how do you charge a pet fee

[Madelyn1]

I want to allow folks to have pets... but to me there is potential for both extra damage... and almost always extra clenaing.

TO that end, I would like to charge a nightly pet fee for $10. How would I do this.  (or a one time pet fee of $40) and increase the security deposit to $200.

[Ginger17]

It would be nice if Airbnb actually ever looked at these conversations:)

[Ginger17]

I have listed my property on both Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway (which are owned by Expedia and have their software programs combined and all screwed up together along with terrible and confusing customer service)

I much prefer the user-friendly and customer friendly Airbnb site.

However, through VRBO/HomeAway, I can easily charge a pet fee that people are more than willing to add to their rental fee and with Airbnb I cannot.

Why?

I am currently hosting long-term guests with 3 dogs and these people would have gladly added an extra 2 or 3 hundred dollars or even more to their 2 and half month stay to be able to keep their dogs with them.

My property has already hosted guests through Airbnb with a total of 8 dogs in 8 months and I haven't been able to charge a penny for any one of them-nothing!

This is not only money out of my pocket, but it's also money out of Airbnb's pockets too.

Again I ask, Why can't you add this charge into your booking software platform Airbnb?

We're talking about thousands of dollars here.

Please help us hosts who allow pets to be able to charge a fee for them. PLEASE! 

Your site is by far the best site out there, with this one exception that I'm sure can be fixed to help us hosts out.

[Holly91]

I am very unhappy that AirBNB does not have a drop down menu for charging a pet fee! We can charge extra $ for a guest but the pets have a higher impact on the household. Please fix this!

[Ginger17]

I think we'll have to write letters to Airbnb to get them to pay attention. They don't really seem to look at this discussion thread and if they do, they definitely don't acknowledge any of it.

[Carolyn122]

Following because we recently had an issue with a person's pet urinating in the house in multiple places. It took us days to get it completely out of our wood floors. At this point we were also looking at introducing a pet fee due to this. 
We then had a guest who booked for one and in the conversation she kept saying we. I asked how many people were coming and she stated two and a dog. Ok great let me put in a change to add those two things to your booking. We easily managed to add the second person but saw no place to add in the pet. We called air and were told that there was no way to add a pet after the fact. What?
We asked what happened if said pet that was now coming damaged anything and we were basically told that it would be ok since air could see in our messages that this was discussed. It did not make us feel better. 
 
We will not be able to make it to the big air convention or we would like to bring the pet issue to the table for serious discussion. 

[Ron103]

I don't use IB for those some of those very reasons. People will be sneaky about things if they think they can get away with it.
And even when I get a direct "Request to Book" over an "Inquiry". I still make sure the guest has communicated clearly via message who is coming. And then I can decide whether to Accept, Decline, or Pre-Approve accordingly.
I have it clearly stated in my Listing and my House Rules that both pets and children are to be included in the adult guest count.
I am charging for warm bodies using my house. No warm bodies get to use it for free. PERIOD.
I have not recieved inquiries from the undead or reptilians, but I am pretty sure I would decline them.
I am finding that most people only read the first 3-4 rules, as it requires scrolling to see more, so I have also placed them in full in my "Other things to note" section.
The only thing you can do is try to cover your rearend with as much conspicuously placed rules, communicating your expectations, and enforce your rules politlely but firmly.

[Elizabeth125]

As a superhost to 7 properties that allow pets I have to say Airbnb falls short.  Every other booking site allows the owner under extra services to charge a pet fee.  Airbnb doesnt.  The owner must go through many steps to obtain the fee.  If you send a special offer then the fee gets crunched into the nightly fee.  This then causes a tax problem as county taxes here is Gettysburg only tax the nightly rate unlike the state tax that taxes all fees.   You can also send a request for money which takes more steps.   All this and all Airbnb has to do is under extra charges have this as an option.

[Kelli22]

I feel Airbnb need to change their settings to allow an extra fee for pets.  There is always more time spent with the vacuuming and clean pet bowls, sometimes worse. 

[Aurora52]

Hi,I’m a super host on AIRBNB and I charge guests with Dogs a extra fee.I put in my description 100$ for each dog for the time of staining.This fee is to be paid befor the guests check in.Is the only way you can charge the extra fee.The cleaning and Desinfektion take longer and so far I didn’t have any complains.If they don’t like it ,I won’t allow  pets is that simple .

will be nice if AIRBNB make this changes 

[Helene113]

Following, as I am a new host and find it so bizarre that there is no easy way to do this!

[Ginger17]

The only way I know how to do it is to let the guests know you will be sending them a Request for Money for Extra Services. I charge around $25 per night per pet, but will sometimes adjust for longer stays. Someone on this thread gave me the idea of charging as though they are extra guests, which they are. They always take more time to clean up after....there is always pet hair left in corners and places you dont think about. 

[M-L0]

Charging for a pet under the Extra Guest fee would not work if the number of humans coming already reaches your maximum. But also, how to ensure that your guest will know to pay extra for their dog(s) and then actually pay it?

[Alan21]

I noticed that I tried to get an answer to this very simple question over 2 years ago, and I still do not have an answer. I do not understand why the initial Airbnb inquiry cannot ask:

# of adults

# of children

# pets (please note this host charges $x/pet/stay and will be added to your booking).

Airbnb makes money from our cleaning fees. Why would they not want to make even more $ when they take a percentage of our pet fees?

[Juju6]

I think it’s fair first to know if there is a pet coming! I have a pet fee in my listing . However the team isn’t applying it ! I’m told to ask guest for it! I don’t want to deal with asking guest for money ! Airbnb tells me when. Children are coming why not a dog ?

[Elizabeth125]

Second Comment on this thread

Here is the best part now.  It seems a couple months ago Airbnb only takes partial payment for ALL reservations.  

What does this mean for pet fees sent as a payment request bu Host? This means that you have to wait till two weeks or less to send the payment request.  Airbnb will deny your request up untill 14 days as thats when the guest pays for the rest of thier reservtion.

Having 7 rentals I have hundreds of reservations 80% having guests.  Now I have to take note on each reservtion from them that has a pet the DATE ie 11-15 I can now send a payment request.

Why is everything so hard on Airbnb?