Is there a way to allow weekly payments on a long term rental

[Mindy37]

I have some solar contractors who want to rent my apartment for a four month period during the winter. They're asking if they can pay weekly, rather than a month at a time, and say that because they're paid weekly, they don't have the money up front to pay for a full month (btw this is under $1500) and then another month 4 weeks later. I find it hard to believe that if these guys are already working in the field in a neighboring town, that they have so little cash flow they can't pool their salaries and come up with enough to pay up front. Right now they're staying in hotels, and probably paying in cash. I've explained to them that airbnb operates more like an apartment rental, not a hotel, and if they wanted to pay weekly they'd have to make separate weekly bookings. This is starting to feel a bit shysterish to me, and I won't be doing anything outside of the airbnb platform. My guess is that none of them have bank accounts or credit cards that can be used to cover a larger payment to airbnb.  I'm going with my gut here. Thoughts? 

[Emilia42]

@Mindy37 

There is really no other option. They comply with Airbnb's payment requirement or they don't book. 

This is the payment schedule:

That can look pretty daunting to someone who is used to living paycheck to paycheck. They are likely more comfortable giving a hotel a few hundred dollars at a time even if it is more money in the long run. Do what makes you comfortable but it sounds like they are just going to have to continue on with their room at the hotel.

[Sarah977]

As Emilia says, this can't be done. Just tell these guys that as a host you have no control over the frequency of payments allowed and that Airbnb requires that a long term reservation is charged per month, not per week. 

I would also be quite leery of guests who couldn't come up with a month's rent up front. And Airbnb only guarantees the first month's payment on long terms- if they couldn't, or refused to pay another month after the first one, you'd have the hassle of trying to evict them.

@Mindy37

[Emiel1]

@Mindy37 

Besides the "trust" factor :

I sometimes host guests for "long term" which are also on small budgets.

Or do not know how long they have to stay, because waiting for a possibility to travel (Corona restrictions...)

They book 1 week and then we extend the reserveration every week (use "change option").

I manually recalculate the pricefield in the extending form if stay is longer 4 weeks (monthly discount applies)

BTW Disadvantage for guests is paying higher Airbnb Service Fee percentage, as percentage is significant lower (approx. 4%) on prebooked "long term stays".