Do you accept same-day bookings?

[Alexandra316]

Hello all,  I've had a few requests for same-day bookings lately that haven't been good, and I was considering no longer accepting requests.   I have also accepted same-day requests that I've ended up regretting. We have Instant Booking enabled, but if they want to book for the same day they have to send us a request to do so. I was wondering what everyone else is doing: do you accept same-day bookings, and if so, how have they worked for you?

Here are my examples from this year so far:

Situation 1, New Year's Day. A group of 4 Americans blew a tire on the highway and couldn't get it fixed due to the holiday. We allowed them to book same-day. They booked for fewer people than arrived and they left the flat a mess. Not worth the trouble.

Situation 2, about 3 weeks ago. A couple travelling across Canada needed a place to stay last-minute. We accomodated them, and they were very nice and left the flat in good shape.

Situation 3, two weeks ago. Last-minute booking request from a local who had terrible reviews from other local hosts: more guests than booked, partying, leaving places a mess, not observing the rules. I declined their booking request.

Situation 4, Friday night. I was on my way out of town at about 7 pm, and another local tried to book with us. Logisitics wouldn't have worked anyways, but I was uncomfortable due to them being locals and their stated reason for staying. I declned.

I just feel like it's not worth wasting declines on these guests, especially when I've had some that don't work out well. One out of four successful bookings isn't a great result.

[Alexandra316]

@Inna22  Really good point regarding the guest already not being in a good frame of mind: the unexpected inconvenience and expense of having to spend a night somewhere is enough to put anyone into a bad mood.

Same for me regarding re-setting: we always clean and set up the flat ASAP after checkout so we're prepared. Logistically, we're good to go.

[Donna316]

Hi.  I accept same day bookings and have IB enabled.  It may be easier for me perhapes as our Studio is on our property with our main house but just away from our house.  Upon other guests departure I get stuck in straight away and clean so make sure it is always ready to go by 2pm, (check in).  So if someone did book same day and right up till 8pm I think I have it set to, all I have to do is put some milk and water in the fridge and all is sorted.  I get a number of last minute bookings.  Works for me. 

[Alexandra316]

@Donna316 Yes, we're in the position of having the flat on our property as well, so logisically is generally works for us: we always reset ASAP. Glad to hear that it's worked well for you, and we've definitely had some positive experiences previously: this year our luck seems to be a little less lucky.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Alexandra316 

Henry and I have our settings for a 3 day notice. We *could* accomodate same-day bookings if we wanted to, but I've seen too many posts about hosts not getting payouts for same day check ins because ABB failed to collect so I personally don't want to risk it.

Plus Henry is not fond of the type of people who "don't plan ahead" and expect others to pick up the slack for their lack of preparation......same as @Sarah 

Our long-term guests usually book a month or two in advance. I've even had a guest book 7~8 months in advance for a 4 month stay. Short-term guests book at least a week or two in advance, but usually at least a month before the check in date.

[Ralf5]

@Jessica-and-Henry0 

I never had an issue with the payout for same day bookers but I do understand your other reasons. Usually I do get the bookings for a 1 or 2 week stay between 4 and 6 months upfront and most of my short term stays (between 2 and 5 days) about 1 month before as well. Of course there are always some gaps in between, which sometimes get filled with the same day (or 1 or 2 days) notice, which I appreciate.

I do have about 120 bookings per year (with 3 apartments in the same property I live in) and in average I am having one or two bookings per year which don't work very well - but no serious problem until now.

[Alon1]

@Jessica-and-Henry0 & @Alexandra316 

I've had many same day bookings & one night stays. 

I especially look forward to the one nighters, because normally the length of stay is nowhere near 24 hrs, often 12 or less, hardly in-house, leave little or no imprint, yet pay the 'cleaning fee' same as longer stays. Makes it quite lucrative.

I rarely accept bookings months ahead of time, normally no more than a month or two down the line. Reason: too many variables and Airbnb bending over backwards to override 'Strict' Cancellation. 

