Back-to-back booking by same guest should be treated as alteration

Back-to-back booking by same guest should be treated as alteration

With instant book on, I find it often that guests who wish to extend their stay do so by make a new booking right after their extisting one. These scenarios should be treated as alterations for two reasons:

 

1. guest shouldn't pay extra cleaning fee - now I'm not complaining if someone wants to give me more money, but it's not fair since i won't be cleaning the room and it might lead to wrong expectations. 

 

2. maximum stay duration setting respected - this is actually the big one. Hosts might have preferential or legal reasons to set a maximum stay duration, but with instant book allowing back-to-back bookings the maximum length becomes irrelevant. Also the review situation gets a bit funny (you get to review people who are still staying). 

 

 

4 Comments
AiR1
Level 4

I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but why do guests do it as a new booking? They have the option to change their reservation, so why don't they click on that instead of making a completely new reservation?

 

- bojana

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Status changed to: Archived
 
David632
Level 5

I'm seeing this quite often. Guests stay for 2-3 nights to test out the place and then book for a couple weeks or more. It becomes very complicated (and annoying) when they wait until their check out day to extend and then someone else instant books that room. It's an alteration nightmare to unwind it when the current guest wants to extend at the last minute. Not sure how to avoid it...

Jane236
Level 1

How does the guest make a new booking for the consecutive dates they require?  The 'change/alteration' page doesn't allow for it?  They are then paying fees for more than one stay - and I can't find anywhere in the Airbnb 'help' as to how to advise the guest / manage this?