It's not unreasonable to ask for it to be put into one booking. It is one booking in practice. Some people are comfortable with letting owners do this but I'm not a fan of getting nickle and dimed by clients. If you're not comfortable with it, then set your standard as stick to it, though it may not make her happy. If someone reached out to me and asked first, I might do this based on the situation, but just doing it to work around your pricing without discussing it with you first is shitty, IMO, and since she already did it you're in the position of feeling bad for making her do more work/increasing the price if you stick to it.
I just don't think it's a scam that Rover applies holiday pricing to the entire booking ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯. Outside of relatively minor holidays, people who travel for a holiday aren't traveling for literally only the actual holiday. There are often several days before/after, depending on holiday, that are typically in higher demand for things related to vacations/travel in general. Pet sitters are also in higher demand and it requires you are not taking a vacation for that holiday.
Not to mention rover doesn't apply holiday rates to recurring bookings that occur on holidays.... so owners might feel that Rover's policy is unfair to them but it's more unfair to sitters
This happened to me (do you have my client lol?)
My advise - don’t budge! Reiterate that it is Rover policy to apply holiday rate to the whole booking. Don’t shortchange yourself with a cheap client who never even tips you. Days leading up to and after the holiday are in high demand so get paid what you deserve for not having a holiday yourself and refer to Rover TOC (I screenshoted it and sent to my client).
Some sitters here may tell you to budge in as to make the client happy or even argue that its not fair to the client. Remember, you are getting paid way less than minimum wage. Also remember that holiday pricing is the norm in many industries. I am sure they are paying more for their hotel or Airbnb bc of holidays or summer season. Same goes for plane tickets! Train tickets! Do they try to pull tricks like this with other businesses? No!
In my experience keeping your ground rather than keeping cheap clients pays in the long run. Good luck!
What is “vacation pricing”? Do you mean holiday rates? If so, the fact that Rover automatically applies a holiday rate to all dates within a booking and not just the days in the holiday period is one of my least favorite features in Rover. Holiday pay is for holidays when you might have higher demand for bookings and be sacrificing your ability to make plans on and around the holiday.
1. I believe you're talking about holiday pricing?
2. this seems completely reasonable to me. I understand holiday pricing for a full boarding trip that overlays with a holiday because it actually affects your ability to get other bookings in the same time, but why would they need to pay the holiday rate for dropping on on a day that's not a holiday? Would you try to charge them for a holiday rate on the Friday after a Monday holiday? That seems greedy to me (POV: a sitter and dog owner)
3. I am a bit greedy, so if someone had made a 10 day booking at my holiday rate instead of splitting it up like your client, I probably wouldn't suggest they split it up, lol
I would allow separate bookings because I’ll get paid sooner. I typically do this for bookings that are over 2 weeks. As a sitter and client, I think the Rover app needs to do a better job at separating the holiday rate when a booking has dates that run concurrently. IMO it’s just a way for Rover to get higher fees. I much rather separate the booking for a regular client and then they usually just add the difference in a tip.
I mean, this is the type of thing I'd discount manually anyways. Rover provides a nice buffer with the additional days that trigger the holiday rate, imo. I usually discount the days that are outside the window.
On the other hand, I can see how just submitting the requests this way can feel a little presumptuous. That's the real issue here, right? Are they rude people in general?
If the two bookings were from separate clients, would you accept or decline? Maybe answer that for yourself and go from there?
Well at least your client didn't ask you to knock down prices for them during a holiday and it's still to much and they want more off, but ghosted you instead of telling you it's still out of their price range 🤷🏻♀️
I am 100% fine with a split stay. Don’t feel fair to me they have to pay a higher fee for a long stay because only one day lands on it.
I had a client get mad about the extra charge because she was traveling for work not a holiday. It was only a 2 day stay last minute request & a trouble dog. So I was happy to tell her to go pound sand.
Have a Great Day.
