I paid 80 dollars for a 2 night stay. I chose Oct 21-23 on the calendar since I would be picking my dog up on Sunday at 3:30. Should this have been a 2 night stay Oct 21-22 or a 3 night stay Oct 21-23?
Rover's stated policy for both boarding and housesitting is that each nightly charge is for "up to" 24 hours. The clock starts running when you drop off your dog. Since you didn't supply your dropoff time--only your pickup time--you would only pay for two nights if you dropped your dog off at 3.30 pm or later on Oct 21. Depending on the amount of time over 24 hours, you could be subject to a daycare charge or even another full night. Let's say you dropped off your dog at 8 am on Oct 21, a sitter should be charging you a daycare charge for 8 am - 3.30 pm on Oct 23rd. This is why owners and sitters need to establish the dropoff and pickup times at the time of booking to ensure proper billing. Finally, all sitters here work for themselves and may have different ways of billing, another reason why it is important to discuss these things at the time of booking.
I recently had a stay from a referral. The dogs stayed an extra night. When I tried to bill her for the extra night, she responded with, "Thanks for the offer but not needed." Not sure why she misunderstood. I let her slide this time but I will add a billing paragraph to my profile and messages.
Oct 21-23 is correct for 2 nights....picking up on day 3, after the overnight of day 2 is complete. The pick up/drop off times should be agreed upon with your sitter during the meet & greet, before booking. It is different for each sitter, but for me the stay runs in 24 hour increments....so if I am to arrive at noon on the first day, I leave at noon on the last day, and I plan/book other clients around that. Many sitters view overnights as a 12 hour period....for example, 8 pm to 8 am the following morning.
I do "per night." So Oct 21-23 would be two nights, even if the stay started at 8am and ended at 11pm, I would still only charge two nights.
Were you charged more than you were expecting? It's good to go over pick up and drop of times with your sitter. I've had clients offer to pay for an extra day because of an early arrival/late departure, but typically I charge based on each "night" and not a 24 hour period.
I charge this way also Christine. Travel plans can be delayed for many reasons. As long as they pick up by our human bedtimes, I am very lenient with pickup/drop off times. The only exception would be if I had plans that would be interrupted with an inconvenient time.
I had an owner tell me as he was walking to his car after dropping off his dog say "oh by the way our flight got changed so we won't be able to pick him up til 11 pm. Is this okay?" His children were also in the car waiting for their Dad to return. I said "okay." And I learned a valuable lesson!!
I have been charging with an additional day care session, if dog has been dropped in the AM and not being picked up till late pm that a whole other day..Ive been charging that way, and its very accepted..