Pet-Friendly Hosts...How do you collect a pet fee?

[Suzanne302]

I am just curious as to the different ways hosts collect pet fees. After realizing it's easier to get a guest to accept a refund (via change reservation) than it is to request extra money, I build my pet fee into the cleaning fee and simply change the reservation to $25 less if a guest is not bringing a pet.

This has worked quite well, but I've always wondered if:

1) I miss out on some bookings from guests without pets, because my price will seem high in a specific date search. (although I had 100% occupancy in June and 91% for July)

2) If this method screws up my stats, because in order to change the reservation, I can only adjust the "per night" price and a $40 night suddenly goes down to $15 per night for a one-night booking.

Thoughts?

I'd love to see other ways hosts handle this just to compare. (I've searched the forum as well) This would be sooooo much easier if ABB would just add a freakin' pet fee button already!

And for the record, I love hosting guests with dogs!

[Joanne762]

I have had that happen a few times as well. I think guests don't bother to check the box? 

[Amy2018]

I wonder the same!

[Joanne762]

I see a pet fee option now, but id like to see a per night option and a per pet option like vrbo has! 

If some one stays 2 weeks then 30$ is not enough. Its plenty for a 3day stay. 

I've had people bring 3 dogs for a week. 30$ is not enough for three dogs. Especially if they stay 2 weeks! I'd rather say 5$ per pet per night. 

[Judy96]

I totally agree! We have to manually charge for the pets per night which is  a big pain in the butt . I have no idea why airbnb doesn't allow the function to charge per night like VRBO. the current option for pets per stay is useless 

[Donna1157]

I do include a pet fee because our county does NOT tax that amount. So it saves both us and the guest money when booking with us. I included that fee within the whole house pricing then not only would the house price be higher for everyone, so would the tax rate.