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The AirBnB website does a poor job of revealing pricing. We had a guest that booked our home but used the default of 1 guest. Under Price Details, It gave her a price that shows a per night fee times the number of nights, cleaning fee and service fee. I queried her about the number of guests a few weeks later to make sure we had enough supplies. She then stated that she had 4 adults, 2 kids and a dog. I told her there would be a pet fee and she said that there was no mention of pet fee in our listing.
I decided to look at the website and tried the default of 1 guest, then I clicked the âvery smallâ down arrow by Guests and put in 1 guest and 1 dog. The only change is a new âPer Nightâ fee times the number of nights, cleaning fee and service charge. There is NO listing of Pet Fee in the pricing details.
There should be NO WAY an individual can book a reservation without first being âforcedâ to answer guests and pet numbers AND, there should be somewhere that distinctly shows pet fees.
Why âa few weeks laterâ? Making sure guests have booked for the correct number, have pets, etc, is something that should be done as soon as a booking is confirmed or requested. And if your place is capable of hosting 6, or even 4, and someone books for only 1, that should send up some red flags immediately.
Boy did you miss the point of my question/comment. The default for booking is 1 guest. Maybe she didnât see the little tiny down arrow that you use to input numbers of adults, children, pets. The point IS, if I select 1 or 8 adults w/o pets it shows a daily rate. AND if I select 1-8 adults and a pet, it shows another daily rate. So Iâm going to ask AGAIN, where do you see âPET FEEâ on the Show Price Details? Let me answer it for you. YOU DON"T!
While I appreciated a response, the wording was a little sharp. My brother and I are very new to hosting on AirBnB and are trying to understand how the pricing worksâŠthe point was, our renter would not know whether pet fees were included or not because it doesnât state the pet fee; the site simply changes the nightly rate and disperses the charge across however many nights are booked. How would anyone booking a rental automatically know that the pet fees are hidden within the nightly rate? The pet fee shows as a separate entry on the hostâs page but not on what the renter sees. This did not seem to be a transparent way of showing fees in our opinion as the fee was hidden in the nightly rateâŠAs far as knowing âearlierâ how many guests, pets, etc there are going to be, yes, weâve learned to look into that before we accept the bookingâŠ
The Airbnb site is regularly very glitchy, particularly around pricing.
I strongly suggest that you call Airbnb and ask, although this could be an exercise of frustration as the front line are unable to assist with nuts and bolts issues.
Just confirming that you realise the pet price is a once only fee and not nightly and it covers multiple pets?
Welcome to this international board of some very helpful hosts, but the threads often go off at a tangent.
I have a large home that sleeps 12.
I had a potential guest want to book for 1 person, when I asked why he was booking my large home when I had smaller available, he informed me that he was bringing 10, but didnât like the 10 pax priceâŠ. The booking was declined.
Thank you for your positive responseâŠI was actually taken aback by the tone from 2 people that responded to my brotherâs and my inquiryâŠYes I did realize it was a one time fee itâs just how it shows up on the renterâs side that we couldnât understandâŠif it shows up as a separate line item, so to say, Pet Fee $199, why doesnât it show up like that on the renterâs side instead of hiding it in the nightly rate??? I agree she didnât use the drop down to include all the extra people staying as well as 2 pets, but it still doesnât make sense to us how the Pet fee is configuredâŠbelieve me, now we know to check all this stuff before we accept the booking! Weâve only been at hosting for 2 monthsâŠitâs make mistakes and learn from them!!!
As far as I am aware, guests do see the pet fee as a separate line item, but of course they need not to ignore inputting the correct number of guests, pets, etc.
Airbnb is now showing the total price of listings including nightly fee, cleaning fee, pet fee, and service fees, exclusive of taxes. Is that what you are referring to? If so, guests do see a breakdown of all the charges when they fill out a booking form according to what I have read about the new format.
But as guests do not always fill out the form correctly, this is why you need to dialogue with them when they first book or request to, so you can catch any oversights at the outset.
And yes, dealing with the platform and guests is a big learning curve. Try not to take it personally if responders do not exactly answer your question and mention other things. People are just trying to help and we often learn things we didnât even know we didnât know, by things mentioned in âoff-pointâ responses.
Iâve been a host since 2014 and I have always welcomed pets. Donât rely on Airbnb for anything but bringing you guests (think of them as an advertising platform like the newspapers of your grandpaâs era) and collecting payment. Anything else is on you.
I put the pet fee in that first paragraph on the listing:
AirBnB has been criticized a lot for fees lately. Itâs possible they are experimenting with adding all the fees together into one and are calling it simply âFeeâ.
" * Travelers wonât be charged additional guest fees for infants or pets. If you want to charge an additional fee, put those details in your House Rules and collect the fee using the Resolutions Center."
I was referred to that page for something else today. That seems to answer your question. I guess in the pursuit of less fees during checkout. Collecting those is now on you to do yourself. Abb getâs paid, you do all the work. Arenât they supposed to be helping make this easier for everyone?
So maybe that will go something like⊠"Hi, welcome to my abb fine guests! And what nice twin babies you have, and fido here looks like a fine AKC specimen as well. Now let me just total this up⊠Ok, that will be $250 extra in fees for the week. Cash or Credit on that? Then I can get you squared away and hand over these precious door codes for your unit. Oh, you didnât read the house rules? Well you agreed to them at checkout donâtchaknow? Sure, call airbnb to check with them, they allow us to put WHATEVER we want in the House Rules. Iâll wait. "
Joking, but just one more thing you have to do manually is NOT an improvement.
Except newspapers used to charge you a flat rate for ad space and you got unlimited guests. The early âdirectoryâ model like yahoo or pre sellout vrbo. The newspaper could not command 15-30% of your revenue. And there were many competing advertising spaces. Phone books, 411, guide books. Then the monopoly players moved in and took over the board.
Huh? Infants were never charged for anyway, and charging for pets through the Resolution Center was exactly how it was done before they introduced the pet fee on the booking form.
And that article also says " Infants (under 2 years of age) will not count toward your guest maximum. "
Does Airbnb not realize that there are maximum guest counts including infants, i.e. all human bodies, because of fire and insurance regs?
Every guest that books whether itâs IB (letâs not get me started) or a request to book needs to answer certain questions within 24 hours of booking.
These questions will identify all of the issues you mentioned above and more.
I first send it as a message on Airbnb, then if no reply within 24 hours, I send a text to tell them to check their airbnb message. If no answer within 12 hours, I call. If I can get the customer to respond (sometimes the contact number is wrong and sometimes guest doesnât have their notifications on.) I contact Airbnb via written message.
It almost never gets to this amount of contact but I have found that it really eliminates most surprises and also try to keep it within the free guest cancellation period so that the guest can cancel if they are not aware of the requirements.
