Price Change since booking
1 Like
You need to honor the original price you quoted to the guest. It was a deal you made, trying to now charge them more is bad business practice.
4 Likes
This is a judgment call – there is no “correct” answer.
My own judgment would be that the benefits of a 20% hike are tiny compared to the possible loss of revenue if the guest goes online and –without saying anything that is untrue – is successful in characterizing me as a “cheapskate.”
I would consider the cost of foregoing the 20% as an investment in a) avoiding a “hit” that might discourage future bookings and b) if I play my cards right, actually getting a public pat on the head in the review for bending over backwards to give what the guest considers a “fair price goodwill gesture.”
I would explicitly tell the guest that rates have gone up, but as a goodwill gesture (in return for them picking you as a Christmas gift) you are pleased to discount the second night to match what they paid for the first one.
3 Likes
Thanks muddy and Spark. I agree with you both and I will let them know that rates have gone up but am discounting the second night to match the deposit price. Prices for other activities have risen since they booked in December, farm tours, workshops and meals They reserved for those activities last week but I will make sure that they saw the new prices on the website before I charge them. Thanks again!
3 Likes
Honor the original price. Otherwise, your guests will most likely give you an awful review.
3 Likes
It seems a bit strange to even ask this question. You said “booked” as in a confirmed reservation is now in the books. What hotel or STR booking site allows the host to increase the price after a confirmed reservation is made, much less a deposit placed?
6 Likes
I thought the same. Goes for anything, not just hotels or strs. You go in a hardware store, buy a drill and put it on layaway with 50% down, and come back the following week to pick it up and pay the balance and they tell you, “Oh, well, we just got a new shipment of those drills in, and they now cost $50 more than the old stock, so we’re going to charge you $50 more.” I don’t think so.
If you bought an airline ticket 2 months ago, and the prices for that flight go up the closer it gets to departure date, does the airline tell you that you now have to pay the increased price?
Does the bank you used to exchange your 200 dollars for Mexican pesos @20 pesos/dollar 4 months ago, send you an email saying you now owe them another 30 dollars because the exchange rate went down to 17 pesos/dollar last week?
1 Like
Nope, but that’s not analogous to stonethistle’s situation. What is analogous is that if you go back next year to buy two more drills they don’t give you last year’s price on them.
Nope, but that’s not the situation here. The situation here is that if you buy an airline ticket then when it gets closer to departure you want to buy a second ticket, they don’t give you the same price that you got for the first ticket.
Of course not, but that is not what is going on here. What’s going on here is that if you exchanged $200 dollars for 20 pesos/dollar 4 months ago you can’t expect to exchange $200 dollars for 20 pesos/dollar 4 months later if the exchange rate has changed (e.g. the price).
Likewise, if a guest books one night with no extra services (tours, etc) in Dec for a specific a specific rate they can’t expect to book a 2nd night and extra tours and services in June for the same price they were advertised for 6 months ago.
The guest is adding a second night 6 months after booking the first night. There is not a hotel or STR booking site that obligates hosts to keep their prices exactly the same for 6 months 
@stonethistle Just to clarify, did the guest ask to have last December’s prices or are you just being proactive about it? It wasn’t clear to me. Anyway, if the guest didn’t ask then I don’t think you should worry about it. It’s more than reasonable that prices change in 6 months, especially these particular 6 months. However, if the guest asked, I’d consider what @Spark said, but only if you’d be pleased to deal with the guest again.
The OP has now changed the post we responded to, so I can’t check it, but what I understood from the original post is that the guest booked 2 nights from the get go, paid a deposit of one night, and now owes for the second night. I don’t recall them saying the guest now wants to add a second night, but I may be wrong.
If I misunderstood, yes, my analogies wouldn’t apply, but if the guest reserved 2 nights to start with, they would.
I see that it’s gone now. Ugh, that’s annoying.
I got that they were adding a night and definitely adding activities (that part is still there at least). @Spark also addressed adding a second night and his response was the only one that made any sense to me. Besides, there’s no way to change the pricing for half of a payment so that doesn’t add up anyway.
Maybe the OP will come back and clarify. I also understood this to be a direct booking, not through Airbnb, VRBO, etc, so if the host decided to change the price, there would be nothing stopping them. I also assumed that the guest wasn’t adding activities (I don’t think the host said they were and he has deleted all that), just that the host offers those activities as part of their rental, perhaps for an added price, but that the price for those has gone up since the guest booked.
Pretty strange to delete the whole post, changing it to something with zero context.
1 Like
We have people that work with us to provide services (cooking, driving, etc.) As a courtesy to our guests, I send them the price list for those services when they book our property so they have some idea of the cost. However, the first line on the price list is “Prices effective as of [date] and are subject to change”. Since the guests don’t book those services until shortly before their stay, our partners can change the prices in response to inflation if they wish.
3 Likes