Hosting One Night only with a surcharge

Edward493
Level 2
Harrietville, Australia

Hosting One Night only with a surcharge

It is disappointing to see the Airbnb Hosting platform is unable to add a simple surcharge option for one night stays only without resorting to suggestions of adding a cleaning fee which then goes on to affect every booking which is not what I am wanting to do. I understand that cleaning fees work for some hosts but not all and the option should be there for a host to show a potential guest who just wants a one nighter that he will pay a bit extra and not put a two night or more guest in some doubt from booking due to a cleaning fee.

7 Replies 7
Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Edward493 Whilst I don't disagree I am interested in your logic for wanting a 1 night surcharge. What is it actually for? Why doesn't it apply to 2 nights etc.

For me (and the very reason I don't do one-nighters) is:

a) the faff factor (hellos/goodbyes/here's where everything is etc.), and

b) the cost of cleaning/ironed linen etc. 

I don't charge a cleaning fee, so it wouldn't make financial sense to host one-nighters for me, @Mike-And-Jane0. Three nights is my minimum, and it costs in appropriately. 

Charles224
Level 10
Clare, Australia

@Edward493 It's an opportunity to be creative - you can test on an excell spreadsheet;

Basically, you have to offer discounts for 2 or more nights.

You can manually do this by having the high rate as your base (ie: the 'surcharge' rate), then put a discount % after '2' nights which is actually the amount you want in the 1st place.

If you are encouraging 7 or 14 night stays, you can add an extra discount which will aotomatically apply at these nights.

Cheers, Charles

Good one @Charles224 !   There is more than one way to skin a Klingon and it seems you've made a nice rug with this one as well.   The platform does have so many tricks to accent listings, its awesome to have the ability to bounce them around here to share and compare.  Thanks for putting that one out for us, Stay well, JR

Edward493
Level 2
Harrietville, Australia

Hi @Edward493, thank you for your suggestion which complicates a simple request to add a one night surcharge. When a potential guest sees a high base rate as you suggest on the booking request form they might move on if wanting a longer stay. On other search engines this High Base price will come up and they will  potentially move away from this information.

@Edward493 I don't think guests see pricing until dates have been put in so any discounts, cleaning fees etc are visible. Now if guests don't know how long they want to book for then it will get a bit screwy.

Sandra126
Level 10
Daylesford, Australia

I've always wanted this too, @Edward493 . I don't charge a cleaning fee, have many one nighters ( or used to...). Charging more and then discounting isn't an option, for the reason you said .