I offered to meet with the potential land lord in person to express my support for them as tenants. Never got taken up on it but it was a positive feeling for everyone.
Their attempts at micro managing are beginning to feel overly intrusive now, at least from our perspective.
We don’t accept pets, and never will, I’ll never publish the internet speed and we’re a three day minimum over new year so not really directly affected by the recent brainwaves from the young master Chesky.
That said, if they implement something that does directly affect how we do business (with Airbnb) then we’d look at whether we could do without their guests.
I suspect we wouldn’t be the only ones to do this.
. They didn’t care that the unauthorized pet came with an unauthorized person either….