Changing cleaning fee, booking without request

[Catrin2]

Hello to everybody,

my name is Catrin, I am a newbie in Airbnb (not new in dealing with guests since I work 20 years in tourism)

and trying to find my way with Airbnb. I am the host of a small house and put the add online not expecting

to get much inquiries, I was surprised I got and still get a lot of response. Anyway on the first day , with my very first inquiry I communicated with a  nice couple and they want to book the space when they have their next salary.  I promised them to block these days (how else to reserve the space for them?), which I did. 

Afterwards I realized that I forgot to add a cleaning fee (50 Euro) which i add now to my

add, so it will come on top of the price. But because I promised this couple already the house and I dont want to

charge them the extra 50 Euro (since it was my mistake) how can I handle this when I "deblock" the house and they

will book the house. The extra cleaning fee will be charged by airbnb, how can I deal with that?

And another question, I understood so far that guests will request first and then book, but it

happened to me now also these days that I was talking with two requests parallel for the same days  (without blocking these days right away) that one guest immediatley booked these days without requesting me first.

It looks like, that I have to block right away the days when guests are requesting me about so I can avoid somebody else to book

right away? Or is there any other way to kind of reserve some days?

Thanks a lot for helping me out on these topics

Catrin

guest

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Catrin2

inquiry , request, instant booking , no instant booking, pre approval, cancelations... etc... reasearch Airbnb TOS , FAQ and Community threads . You can't start hosting without being familiar with how Aibnb works or you will get penalties and will cost you. It takes time but you have to do it.

[Hilary-And-Ed0]

You are currently on "Instant book", which allows guests to book without requesting first.  You can turn it off by going into "manage listings" under host, then click on the picure of the listing, then click on the left under "booking", then turn IB off. I don't recommend it until you really understand it, and are really on top of your calendar, because if someone books, and then you realize you can't accomodate them, you will be penlaized financially, and by blocking the dates, and by making you ineligible for superhost for a year.

Whe the people make the booking, you can make a "special offer", omitting the cleaning fee.

While you are communicating with someone about booking, until they book, another person can.  I would not worry about that.  

[Linda108]

@Catrin2  Welcome to hosting on Air BNB!  The least effective way to put your 20 years of tourism experience to work on this platform is to "wing it".  Like you, I didn't find this platform very intuitive, so your best course of action would be to make good use of the Help Center "Getting Started" with many articles on the basics.  Please don't expect the host forum to be able to teach you how to use this platform but we can help clarify stuff a bit or point you in the right direction.  In addition to the Help Center which provided by Air BNB there are community guides on this site covering some of the basics including how to contact Air BNB.

Now for an opinion about Instant Book...turn it off.  I have it on and it works for me, but it is better to have control over the booking process as you are entering your learning curve.  Good luck!!