Sat-to-Sat bookings vs Flexibility in days

[robby0_16]

We have been renting out our villa in Mijas on a Saturday-to-Saturday basis only.
We are considering being more flexible in terms of number of nights people can book, and on the days they can arrive.

I can imagine this causing a degree of "messiness" for our booking calendar.

Does anyone have any experience of allowing more booking flexibilty that they would be kind enough to share?

Robby

[kteee]

I deal with the rentals for a number of properties in the Algarve. A lot of owners used to stick to Sat-Sat, but with the introduction of low cost airlines flying every day of the week from regional airports, most now accept flexible bookings.

It usually works out fairly well, as we also get lots of enquiries for 'odd' numbers of nights, 9, 10, even 16 - so that often fills any gaps. I suppose it depends on whether you have daily flights to your local airport - and whether (like Faro) the prices are much cheaper on a Monday/Tuesday than Sat/Sun.

[Vally]

I think if you have always done Sat -Sat stick with it , it is the norm. I nearly went Fri-fri when I started but changed my mind on advice from booking agents. I have done one sunday start and when I offered the extra day ( just worked out like that) on the other end the answer was no, we have to be back for Monday

[Bellywobble]

We were flexible during the winter but planned to stick to Sat to Sat during the summer. However our first enquiry for the summer was for a 3 week booking and as this is our first full season of rentals, we decided to take it.
We are now fully booked until the middle of October apart from one 2 day period and one 3 day period. I think that if we had waited for a Sat to Sat booking we may well have filled the extra days, but we are happy with what we have and it does give a bit of a break from all the quick changeovers

[Guest3]

The majority of our enquiries are Sat to Sat dates (thank goodness!). We have had the odd mid week enquiries but only accept them during low season.

[Hells Bells]

We stick to Sun-Sun during the Winter ski season (the traffic is lighter and the UK charter flights mainly come in to Turin on that day), but only during the February holidays. The budget airlines are a bit cheaper than the Saturday too. I am being flexible over the Summer, mainly as I didn't have any bookings, and had an enquiry for 2 weeks starting on a Thursday. The next booking has booked that too, and commented that it had saved them quite a bit on flights.

[Marion]

Like most others I like to keep to Sat - Sat in high season. This year I tried to make it June - September, but fell down at the first hurdle when a repeat guest wanted Thurs to Thurs in June! I have an argument with myself all the time. I then had another request for Sun to Sun from another repeat guest for July which I took. It worked out all right though, as the following booking was for 2 weeks from the Monday, and then another for 2 weeks from the Tuesday, and the last one in August for 10 days. This left me with a gap of 1 day between 3 bookings and then 2 days between the other. This is fine by mean as like Kayley, it gives me a breather, and allows me to offer flexibility in guests arrival and departure times to match their flights.