Never a problem with payout. On the contrary, payment time seems to have gotten quicker. For the first few years, payment would take 3 working-days to clear into bank account. Past year or two, just a single working-day! 

[Michelle1164]

@Alexandra316   As a general rule we  do not allow same day bookings. We do accept instant booking but require 1 -2 days advanced notice. If someone does request a same day booking and has not met our minimum booking requirements (filled out profile with photo, government ID, recommendations from other hosts and/or guests, and guest trip info) we send them  a message either asking them to provide us with some additional info or we send a decline message stating they do not meet our minimum requirements for booking. This has seemed to work without issues until 4 days ago. We had a same day request from a gentleman who had just opened an Airbnb account. His request was only for 1 night, but his inquiry stated, he would be in the area for a while for business. His profile tells nothing about himself. This is all it says, "I love travel. But I don't like to spend for hotels. This is why I'm here." He has a couple of verifications, which is good. His profile picture doesn't show up, but that may be due to Airbnb's recent changes regarding profile pictures. Long story short, my husband asked me to decline the request due to lack of any information, reviews, etc on the gentleman. Tonight I get another request from the same gentleman once again wanting a same day booking after we had already sent him this message regarding same day bookings:

Thank you for attempting to instant book with us at A "Peace of Oz." However, as part of our instant booking process we require a minimum of 1-2 days advanced notice. Other instant booking parameters that must be met before we will consider pre-approving or accepting a booking is that all guests have a properly filled out profile with picture, and/or some reviews from other hosts. Unfortunately, you have not met these pre-approval requirements, so we are going to have to decline your request at this time.
We do hope you find a place that will meet your needs. Sorry it could not be at A "Peace of Oz."

The only thing different with the second request is that he booked for 2 nights instead of 1 and said he was looking for a longer time, if possible maybe 2 weeks or so. Still no change in profile details or host reviews. We know everyone has to start somewhere to get that first review, so we sent him a message reiterating we do not typically accept same day bookings, but that if he could answer some questions, tell us a little about himself and accept our booking terms by signing a hold harmless agreement and providing identification upon arrival we would reconsider his request for the following evening as we were not able to accomodate to the same night booking due to other obligations we had this evening.

This is the response we received back: "Thanks for giving me hard time for this reservation because of my name. I haven't seen any review by any immigrants person already. You guys should have allergy by immigrants. Anyway your house your rules and decision. You don't have to accept but If you did accept I would want to change your mind actually.  Thank you!" This was not the responce I was expecting. That is for sure. I was hoping for an understooding of our concerns and that he would gladly provide us info to get to know him, since he was fishing for a potential stay of at least 2 weeks or maybe more. Yes, I could tell by his name and even his broken English that he most likely was originally from another country or that English was not his mother language. This for us is part of the excitement of opening up our home to others, to meet people from other walks of life and different cultures. As I kid my, grandparents always had foreigners in their home and helping on their farm. I have many fond memories of learning about them, their countries and languages and trying to teach them ours.

We are only 6 month into the whole hosting thing so I am sure this is the first of many off flavor experiences we will encounter. Has anyone had a similar experience? How do I respond to this? Or should I? I do feel aweful that he feels we were profiling him. I'm guessing this is something he runs into often, otherwise he would not have said it. I understand he is probalby frustrated, as he is trying to find accomodations. But if he knew he was going to be here for at least 2 weeks why did he not try to secure accomodations sooner?

[Sylvia928]

I’d love to see your hold harmless agreement ❤️

[Robin4]

@Alexandra316  @Alon1  @Jessica-and-Henry0  @Michelle1164 

If somebody wants to book and my property is available, I will take them!

Last year I had a couple sitting in a car on the side of the road less than 40Kms from me and it was 8.15pm. They noticed my property was available, I approved their request on the spot and I was ready for them when they arrived 25 minutes later at 8.40 pm!

