To find guests bringing dogs to our B&B without informing us beforehand unbelievably cheeky?

[Woolysheeps]

We run a B&B in a rural area in the Scottish Borders.
We do state we are 'pet friendly with additional charges' on booking platforms.
I would say 70% of our guests bring dogs but of this 70% only 10% actually inform us beforehand and enquire about charges and where the dogs are allowed etc. Most just turn up with their dog and walk right in. Some bring 2 or 3 dogs with them and don't bat an eyelid when I say 'you didn't inform us you were bringing a dog....'. Not a single guest who has brought a dog and not informed us has ever mentioned the additional charges specified online and aren't happy when we bring it up. It is making me want to remove the 'pets allowed' feature as I feel it is being abused.
So, my question is, if our booking platforms say 'pets allowed with additional charges', AIBU to expect to be informed beforehand? Would you inform a B&B beforehand if you were bringing your dog?

Make the price per night on booking.com inclusive of dogs and advertise rooms at your base rate on your own website with details of the additional rate as a separate charge.

Then assume anyone booking via booking.com is bringing a dog.

This should mean you get more direct bookings and spend less on fees with booking.com

“Dogs by prior arrangement only”

we went somewhere recently we’d booked ages ago when we had one dog, I contacted them as we now have two, they confirmed it was okay and I took the extra payment in an envelope. It’s good manners.

Not really sneaky though is it ? Because it’s there in black and white that there are additional charges - and if 10% can understand the listing sufficiently to enquire about those additional charges, why can’t others ?

Your wording isn’t clear. Blame the website and not the guests. YABU.

Edit - now read the OP's updates - never mind! nothing to see here.

What difference does it make if they tell you in advance? Surely you don’t need to do anything differently. Booking.com just says “pet friendly” charges aren’t even mentioned so it’s not obvious that you need to say in advance that you’re bringing a pet.

Can you not put each room separately on Booking.Com so that customers book a specific room, with some being dog friendly and others being dog-free? You could then charge a different rate for each type of room, and even charge different rates for bigger/smaller rooms?

That's something I see a lot on the private websites where B&B owners have their own website instead of relying on Booking.Com. On the website are the detailed pictures/specifications of each separate room, and you book the exact room you want, rather than it being allocated on arrival. That's always the kind of place I try to book first! I don't like surprises and am happy to pay a bit more for a nicer room with a view or a bigger bed, or whatever.

That way you'd attract both dog owners and non dog owners, those with dogs could book a "doggy" room, and those without could book a room they knew hadn't had dogs in it!

I have such detail on my listing, but people don’t read it. We charge a bit extra for a second guest and the amount of people who book for one person and then two people arrive. Our house rules are no pets and woman landed with two dogs which she tried to hide in the boot of the car until I went away, on airbnb you can set price for dogs. Then she tried to tell me she thought I was pet friendly. We have an additional charge for use of hot tub this is stated in our house rules and about 4 times on property listing and still people act stupid, thought that was included and try to avoid paying. So what I do now is once they have booked I send a messsge confirming that if second guest comes they must amend their booking and I re confirm that hot tub is not included and I ask them to confirm they have read the house rules!

I agree that 'pet friendly with additional charges' isn't clear enough. Are there further instructions on what to do if they want to bring pets? Is there an option when paying to add a pet? Just like you would for breakfast, a travel cot, etc. If not, perhaps the guests are expecting a surcharge upon arrival?

I expect if you put on your website, we are unable to accommodated unbooked pets please be aware of this before you make your booking - then have a special tab to tick so that they have agreed to not turn up without booking in each and every pet - they'd either book else where or book in each pet

We have people book a table at the pub for 5 people and then turn up with 5 adults and 2 children who need high chairs.... yet they don't count those 2 children as people and book a table for 7. Which on occasions we haven't been able to accommodate and had to turn them away or make them wait for an available table of 7 rather than 5

These days, people don't want extra/unnecessary communications. They want to be able to quickly book online, pay online and then just turn up. They don't want to have to phone/email/text the owner to pay extras, agree timings, etc. It's the way things are these days.

