No pet fee included in inquiry (lots of confusion here)

[Alton79]

We've always had a $100 pet fee policy. In the majority of our inquiries, we've seen the pet fee explicitly called out in the "Potential Earnings" section of the inquiry. However, my last two inquiries had 2 pets included in their inquiry, and this pet fee was not explicitly called out.

I asked both guests if their pets were service animals and they mentioned no, so why is Airbnb not including the pet fee in these inquiries?

With my first guest, I figured I'd just request a change to the reservation after pre-approving the guest and confirming the booking; however, even when I went to change the reservation (after the guest confirmed the reservation), the number of pets showed up as 0... what?

After changing it to 2 to align it with the inquiry, there was still no pet fee included.

It seems like the only way to actually collect a pet fee (starting sometime recently) is to manually request an additional $100 after the reservation.

Is this a bug or something? We have a policy that Airbnb does not enforce at any point throughout the reservation.

EDIT: Just spoke with Airbnb customer service and turns out they've baked it into the total. So basically they added up all the nightly rates, added the pet fee, and divided by the number of nights.

[Joan2709 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Alton79 

Since Airbnb has received alot of bad press regarding fees, they are trying to avoid listing them as separate line items and instead including the fee over the nights of the reservation. I checked your listing (and ours that allow pets). You have a 2night min stay. If a guest books a 2night stay, your $100 pet fee is spread over the 2 nights and shown as a increase in the nightly rate over the 2 nights. They also do this with the addl guest fee (it used to be a separate line item on the reservation). It now is spread out over the entire stay and included in the price per night.

Rumor has it that Airbnb will begin doing this with the cleaning fee as well. Instead of a separate line item on the reservation, they will include the cleaning fee in the nightly rate spread out of the number of nights.

[Alton79]

Hey @Joan2709 thanks so much for this additional clarification. That makes perfect sense.

Do you know if Airbnb sends out emails to hosts to communicate these upcoming changes? I'm not sure how I missed this if they did 😞

[Joan2709]

Hi @Alton79 

No....Airbnb never sent an email about this change unfortunately. Keep an eye out for the whole cleaning fee situation. California Hosts already are required to include all fees in the nightly rate:

[Alton79]

Oh wow, that's very interesting @Joan2709. Thanks for this information, and definitely going to keep an eye out! Much appreciated! 🙏