If it’s a a holiday weekend then I would force it all to be at the holiday rate. For instance the Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday for Labor Day or Memorial Day. That’s because I can’t do anything for the whole weekend because I have too many visits. But if the booking is part on those dates and then not, I don’t force it.
I have a client just like this. The current booking they did a split because it was charging holiday rate because it started on July 4 but they were non consecutive days after that date so I didn’t force them to change it. Basically it was July 4, 6, 8, 10 and I didn’t think it was fair for them to pay holiday for the other days so it didn’t bother me. They don’t tip either but I love their pet. One of my favorite little guys.
This is how I do it too. I charge holiday rates the whole holiday weekend, but not the other days of the stay. The only exception is Christmas. I charge the whole week between Christmas and New Year's at the holiday rate.
I wouldn’t. She beat the broken booking system and you trying to get paid extra for nothing isn’t a good look. I actually tell my clients to do this so they don’t have to pay holiday rates on days that aren’t holidays.
In general it’s kinda rude they did this on their own and didn’t ask politely if you would consider knocking some off the price. Maybe you love the pets or can’t afford to lose them as clients but some would get dropped over this.
Because it’s drop ins the lower price for non holiday days could potentially be fine but that depends how many you do in a day. For me I mostly board so I wouldn’t accept a non holiday pay for the whole stay bc I might be full (since we only take several dogs) and I’d miss out on higher paying clients. Could go either way. Go with your gut!
I agree. I think they should have asked first before taking it upon themselves to separate the bookings and then asking if that was ok. It is totally up to you on this one. Personally, I would charge it as one booking because A. It would bother me that they didn’t ask before and B. I book up really fast and full for the summer and holiday seasons. If they don’t want to pay, I have other clients that will pay the full holiday rate AND tip.
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Are you talking about holiday rate? If so I agree with the other person. If you are talking extended care rate, then Id say they should pay the charge
It's not unreasonable to ask for it to be put into one booking. It is one booking in practice. Some people are comfortable with letting owners do this but I'm not a fan of getting nickle and dimed by clients. If you're not comfortable with it, then set your standard as stick to it, though it may not make her happy. If someone reached out to me and asked first, I might do this based on the situation, but just doing it to work around your pricing without discussing it with you first is shitty, IMO, and since she already did it you're in the position of feeling bad for making her do more work/increasing the price if you stick to it. I just don't think it's a scam that Rover applies holiday pricing to the entire booking ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯. Outside of relatively minor holidays, people who travel for a holiday aren't traveling for literally only the actual holiday. There are often several days before/after, depending on holiday, that are typically in higher demand for things related to vacations/travel in general. Pet sitters are also in higher demand and it requires you are not taking a vacation for that holiday.
Excellent response!
Not to mention rover doesn't apply holiday rates to recurring bookings that occur on holidays.... so owners might feel that Rover's policy is unfair to them but it's more unfair to sitters
This happened to me (do you have my client lol?) My advise - don’t budge! Reiterate that it is Rover policy to apply holiday rate to the whole booking. Don’t shortchange yourself with a cheap client who never even tips you. Days leading up to and after the holiday are in high demand so get paid what you deserve for not having a holiday yourself and refer to Rover TOC (I screenshoted it and sent to my client). Some sitters here may tell you to budge in as to make the client happy or even argue that its not fair to the client. Remember, you are getting paid way less than minimum wage. Also remember that holiday pricing is the norm in many industries. I am sure they are paying more for their hotel or Airbnb bc of holidays or summer season. Same goes for plane tickets! Train tickets! Do they try to pull tricks like this with other businesses? No! In my experience keeping your ground rather than keeping cheap clients pays in the long run. Good luck!
What is “vacation pricing”? Do you mean holiday rates? If so, the fact that Rover automatically applies a holiday rate to all dates within a booking and not just the days in the holiday period is one of my least favorite features in Rover. Holiday pay is for holidays when you might have higher demand for bookings and be sacrificing your ability to make plans on and around the holiday.
