Owner Bookings

Owner Bookings

Our business started with us letting out our own family holiday home, and we understand that most of our owners will want to use their home for personal use – some more than others. Many of our owner's book dates well in advance if they know they want to reserve specific dates, and then also book other dates at the ‘last minute’ if they haven’t been booked by guests. HomHero (our booking system) allows you to book dates for yourself. See Owners Portal for details of how to make bookings.

Making Holiday Rental a success involves quite a few parties working collaboratively together. In particular, this involves you (as the Owner), us (as your Letting Agent) and your Cleaner. Please help us to ensure the success of your home by adhering to the following guidelines.

 

Assumptions for Owner Bookings

When you join our group and we send you access instructions for HomHero, we explain our assumptions. These are essential for the smooth management of your home, and we are not able to effectively manage it if these are not followed:
  1. Book: Please DO NOT go to your home without making a booking. We (and the cleaner) cannot manage your home if we’re not aware of who is coming and going from your home.
  1. Check in/out: We assume you will not check in before 2pm (please note: peak summer period and other peak times, check in times are set as 3pm) and that you will check out by 10am. If you want to arrive early, or leave late, please book an extra night.
  1. Cleaning: When making your booking, please indicate if you will clean the home yourself. If we aren’t told, we assume a clean is required, and communication is automatically generated by HomHero to the cleaner.
  1. If you change your mind about whether a clean is required for your checkout, please give us 48h notice before the checkout date to allow the cleaner time to adjust their schedule.
  1. Less than 48h notice to alter cleaning requirements may mean cleaners are unable to schedule a clean or may charge a fee to alter their schedule at the last minute.
  1. Linen: Most owners will manage their own linen for their stay, and many have their own linen supply separate from Guest linen. If you are likely to require linen to be washed after your stay, please note the booking accordingly so we can pre-warn the cleaner.

Last Minute Bookings

HomHero will prevent you from creating a booking if check-in is within 48h. If you want to go to your home within that timeframe, please email or call us ASAP and we will confirm if your home is cleaned and ready for you. Please do not assume it is ready until/unless we have confirmed that for you. In most circumstances it will be fine, but please understand that there may be occasions that we cannot have the home cleaned if we haven’t been given 48h+ notice. Please refer to The Reality of Holiday Letting for more details.

Gaps between Guest bookings

Please be mindful of making Owner Bookings between gaps of Guest bookings, especially during School Holidays and Summer. Those periods are extremely challenging for cleaners, and they may not be able to provide cleaning before or after an Owner Booking during these times. If in doubt, please contact our office to check before inserting a booking in a gap during the busy periods.

Extending an existing booking

If you have a booking in place and want to extend the checkout date, please edit the booking in HomHero and don’t create a separate booking immediately afterwards. This is because each booking that is created in HomHero generates a cleaning job, and leads to lots of work in the background to confirm if a clean is required, contact the cleaner and cancel the cleaning, etc.


“I have an Owner booking this weekend & next weekend – Can I have 1 clean at the end?” The challenge with this scenario is that it is possible (if unlikely) that someone could book your home mid-week and arrive to a dirty home – a situation we want to avoid at all costs. We would of course do our best to arrange last minute cleaning, but it may cost you more than a regular clean, and our cleaners prefer some lead time to arrange their schedules (which is a reasonable expectation).

You have two choices:
  1. If you want to leave your home available for the (small) chance of a mid-week booking after your first stay, please ensure your home is left guest ready, or you have arranged the cleaners to come through.
  1. If you want to ensure there is only one cleaning cost for the two Owner Bookings, please cancel the second booking and edit the original booking to extend and cover both weekends.

Going to your home before a Cleaner does

We strongly recommend that we have a cleaner come through after every guest stay. There are a few reasons for this:
  1. If there are any issues following the guest stay, we are unlikely to be able to claim any costs. The 3rd party websites require that a cleaner go through before the next guests (yourselves included) and that any excess cleaning charges etc be on an invoice with an ABN that they can cross reference is for a legitimate business. Please refer to Claiming Funds From Guests for more details.
  1. We know from experience that ~90% of guests leave your home well, ~5% leave it better than yourselves even will, and ~5% don't leave it well. We're not talking damage, but just stand up and leave dirty dishes etc. It's off-putting to see that in-person for your own home. It's the cleaner's job to bring those 5% of stays up to the standard where you can walk in and be comfortable. Please refer to The Reality of Holiday Letting for more details.
If you insist, we can of course allow you into your home before a cleaner comes, but we want you to be aware that it means you take the risk (albeit a small one) that you won't be able to claim funds in the event it is required.


Owner & Owner Friend Booking vs Guest Booking

An Owner / Owner Friend Booking is defined as one where no money changes hands. If someone is using your home for zero dollars, please put that through as an Owner Booking or an Owner Friend booking. These bookings will not generate access instructions, and we assume that any issues encountered during the stay will be dealt with by the Owner. This is treated on an ‘honour system’ - if money is changing hands (and you’d like us to provide support for guests), we ask that you put the booking through us.

Discounts to Family/Friends

If you want to give a discount to a family member or friend, that is no problem. Just let us know what the discount is and put us in touch with the ‘guest’ and we’ll do the rest. There are several ways to offer a discount to a family member or friend. You can offer them XX% or $XX off the full rate, or a total cost of $XX. Please note that if you quote them a total cost of $XX, some costs such as booking fees, State Government Levy, etc will need to come out of this before your rental is calculated. Our commission is percentage based and will be calculated off the lower Base Rental amount – we're comfortable with this arrangement and will provide the standard support and communication that a full-fee guest receives.

How to leave your home

If you have arranged for the cleaner to come after your stay, please be mindful that the cleaner knows this was an owner booking, and as a sign of respect for them, please leave the home in a reasonable state. We have had cleaners get quite upset (and stop servicing a home) if owners consistently leave their home messier than paying guests.

If you opt out of having a cleaner come after your stay, the home must be left ‘guest ready’ when you depart. This means you need to assume the cleaner will not come to your home before your next paying guests, and the home is ready for them to check in. This means:
  1. The home is cleaned to a suitable level
  1. Consumables are left out for the guests
  1. 2 rolls of toilet paper/toilet, 1 coffee pod per person your home sleeps, dishwashing liquid, clothes washing liquid/powder, etc. Please refer to Consumables for more details.
  1. Leave out Fixed linen but not optional linen:

     Fixed Linen

      Optional Linen (do not leave out)

  1. Doonas & Doona covers
  1. Fitted & Flat sheets
  1. Pillows (without covers)
  1. Pillowcases
  1. Pillow protectors
  1. Bath Towels
  1. Mattress Protectors

  1. Tea-Towels

  1. Hand-towels

  1. Bathmats

Please refer to Linen for more details.


Owner Booking, No Clean Required, Guest’s arriving within 48h

As an owner, your HomHero Portal will not include information as to whether a guest books optional linen. However, if you have an owner booking (without a clean required) departing within 48h of a guest booking commencing, please contact our office (on info@pihh.com.au or 9443 7538) before you depart your home, to check if the next guests require optional linen. If so, it would be appreciated if you can get that linen out for the guests, so the cleaner doesn't need to make a special last-minute trip.



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