Which is my house rules say,
Checkout: 11 a.m. firm. You will need to be up, packed and out of the house — not just the room! — by this time.
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I have four pugs who live here in my shared home. I do not allow guests who are traveling with pets to book here. I have everything ticked for no pets and reiterate it multiple times in my listing. I had a first time AirBnB wanna be guest introduce herself saying “I searched for pet friendly homes and yours came up. We have a 16 year old shitzu who is the best dog ever. I see you say no pets but you have four so REALLY??? We would love to stay in your ‘rental’ but must bring our dog so let me know if this will work. And I see you have a four day max, we would like a week.”. First thing I did was an incognito search for pet friendly on my island/location and my home did not come up. I replied telling her I’m sure her dog was lovely but I REALLY do not accept pets and wished her well in her search for a ‘rental’ while reminding her mine was not just a rental but my shared home. I wanted to tell her that she needed to work on her intro as what she did with me was guaranteed to keep her from finding a booking.
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This happens to me steadily, what is happening as I’m sure you know, is that readers think (or pretend to) “pets on property” means “pets ALLOWED on property.”
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I agree, but more to the point was that the guest was coming in in attack mode as her means of introduction. She was asking to break two major rules - pets and length of stay - without so much as an introduction or civil tone in her inquiry. She had obviously read the rules but decided they did not apply to her and felt strongarming me would get her way.
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I think that is super great that you prioritize your family time and your lake enjoyment and set your parameters. Keep it up !
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Updating this. A week ago I had one booking for this past week, the one for Saturday. After a repeat guest booked Tues AM this is what happened to my week.
Maybe it has nothing to do with the repeat guest and everything to do with supply. Five of these bookings were made same day. It’s not price because as I filled up I raised prices and still booked out the week.
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@KKC I had not quite made the connection but I think you may be on to something here. We have a couple of people who book routinely (1x month to 1x every 6 weeks). Whenever our bookings slow down a bit, my husband and I will start making jokes that we really need Sue or Andy to make a booking because it seems they bring us “good luck” (the listings seem to perk up and more bookings follow). Now that I’m saying it ‘out-loud’, I feel silly that I didn’t think there might be an actual connection. It’s an interesting idea! I am going to keep track of it better and will let you know. And it does make sense, algorithm-wise, as much as an additional 5-star review would, in its own way.
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Of course, you are correct. I will revise my post – they PRETEND to think that you “allow” pets, as if that will change any part of the sitch.
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OTOH, it seems that it will slow down and then any booking will break the logjam. I almost always slow down after I’ve had it blocked off or not taking bookings. In July I tried a new trick of creating a rule set for a 22 day cash booking instead of blocking it off. In other words my calendar was open but no one could book. The guest checked out a week early the day I came back from vacay and it took me two days to get it clean to my standard and open the calendar again. And it was still nothing until I got that Tues morning booking. While I had the rule set in place I only got one booking, the one for Saturday.
“The busier you are, the busier you will be.”
@KKC I’m glad you tried the rule-set trick! I think you’ve mentioned before that you get a lot of bookings close to the stay dates, so am thinking that you weren’t getting bookings because you didn’t have anything available in the near future (22 days at least). Maybe?
I use the rule-sets consistently and have tracked the effect they may or may not have and haven’t found any correlation between them and booking rate but did see, when I used to just block dates off, a lot of correlation. Airbnb even admits that correlation as per “availability” - which is also effected by being booked and not having availability because of that. Now that I’m saying this, it seems your 22 day rule-set shouldn’t have effected your perceived availability but wonder if it’s just that no one could book close to the date. I feel like you’ve said your bookings are often close to the stay date, apologies if I’m off on that. If you use more rule-sets in the future, I would love to hear back how it’s working for you. I’m sure others must be doing it but I don’t anyone who is.
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You are correct. I have 8 bookings this past week 5 were within 24 hours of check in.
Wow. Seriously impressed. Just the thought of it stresses me out. I have become so much more comfortable with so many scenarios but the last-minute bookers are still a group that stress me out and that I tend to avoid. I hope to get past it eventually though!
LOL. Those back to back one nighters really work well for me. I had a guy in the military who has stayed here 3 times previously contact me in June about a multi month booking on his return from Korea. At first I said yes (for reasons I won’t bore you with) then told him no, that really isn’t my thing. Then a few weeks later he asked for a 3 week booking with a dog and I said yes. I was gone for 8 days of the booking and he ended up checking out 5 nights early but it reinforced to me that I don’t want a long term booking under normal circumstances. I often set a one or two night maximum. The only reason I have it set longer right now is in case I get an Open Homes inquiry.
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We get the early check-in / late check-out request from time to time. Our decision was to allow them, but we did make one change. We have AIrBnB block a 24 hour window before and after any stay. While this reduces the amount we can host, we decided the flexibility was worth it. We do everything, from cleaning to repairs to restocking, and having that time keeps us from having to rush through the changeover. We aren’t running a hotel; we are providing a unique, and unhurried, stay for each of our guests. We tried a same day turnaround, but to us, the effort required took a lot of the enjoyment out of hosting.
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Would you tell me what the rule would be? If it’s not blocking off the days, what is it? I’m assuming it keeps people from booking.
Under availability → trip length you can make custom rules. So for those dates I made the minimum stay something like 40 nights and also made check in only on a Wed. I had no inquiries or bookings for that period despite the calendar being unblocked.
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Ahhhhh! Thank you. So many tricks in this business.
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I have a large, 5000 s/f, 7 bedroom property that hosts large groups (20+) so when we have back to back bookings, we have no choice but to hire an outside cleaning service to help out our crew if a guest wants an early check-in time. I have this clearly stated on my listing:
“- Early Check-In Requests: Due to the size of the home, there is limited time to clean and prepare the home between guests, therefore, an early check-in time of 2:00 can only be accommodated for an additional fee of $80.00 (to cover the cost of using an outside cleaning service as support staff for our cleaning crew. Please advise us 2 days in advance of your stay if you would like to schedule an early check-time in, so we can arrange to hire the additional cleaning service.) Thank you”
Even after reading this, guests STILL ask for early check-ins, but I simply re-direct them to the paragraph of my listing.
About 10-15 guests a year agree to the early check-in and we make a small amount of money, but most guests back off and make other arrangements.
If we aren’t booked the night before their stay, I will consider their request depending unless we are doing repairs, etc., and/or how friendly the guest has during the booking process. It really does help to be nice. 
Fully disagree with you. We the hosts need to give the highest standard. If none is before or after and no issue of cleaning , why not to be nice and give them the ability to do it. I always say yes with no extra fee if I don’t have back to back booking. I never thought of charging for that and will never do such thing.
Good for you. I run my business like a business, time is money. You can run your business your way and I will run mine my way, like a business.
RR
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