Scheduling Cleaners Around The Holidays
Hi Everyone, so I may just be overthinking this, but this will be the first holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) I have gone through as a host. I generally have my calendar open 6 months out, and when I saw that Thanksgiving and Christmas were almost available I reduced my availability window to 3 months out, fearful I wouldn't be able to get a cleaner if someone books through those holidays. We plan on traveling and won't be around as a back up or I wouldn't be worried about it.
Is that a realistic fear? Am I just overthinking it? Or have any of you ran into problems with this and had to find some creative solutions? Thanks for any suggestions or input!
We give our cleaners holidays off. You just have to keep an eye on the bookings and if someone books a check-in/out for a holiday you want to give them the holiday off, you just block the appropriate day.
Just pick make those dates as unavailable for check in and check out. Then your cleaners will have the day off.
I also make the day before and after those holidays unavailable for check in and check out as well and it’s been great.
I pay my cleaners time & 1/2, if they do a cleaning that lands on a holiday. whether it is Christmas eve, New years eve. mothers day... I give them advance notice to make sure they are willing. So far I have not had a cleaning land on Thanksgiving day or Christmas day. So, so far it has not been a problem. Also since you are most likely getting higher rates around a holiday, paying the cleaner extra is worth it.
Quote from @Leora Merrell:
Just pick make those dates as unavailable for check in and check out. Then your cleaners will have the day off.
I also make the day before and after those holidays unavailable for check in and check out as well and it’s been great.
You really don't have to block dates until reservations are made. You're missing bookings this way. Ideally someone books over the holiday and you don't have to worry about it.
Quote from @Dave Stokley:I missed the Fourth of July on one of my properties. Now it’s a turn on the Fourth and I think that really stinks for the cleaner so I’ll pay extra.
Quote from @Leora Merrell:
Just pick make those dates as unavailable for check in and check out. Then your cleaners will have the day off.
I also make the day before and after those holidays unavailable for check in and check out as well and it’s been great.You really don't have to block dates until reservations are made. You're missing bookings this way. Ideally someone books over the holiday and you don't have to worry about it.
Ideally, sure, you don’t have to worry about it. But I don’t trust it. Last year VRBO had a glitch that was allowing people to reserve one of our cabins for Christmas Day check-in even though VRBO could see on their end that I had it blocked off. Three people tried to reserve for that in the four days it took VRBO to fix the issue. Sure, the cleaner could have had it ready Christmas Eve but then I’d miss out on Christmas Eve revenue. All my properties ended up with 5-6 night stays over those dates because they were blocked off. I got longer bookings due to blocking the dates before and after Christmas and Thanksgiving. But I realize that’s not guaranteed, I’d adjust as needed as the dates got closer if they weren’t booking.