best setting 2 day minimum?

Tom143
Level 2
Ore City, TX

best setting 2 day minimum?

Hosts, We are debating a 2 night minimum for weekends. Is there any data in the Airbnb experiences whether it pays to have a 2 night  minimum or do you loose customers by doing so? It is likely best during our busy summer months but what about the slower winter time also?  From our web site we get longer term customers. From Airbnb theyre are more single nights. Thank you, Tom

15 Replies 15
Wei-and-Ting0
Level 10
Victoria, Australia

If you have instant book and wish to allow one night make sure you have a cleaning fee (which is basically a flagfall fee), otherwise you can be subjected to some abuse. We allowed single night for a while without cleaning fee and someone local who needed to visit a hospital near by on a weekly basis booked one night a week (every Tuesday I think) for the entire month in one go, breaking up the calendar so it was hard for others to book. The lady was actually really nice but it was a bad month for us financially. We have a two night minimum now and this is what I have come to learn: you might think allowing one night will help fill the odd gaps but in fact people who need one night are extremely inflexible. They need that night and that night only, and they fracture the calendar. People staying for two or mor nights can usually move their dates around and find a way to fit your calendar. We are just as booked having a two night minimum as when we had one night. Your location and listing might be different to ours so the best I can say is to try both and see which one works better for you. 

 

I should also add that last year during high season we did do one night with cleaning fees and made a killing, but it was a lot of work constantly flipping rooms and changing sheets. Good thing is sheets dry super fast in summer so it's more doable, but we are taking it slow this year and sticking to two day minimum. So there are pros and cons and you need to try everything to see what works for you. 

Wei & Ting,

Thank you very much! Yours are great ideas and very helpful! We do appreciate it – thank you for taking time...

Merry Christmas!
Tom

@Wei-and-Ting0 Thanks for introducing me to the term 'flagfall' Here will call the same concept 'meter drop' but flagfall rolls off the tongue much easier. 🙂 I agree that no minimum, high cleaning fee is the way to do.  I'd add to it that with the high cleaning fee there is no need to offer long-term discounts.

You are spot on Scott, cleaning fee and long-term discount are two sides of the same coin, do both and you give long term people double discount (we did that for a long time before realising >_< ).

Coln0
Level 10
George Town, Malaysia

@Tom143 I usually set up both, 1 night for this week and week coming soon, and 2 nights for the rest of the day.

Colin,

Thank you for your suggestion! We appreciate your experience.

Merry Christmas,
Tom

 

Dede0
Level 10
Austin, TX

@Tom143 Unless you really enjoy cleaning (or paying a service to clean), a 2-day minimum is a good thing. Actually, though, it's a bit more complicated than that...

 

The following depends on how far in advance you open your calendar. The further ahead, the more what I'm going to describe makes sense.

 

For months near the far end of your open dates, set a minimum even longer than 2 nights. Let's say a 3-night min if your horizon is 3-4 months out, or a 4-5-night min if the horizon is 5-6+ months out. At the same time, keep your "default" min to 2 nights. Then, as the far-off weeks come closer, back off the longer mins to the next-lower level. And so on, until dates within, say, 2 months all just use the default 2-night min. (If you don't know how to set mins other than the base default, search the Help system or ask here.)

 

The reason for all this is simple. A month chopped up by a lot of 1 or 2 day bookings makes it harder for others to book the exact dates and durations they want. (And, even if it fully books, means a lot more cleaning time for you.) On the other hand, if you open a distant month but make it only available for longer bookings at first, you'll capture those longer bookings at first. Later, while that time period is still fairly far off, you can reduce the min and capture more of the 1-2-3 day bookings.

 

We've been managing our listing this way for some time, and we consistently have our listing 95% booked a full two+ months out. (The other 5% are single days between other bookings; we don't accept single day bookings because we don't like to clean that often.) The longer bookings (3+ days) are preferred because they mean less cleaning. We do our own cleaning, not using paid services.

 

Yes, this requires a small amount of extra work (laptop-time only), but really only a few extra minutes per week (as in literally about 5 minutes per week) to update the custom settings for minimum stays.

Dede,

Thank you very much! Yours are great ideas and very helpful! We do appreciate it – thank you for taking time...

Merry Christmas!
Tom

 

Dede,

 

Thanks so much for this game plan! Gonna try it for this year and see how it goes. 

 

-Chris

Hi Dade, 

Thanks so much for all your suggestions on minimums.  It sounds like you've set up different minimums for different blocks of time, but I can't figure out how to do that.  I need to be gone next week, so want a min. of 3 days for less disruptrion.  But I don't want to affect the other days.  

 

Thanks!  

Janet 

This is really, really smart. Thanks so much!

Zacharias0
Level 10
Las Vegas, NV

If you're doing it full time with no job obligations and charge a nice daily rate it may be to your benefit to offer one day rentals. I tried  one day bookings and it was a pain as people were always coming and going. It felt like a hotel and the payoff wasn't worth it when you consider the laundry along with wear and tear and always having to be available. The amount of communicating arrival instructions and cleaning was through the roof. I have 7 different rooms and part time jobs and in the end I prefer actually seeing the guest at some point and having a two day minimum made more sense for my listing. Now I leave one day in between bookings just because I never know whats going to happen.

 

Best of Luck.

i am very new at this and my rates are low. In the very beginning I allowed one-nighters. It was very hectic! But I got credibility fairly quickly.

 

Low pricing attracted both good guests, and opportunists. I set my screens higher, and scrutinized prospective guests more carefully. 

 

I also came to realize that both the prospective guest and I have limits and expectations. Many good guests might shy away from a price that is too low. i saw a relationship between longer stays and better guests. I therefore took my minimum to 3 nights. i make exceptions with repeat clients, but my logic is that the booking has to jusify my time and effort during a changeout.

 

In other words, I looked at what was in my pocket on a per-reservation basis and decided what worked. So far, so good!