More and more holiday lets are now "human free", i.e. you are emailed the code for the key lock upon booking, let yourself in on arrival day, put the key back in the key lock on departure day. Even some B&Bs have gone that way with no-one on the premises to meet and greet etc - again, a code given to access your keys from a key store and a phone number for a local agent in case of problems.

Yanbu as it does state it on website, however as you're finding out alot of people don't look any further than it's dog friendly. Is there a way of when they're booking of adding a dog, like you add children and adults. Rather than them having to ring and inform you and having to pay for extra dogs on arrival as if it wasn't like that when booking I would assume they're free if there was no option to add a pet. It would make all additional charges known as when they add a dog it changes the price, makes it much easier and simpler. If they brought a dog after that then it would be beyond cheek.

Then how on earth are the guests being unreasonable?

You’re not being unreasonable, but I think you would be shooting yourself in the foot if you stopped allowing dogs.
maybe change the wording to “dogs permitted by prior arrangement only”

If cleaning is done properly between guests the next guest shouldn’t even know a dog had stayed there previously. I’ve never once had a complaint from a non dog owning guest about whether a dog had been in there previously.

We stayed in a cottage once that had clearly had a dog in it before due to the odour. It had been cleaned to within an inch of its life so I didn't complain as I didn't want to get the cleaners into trouble.

Unfortunately- as I know now we have a dog - their smell lingers unless you ventilate and clean thoroughly every single day.

OP, up until last year, Booking. com was the bane of my life. I had exactly the same issue re: dog charges- where I worked only allowed them in certain rooms but there was little or no option to state this plus the charge. Yes, we charged- we put out a blanket, a bowl and housekeeping would have an additional clean list if a dog had been in the room.

In the end, I set up a courtesy email saying something the lines of 'thank you for your booking, please bear in mind we only allow dogs in rooms x, y and z and there is a charge of x per dog. If you need to move your room free of charge to a dog friendly room, please contact us on xxxxxx'

I rang them to see if could add this to the listing- nope.

We don't use any accommodation (hotels, AIR bnb or b&bs) where dogs are allowed. The thought of a dog's bum being scraped over the carpet or sitting on the chair I'm going to use puts me off.

I just looked at a place I booked last year through booking.com.
The rooms are individually named. If you click on the room and then expand the room description there is a line stating the room is dog friendly and there is a £30 charge per dog. It is really easy to miss (on the app).

There was no one there when we checked in/out and I didn’t get charged the extra cost.

If you get that many not tell you, I'd just add the additional charges to every booking and return it to those that do not being a pet.

Or just add a fee to every booking to cover it.

Trouble is that on booking platforms, people filter by ticking boxes, so you have the option of ticking "pet friendly" or not. There's no option to tick a "dogs by arrangement" box. If someone ticks the dog friendly box, then they're going to assume the listings will show only dog friendly places, and not necessarily wade through the description/narrative/text/booking conditions to check.

It's not just what's visible. There's the smell (like smokers) that permeates into the fabric of the property, i.e. the curtains, wallpaper, soft furnishings, carpets, etc - the sort of things that aren't washed between visitors. We know immediately if a place has previously had a dog in it, just as we know if a previous guest has smoked. There's only so much ventilation you can do between guests and no amount of diffusers and air fresheners can hide such odours. The thing is that dog owners (like smokers) can't smell it themselves as they're accustomed to it.

Along with saying additional charges for dogs, you should state the actual charge per dog.
Then they have been informed of the additional charge.

Once they arrive, politely ask them for a cash payment for each dog.
Don't treat them like they are evading payment but rather treat them like they are staying because they are willing to pay the known additional charges; as if they are expecting to pay.

Pet friendly usually just means dog friendly. I wish sites would change this if that's what they actually mean. When we had an elderly cat that needed regular meds that we wanted to take away with us, we often were refused from 'pet friendly ' accommodation.

This isn't true as many would specifically avoid a pet friendly B&B
so they would lose dog owner custom but gain normal custom