Change price on reservation?

[Linda21]

A guest has made a reservations by instant book for August 2018 but I hadn't yet updated the prices for August (festival time in edinburgh so they should be higher? and I usually do a minimum week stay for August) I see that I can retrospectively change the price on the reservation but I'm wondering if he doesn't accept the new booking will I be penalised?

Thanks very much.

[Linda108 · Accepted solution]

@Linda21 If you have a booked reservation for dates on your calendar that you haven't updated but are available for booking, you cannot retro-actively charge more for that guest.  If you do, and the guest complains to Air BNB, your dates will be blocked.  

Did you know that you can change the booking window to be a shorter period so you are not caught off-guard?  I have had the same thing happen to me for major events in my area and I just decided to allow the guests since I would not be able to re-book anyway.

Alternatively, you can cancel and take the penalties on this site.  Then list on another site for those specific dates.

[Linda21]

Thanks for your reply,

I have managed to get to a page that let's me alter the price. You can see it below, I'm just wondering if I change the price and the guests don't accept if I'll be penalised.

Alter Reservation

Choose the property, # of guests, dates, and subtotal. The subtotal should include your cleaning fee—the only thing we’ll add to the price you choose is the Airbnb guest service fee.

Property

                                     Large Central Apartment with amazing views                                

Guests

                                     1                                                       

2                                                         3                                                         4                                                         5                                                         6                                                         7                                                         8                                                         9                                                         10                                                         11                                                         12                                                         13                                                         14                                                         15                                                         16+                                                    

Check inCheck out

Subtotal

£

(GBP) Enter the new price with no currency symbols or decimal points.

If the changes are accepted, the new reservation will be governed by the following policy:

Alterations are subject to availability and may require approval by both the guest and the host. If the changes are accepted, the guest will be charged or refunded the difference between the amounts of the original and new reservation. Airbnb guest service fee will update correspondingly with the change in price.

[Marit-Anne0]

@Linda21

You can alter the booking with the new price, but the guests are free to decline and they are also free to report you to airbnb for breach of contract and for breaching airbnb guidelines.

[Linda21]

Thanks for all the replies, I've decided to honour the reservation and be more careful in future. pity you can't put a time limit up until people can book rather that having to spend ages blocking out months.

[Linda108]

As I mentioned in my previous post to you, @Linda21, you can change your booking window to as small as 3 months or all the way to no limit.  If you have a particular month or time period of high demand, you can change the minimum stay for that period as well.  Hope this helps

[Linda21]

That's brilliant, sorry must have missed that in your last reply. I've just found the setting and set it for 12 months. Thanks so much that was really helpful

[April--Mike--And-Maggie0]

I try to keep my seasonal prices/minimum stay listed for about a year out, with any price increase generally after the first of the year.  For example, for 2018 we've decided not to raise the prices, but to give a less generous discount for weekly bookings.  It's already posted on all of our booking platforms.

That said, I was once caught off guard by someone booking almost a year out, before I had adjusted prices.  I did honor the quote she received, but let her know that I was honoring this year's rate, and it would be higher the next year if she decided to book an additional visit (we attract repeat guests visiting family with small houses in our neighborhood).

Also, on another website, I had a guest who had not noticed the "from" in tiny print by the price, and was shocked at the difference between our Winter Bargain rate and the Summer rate.  I frankly was uncomfortable about the way the pricing was laid out, so I honored the lower (Winter Bargain!) rate.  It was only a couple of nights, and she was very pleased.  I feel if I make a mistake, or the booking platform, as my agent, then I should handle it as I would like a host to handle it for me if I were the traveler.