Early check-in and late checkout: What are they and how to manage them?

If you have never dealt with early check-in or late checkout during the time you have been managing tourist apartments... consider yourself really lucky. The truth is that it is very common for Airbnb guests to need one of these two options to enter or leave your accommodation. But first, let's define what these two concepts are.

What are early check-in and late checkout?

The early check-in is an extra service you can offer to your guests in which they can, if agreed, arrive before check-in time. For its part, late checkout consists of allowing your guests to leave later than the maximum check-out time.As we said at the beginning, it is possible that your guests had arranged to meet some friends before entering your apartment... and they have been stood up. Instead of walking up and down the street with all the luggage, they call you to do an early check-in. However, you have not yet finished cleaning the accommodation. What can you do?Or maybe your guests' return flight has been delayed and now they have more hours ahead of them before leaving. Instead of waiting 6 hours at the airport, they ask you to leave later or have a late checkout. You, on the other hand, need to clean and prepare your Airbnb for the next guest. What can you do?As you can see, early check-ins and late checkouts are very stressful situations for both guests and hosts. You just have to take a look at the debates in the Airbnb community. Next, we explore some tips that can better prepare you for these situations.

Minimize unnecessary early check-ins

If dealing with unexpected early check-ins is already tough - like the ones we mentioned in the examples - don't volunteer for unnecessary early check-ins. Don't offer this service directly in your ad. It's the quickest way to lose your head as an Airbnb host. Imagine managing early check-ins at 9 or 10 in the morning every day. Coordinating and being effective with these early check-ins is complicated with one or two apartments. Imagine the difficulty with more! So, be very precise about how you communicate check-in or arrival instructions in your ad. A good example would be something like "check-in time is from 4 pm". In this example, there's no ambiguity. Of course, if you're doing in-person check-ins, it's recommended to set a time range (for example, from 4 pm to 9 pm) to avoid nighttime check-ins. Or even better, you can use a smart lock system that allows you to do remote check-ins. This way, regardless of whether your guest arrives at 4 pm or 3 am, as long as it's not an early check-in, they can arrive autonomously.

Store luggage for guests with early check-ins and late checkouts

Your guests will bring luggage and suitcases. If they also come from afar, there will most likely be a lot of luggage. Whether they want to do early check-ins or late checkouts - or simply arrive earlier or leave later - your guests will appreciate if you allow them to leave their suitcases somewhere, even if it's just for a few hours. This will improve your Airbnb ratings. If you have space in your tourist accommodation, you can use lockers with locks so that they can leave their luggage there.

Recommend what to do or where to go while

Now that they're no longer weighed down with luggage, you can surprise them by going even further: What will they think of your accommodation if you also recommend what to do to kill the free time they have until they can check-in?

Recommend things they can do, bars or restaurants where they can eat something, places to see, etc. This is a great option to make a good first impression on those guests with early check-in or late checkout.‍

Do you know how much you can save if you allow the autonomous arrival of your guests? Discover it with the auto check-in savings calculator. Download it for free.