Pet Fees

[Chuck155]

  Although I have it clearly stated in my listing and discuss this verbally on arrival, I am having difficulty with pet owners not being responsible with their pets.  My backyard is fenced in allowing for pets to run free, I require owners to clean up behind their pets and provide means to dispose of the waste.  My last experience with this issue is an owner that wants to argue the point and claim he is cleaning up behind his pets as well as behind mine.  I poop scoop my yard twice a day and after 25+ years in the grooming and boarding industry and can (unfortunately...lol) recognize the difference in poops.  
  I am considering going to a no pet policy to avoid these situations but as a responsible pet owner/traveler myself I understand the need for pet friendly spaces.  A non-refundable deposit for pets required at booking (very similar to hotels) would help to ease the frustration of dealing with irresponsible pet owners.  As suggested by AirBnB, charging and billing a fee back to the guest simply promotes animosity and risk bad reviews for the host.  Why not just allow us pet friendly host list and charge a one time reasonable fee, posted up front with our booking rates and avoid potential problems?

[Anonymous]

@Chuck155 As a dog owner, I always appreciate having dog-friendly ports of call with a nice outdoor space for the pooch when I travel. But sadly, I can't recommend allowing pets when listing on the Airbnb platform, for a few reasons:

1. The "Host Guarantee" explicitly denies coverage for damage caused by pets

2. No actual security deposit is charged to guests, even if you enter one in your listing settings

3. Unless you provide a clear cause to deny all animals access, Airbnb offers gaping loopholes for guests to bring unannounced, unpaid pets as long as they call them "service animals" - far beyond what the ADA requires. Bring on the Emotional Support Wildebeest. 

I would encourage hosts to offer pet-free listings on other platforms with better policies on this, but for guests you receive through Airbnb, I can only recommend using your own dogs on site as a pretext for having a strict no-animals policy and sticking to it.

If you feel that would be detrimental to your business and don't want to juggle multiple listings sites, there is one workaround for charging a non-refundable pet fee. Just state in your House Rules that guests bringing pets will only be given access to the property upon prepayment of $xx. And when you have a confirmed booking with pets, immediately send the guest a Resolution Request

for that amount, requiring that the request be accepted prior to the check-in date.

The animosity comes when you add charges at the end of the stay, but things tend to go much more smoothly if all the money stuff is sorted before they arrive.

[Lisa723]

@Chuck155 @Anonymous while it's a nuisance, and I would greatly prefer a built-in pet fee option, I have never experienced any animosity or bad review arising from collecting our pet fee through the resolution center. We request it one week before check-in, because you can't initiate any request before the guest has made their final payment (stupidly). Most people pay it cheerfully and promptly. Occasionally, reminders are required. The fee is disclosed in our house rules etc.

[Ann72]

@Lisa723  I think the key is requesting it before check-in!  

[Ann72]

@Chuck155  It's so frustrating!  One option for you would be to add a "community" fee from the dropdown.  You don't even have to tell anyone it's really a pet fee.  And if you think about it, it's a community fee in that it goes toward the cost of cleaning up after pets on the property, and that's to everyone's advantage, whether they're bringing a pet or not.  So come up with a rough number lower than a pet fee (because not everyone travels with pets) but that would ultimately bring in the amount you should be getting through pet fees.

[Anonymous]

@Ann72   Crafty!  But the most frequent complaint I hear from would-be Airbnb guests is that it just didn't look like good value once you accounted for all the different fees piled on top of the nightly rate. The 12-14% Airbnb service fee (what service?), the Cleaning Fee (wait, cleaning costs extra?) , and the local room tax may already be padding out the bill - anything else atop that and the room rate starts to look like a joke.

I truly don't know, though, why Airbnb hasn't allowed an add-on pet fee to be built into the booking process. Resolutions is so much clunkier, and often fails when the guest changes payment method.

[Ann72]

@Anonymous  That's funny, I never get those complaints, and I added a $5 community fee this year.  It goes to every booking and is small enough that it is almost inconsequential to the guest, but it might cover the dues I pay to my HOA every year or extra cleaning for people who bring pets and don't clean up after them.  Or it might just be a way of raising the rate a bit.  It's useful, having that in the dropdown choices.  Anyway, with the kinds of fees that hotels and airlines have been charging for years, travelers are somewhat inured to fees.  And once they've swallowed the 12%-16% Airbnb fee, they might just be numb enough to say okay to a modest community fee.

[Anonymous]

@Ann72  I see what you mean....although the market you're in might make a difference. Most of the people coming my direction by air are using one of the cheapo short-haul airlines (EasyJet, Norwegian, RyanAir, etc) where all of the fees above the listed price are basically optional add-ons for things that used to be included (seat selection, luggage, oxygen). Incredibly, they've trained the market to to perceive every opportunity to choose as an added luxury, simply by making it optional. I've gotten used to parting with my traveling partners on the tarmac with our tiny bags in hand:  "have a nice nap, see you in Belgrade!"

Same market is really allergic to seeing a list of extra fees that aren't optional. I stopped doing the Cleaning Fee after all the times I was begged to waive it because "I'll be really clean, I promise!"   I don't think an extra $5 is any big whoop if it's a tiny percentage of the nightly rate, but I'm guessing a Pet Fee worth scooping poo and removing dander for would be a fair bit more than that.

[Ann72]

@Anonymous  Ha!  I don't know the market you describe at all.  Also - "come up with a rough number lower than a pet fee (because not everyone travels with pets) but that would ultimately bring in the amount you should be getting through pet fees."  I don't see how you got five dollars from that sentence?

[Anonymous]

@Ann72  $5 was a reference to your actual Community Fee (which I can see going down as inconsequential), not to the OP's hypothetical Community Fee (which might not).

[Ann72]

@Anonymous  Ah yes, I see.  Well, this is actually (and almost literally) a discussion of different ways to skin cats.  My pet-friendly cabin does not charge a pet fee.  I think the price per night is high, but I suspect that people traveling with their pets end up happy to pay it when they compare places that are cheaper but that charge pet fees.  The OP could find himself in the same place were he to charge every booking a community fee that's less than his locale's pet fee.  The risk here is that he would drive people away who aren't comparison shopping with pet fees factored in.  But if he, like me, finds that most of his guests bring pets, it might be worth a try for awhile so he doesn't have the headache of trying to collect the fee.

[Susan616]

@Susan616 

I am trying to collect a pet fee and the visitor is paid in full, but when I initiate the payment request it's saying I can't because the reservation is not paid in full.  Any suggestions?