Lay My Hat

Is there an advantage of adding a separate cleaning fee on ABB?

Note all in my area do.

Is the fee commissionable?

I charge a lower price on Booking.com but add a cleaning fee. I don't pay commission on the cleaning fee!

When you search an area on Airbnb, it pops up with the relative prices of each one. I presume that this is before the cleaning charge so perhaps you are better to add one?

I think there is some advantage but am interested in answers to your question Apex Blue.

It seems that Airbnb when they show cheapest rate for property do not include the cleaning fee.

On my mobile when I look at calendars for properties it displays the charge per night without the cleaning fee. (I can't see this on my laptop.)

However if you enter specific dates I think the price shown per night is higher including a proportion of the cleaning fee.

AirBnb's price tips don't take any account of any cleaning fee.

We include a cleaning fee as it helps balance the cost of shorter stays, what we charge doesn't actually cover our costs.

apexblue wrote:Is there an advantage of adding a separate cleaning fee on ABB?

Note all in my area do.

The main disadvantage with doing so is that the cleaning fees are always refunded for guest cancellations.

ianh100 wrote:We include a cleaning fee as it helps balance the cost of shorter stays, what we charge doesn't actually cover our costs.

Sorry, but I just don't get it. You don't cover your costs on short stays but get paid a nominal sum to clean up after? Surely far simpler to do without the hassle.

I charge £80 cleaning fee on ABB. Nobody has complained, although a couple of times the bathroom bin has not been emptied by Americans. Still, I am not complaining. It brings my payment to the level I get from bookings through my website, otherwise I would be out of pocket.

So are there advantages to adding a fee?

Have just been put off booking an LMH ex member as £100 clean fee added.

I must say I was somewhat surprised myself, all my guests for July and August were foreigners, ( are we allowed to say that now?) from a mix of countries both in the EU and elsewhere.

Adding a fee simply allows you to quote a lower nightly rate and therefore appear higher in searches if they are sorted or displayed by price. You end up paying whatever price the owner thinks their property is worth but allows them to compete with the owners who quote below market value rates, or at the very least grab some attention to start with.

Agreed Nemo. If your nightly rate is lower, you'll be seen by more people. In our experience, lowering the nightly rate and adding a cleaning fee seemed to give us more bookings after a few weeks of nothing with a higher nightly rate.