Lay My Hat

I recently started to advertise on Booking.com and have had two bookings. I charge a €100 cleaning fee and so can take two night bookings with this in place. I cannot figure out if Booking.com are collecting this fee from the guests as it does not seem to be reflected in my proposed income from these bookings.

Does anyone else use Booking.com and charge a cleaning fee? Should I expect the guests to pay it on arrival?

I have emailed booking.com but of course I have not had a reply.

Thanks, Declan

I am listed on booking.com but i do not add a cleaning fee i prefer to include this in the actual price ( just divide it in to the amount of nights ) the same with winter bookings as i provide heating ( oil central heating ) i just increase the price to include the maximum usage so no suprises over all the guest's know exactly what each night costs
a few years ago the german tourist assoc. asked hotel/property owners to include costs such as cleaning ,bedding in the main cost and not as additional's or options not everyone has followed the rule it seems to differ from county/region to region

but when using booking.com for example is was easier just to input a nightly rate as you can work out the commission easier
i also take short breaks 2-4 nights depending on which apartment ( smaller apartments being 2 nights ) however i do the cleaning & changeovers myself
so if i was to look for a property on booking.com for myself and the price was X for the night i would prefer not to look further for any additional's as such as cleaning i would expect this to be included in the nightly rate & also guests looking on booking.com can use the filters to filter out suitable properties & most of the time cost is a factor ...

I charge a separate cleaning fee on BC, as otherwise I'd be charged even more commission on the booking. I pay them enough already without paying it something that is then paid on to my cleaner in full. IMO, the only way you can do nightly pricing for holiday rental accommodation is to separate the two.
When I look at BC reservation page I see just the accommodation price, but when I open up the booking, the separate cleaning fee is included.
For example, I see an accommodation/commisionable price of X, and a total price of X+Y where Y is my cleaning fee. I collect payment myself though, so perhaps it looks different.

Thanks Hells Bells, that is helpful. It seems I need to collect it myself on arrival which should be fine once the guests are aware of it.

Declan

I can still charge it in advance but possibly that isn't the case if booking.com are handling your payments.

Hi

I've had real problems with my cleaning fee on Booking.com, all variations on a theme. It's been a constant cycle of submitting a tweak, waiting for it to appear on my listing, tweaking again, waiting again, and so on. The best thing I can suggest is to speak with someone personally on their team to get it working the way you want it to. Then keep checking it from time to time as things tend to mysteriously disappear! They don't take security deposits so you will have to organise the handling of that yourself. Yesterday I noticed that any mention of a security deposit has disappeared from my listing, so I've submitted yet another request and will watch to see if it appears. and then check what else they've removed this time!!