I have learned never to neglect the cottage when a guest leaves if I do not have another booking coming in. Every time I think I might have a night up my sleeve and not get straight onto a turn-around an IB will come through wanting to arrive within the hour and I have to move like a demon to get the listing ready.

I am in this business to provide accommodation and if my property is available I will take a guest no matter how short the notice. I don't care if they want to sit in the garden while I get the cottage ready.....I will do it!

I am not fussed about prep time either. You can see from this I am currently in the middle of 5 consecutive one night stays (3 with Airbnb and 2 with Stayz).....

and another one will no doubt slot into that gap from the 26th-29th March. It keeps me on the go, but I am up for the challenge. 

I have seen a lot of hosts grizzle here because their reservations are down and they are struggling to make hosting worthwhile. When I analyse their booking calendar they have so many booking restrictions prospective guests can't be bothered and go elsewhere. They block a day before and a day after a stay, have minimum 2-3 day stays, only except bookings for check-in Saturdays.....they do everything to suit themselves without giving a thought to the business they are in.

If guests want to come here, I will welcome them with open arms.....I am always up to the task, no problems! 

Cheers.....Rob

[Sylvia928]

Is that an Airbnb calendarin your photo?

[Pete69]

This thread deserves a bump. This is good advice from a previous post.... "rule number one was never accept same day bookings".

While I've had a couple of nice guests book same day, I decided to stop after my last guest. I should have heeded the warnings of a prior host who complained of this guest smoking weed at their stay. I figured the guest learned their lesson. Silly me. Well I don't share any space with guests but sure enough I smelled weed billowing through the vents into the rest of the house even though this is a NON-SMOKING suite! I think the guest tried to cover up the smell by spraying cologne in the room. That made maters much worse! Smell is very strong! After 4 hours of running fans I had to fire up my rug cleaner. If I had a guest checking in today, they would want to check right back out. I'll be running fans for the next 2 days.Hopefully the smell dies down.

I should ALSO mention that after this guest booked I waited in limbo for 12 hours because Airbnb said their payment had not cleared. No communication from the guest whatsoever!

Last year I had a same day guest inquire about bringing 2 cats even though my listing says no pets.

So there's something about the type of person who waits until the last minute to book. They tend to live their lives haphazzardly and feel perfectly comfortable with bending rules.

By not accepting same day bookings I will certainly lose some bookings, but I'm not desperate to fill up days ever since the City of Los Angeles imposed an $850 fee on hosts who rent out more than 120 days out of the year. I can take my sweet time in hosting 120 days per year. I also jacked up my cleaning fee from $30 to $50 and lowered my nightly rate by $5 so as to encourage longer stays and discourage shorter stays. Cleaning is very time consuming.

Aside from this guest, I had an inquiry from someone wanting me to lower my price from $110 to $75. I don't lower my price for anyone ever.

[JR26]

Yesterday, I finally turned off insta-book within 3 days but still allow requests. I have genuinely had wonderful last-minute guests! However, I have had too many last-minute bookings (especially at busy times when most other AirBnB's in town were booked) that led to bad experiences for all involved. Guests often are already irritated and are booking out of despair instead of desire. These persnickety guests have given me my worst reviews. I work full-time, and an unexpected booking can become a thankless headache although I have gone out of my way to accommodate a disgruntled traveler! An extra night booked is just not worth it in my opinion.

[Susan151]

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@JR26 wrote:

are booking out of despair instead of desire

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This!

[Alexandra316]

I decided to stop allowing same day bookings. I had two more bad experiences - one broke an expensive chair and left the flat a disaster, and the other had their account cancelled. It's just not worth it to me anymore. 

[Oad0]

Be very weary with regards to last min bookings. In an interview to ABC, a senior Airbnb host explains why he doesn’t take last-minute, as well as 3 other screening advice... enlightening interview IMO! this is more than just a convenience item, it is about screening out bad guests. We had such 11th hour booking, and having checked the guest on social media - decided to decline. We followed up a month later, and saw a bad review saying she was a hooker, and trashed the place. As I said, be very weary