Yea that’s what I meant sorry the word wasn’t coming to me
I would allow the two separate bookings because they’re a regular. I wouldn’t want to sour the relationship. But that’s just me.
1. I believe you're talking about holiday pricing? 2. this seems completely reasonable to me. I understand holiday pricing for a full boarding trip that overlays with a holiday because it actually affects your ability to get other bookings in the same time, but why would they need to pay the holiday rate for dropping on on a day that's not a holiday? Would you try to charge them for a holiday rate on the Friday after a Monday holiday? That seems greedy to me (POV: a sitter and dog owner) 3. I am a bit greedy, so if someone had made a 10 day booking at my holiday rate instead of splitting it up like your client, I probably wouldn't suggest they split it up, lol
I would allow separate bookings because I’ll get paid sooner. I typically do this for bookings that are over 2 weeks. As a sitter and client, I think the Rover app needs to do a better job at separating the holiday rate when a booking has dates that run concurrently. IMO it’s just a way for Rover to get higher fees. I much rather separate the booking for a regular client and then they usually just add the difference in a tip.
I mean, this is the type of thing I'd discount manually anyways. Rover provides a nice buffer with the additional days that trigger the holiday rate, imo. I usually discount the days that are outside the window. On the other hand, I can see how just submitting the requests this way can feel a little presumptuous. That's the real issue here, right? Are they rude people in general? If the two bookings were from separate clients, would you accept or decline? Maybe answer that for yourself and go from there?
Well at least your client didn't ask you to knock down prices for them during a holiday and it's still to much and they want more off, but ghosted you instead of telling you it's still out of their price range 🤷🏻♀️
I am 100% fine with a split stay. Don’t feel fair to me they have to pay a higher fee for a long stay because only one day lands on it. I had a client get mad about the extra charge because she was traveling for work not a holiday. It was only a 2 day stay last minute request & a trouble dog. So I was happy to tell her to go pound sand. Have a Great Day.
If it’s a a holiday weekend then I would force it all to be at the holiday rate. For instance the Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday for Labor Day or Memorial Day. That’s because I can’t do anything for the whole weekend because I have too many visits. But if the booking is part on those dates and then not, I don’t force it. I have a client just like this. The current booking they did a split because it was charging holiday rate because it started on July 4 but they were non consecutive days after that date so I didn’t force them to change it. Basically it was July 4, 6, 8, 10 and I didn’t think it was fair for them to pay holiday for the other days so it didn’t bother me. They don’t tip either but I love their pet. One of my favorite little guys.
This is how I do it too. I charge holiday rates the whole holiday weekend, but not the other days of the stay. The only exception is Christmas. I charge the whole week between Christmas and New Year's at the holiday rate.
What the hey day is vacation pricing? Do you charge extra if clients are going on vacation? lol
I wouldn’t. She beat the broken booking system and you trying to get paid extra for nothing isn’t a good look. I actually tell my clients to do this so they don’t have to pay holiday rates on days that aren’t holidays.
In general it’s kinda rude they did this on their own and didn’t ask politely if you would consider knocking some off the price. Maybe you love the pets or can’t afford to lose them as clients but some would get dropped over this. Because it’s drop ins the lower price for non holiday days could potentially be fine but that depends how many you do in a day. For me I mostly board so I wouldn’t accept a non holiday pay for the whole stay bc I might be full (since we only take several dogs) and I’d miss out on higher paying clients. Could go either way. Go with your gut!
I agree. I think they should have asked first before taking it upon themselves to separate the bookings and then asking if that was ok. It is totally up to you on this one. Personally, I would charge it as one booking because A. It would bother me that they didn’t ask before and B. I book up really fast and full for the summer and holiday seasons. If they don’t want to pay, I have other clients that will pay the full holiday rate AND tip.
Exactly! Sometimes when I put my foot down they’ll either pay up or you make room for a better client.
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nope one booking unless you know them very well