Use this guide to troubleshoot Airbnb cleaning fees that are missing, inaccurate, or not displayed as expected, including sync timing, pricing behavior, and listing-level setup issues.
When managing your Airbnb listings through Hostaway, ensuring that your cleaning fees are correctly displayed on Airbnb requires attention to fee setup, synchronization, and platform-specific constraints. This guide outlines common issues and effective troubleshooting steps to ensure your cleaning fees are accurately reflected.
Understanding Cleaning Fee Behavior on Airbnb
Cleaning fees are treated as distinct line items in the Airbnb system. Their setup and management are critical to ensure they are displayed correctly in your Airbnb listings. Issues such as synchronization delays, special Airbnb offers, and platform restrictions may affect cleaning fee visibility.
Troubleshooting Cleaning Fee Issues
1. Verifying Cleaning Fee Setup in Hostaway
To ensure the cleaning fee is correctly configured and synchronized:
- Access your Hostaway dashboard.
- Navigate to Listings > Edit > Price & Fees.
- Confirm that the cleaning fee is set and not left blank.
2. Synchronizing Updates with Airbnb
Proper synchronization is essential for accurate fee reflection on Airbnb:
- After verifying the cleaning fee, click Save & Export in Hostaway to push these changes to Airbnb.
- Wait a few minutes to see if the cleaning fee becomes visible on the Airbnb listing.
3. Resolving Manual Cleaning Fees
If cleaning fees were manually entered on Airbnb:
- Remove any manually set cleaning fees on Airbnb directly.
- Reintroduce the fees through synchronization from Hostaway.
4. Checking for Airbnb Restrictions
Airbnb imposes specific restrictions that may block updates, including cleaning fees:
- Ensure the cleaning fee is not higher than the lowest nightly rate. If the cleaning fee exceeds this, Airbnb will reject the update.
5. Addressing Special Offers' Impact on Pricing
Special Airbnb offers, such as promotional discounts, might combine all charges (including cleaning fees) into one lump sum for reservations:
- When such offers are applied, cleaning fees often do not appear as separate line items but are still included in the total price. This is standard Airbnb behavior and does not indicate an error in the Hostaway system.
6. Handling Delayed Updates and Older Bookings
Several factors may cause updated cleaning fees not to reflect in new Airbnb bookings:
- Synchronization Delays: Ensure changes in Hostaway are given sufficient time to process.
- Booking Timing: If the booking occurred before fee updates were fully synchronized, older fee values might apply.
- Mistaken Save & Export Action: If Save & Export is not selected during updates, the changes may not be pushed to Airbnb. A workaround is to temporarily change the fee to a new value before reverting it, ensuring the action triggers exporting.
Best Practices for Cleaning Fee Management
- Always set and manage fees through Hostaway rather than Airbnb to maintain consistency.
- Review Airbnb's restrictions and pricing policies, such as maintaining a cleaning fee lower than or equal to the lowest nightly rate.
- Regularly synchronize updates using Hostaway's Save & Export feature.
- Factor in potential synchronization delays and verify that updates reflect correctly.
By following these guidelines, you can minimize issues and ensure your cleaning fees are accurately displayed on Airbnb, providing transparency for your guests and simplifying your listing management.