Late Pick-Up Fees?

I make pick up time very clear during the meet and greet but then I am also extremely flexible with those. But if a dog was dropped off early in the AM and the owner needs a late pick up, I might charge a day of daycare but most of my clients are regulars or quickly become regulars so I allow for some wiggle room on pick up times. I also will not loose a whole booking because an owner needs a late pick up or for the 20$ I would get for the daycare booking , I just happily accommodate them.

But if a client shows up much later than the agreed upon pick up time and doing so without texting me or calling me to explain, I would like to be able to charge for late pick up on Rover but the platform does not allow to add up-sales or add on's during a stay, same thing in the event that a client thought they would pick up their dog but later on during the stay that they would like it if I drove their dog back to them instead, or if a dog needs grooming mid-stay. All very frustrating for us sitters.

The whole idea is to find out at the beginning, when the booking is being made, what time the dog will be dropped off and picked up so that adjustments can be made for overtime charges. Aside from weather-related delays, most of my customers know when they'll return because there are flight schedules. I give them a bit of leeway (2 hours or so) but will amend the booking as necessary to account for the time their dog will be in my care. However, if a dog is with my all day (early dropoff and late pickup), they are charged for another whole day.

Make it clear to customers when their dog needs to be picked up and that they will have to pay for another day (or portion thereof) if pickup is later.

Another sitter posted recently that Rover prefers you use the "nightly" charges to add on fees because of insurance. So I would recommend using that method before a booking is finalized and then the adjustment line if you are prorating your nightly charge. If a dog isn't picked up as scheduled and it is more than 2 hours (or whatever you determine needs a "late fee" then use the Extend the stay feature (with any cost reductions on the adjustment line) and tell the customer it needs to be paid before Fido can be picked up.

Once the customer understands about the length of time, there typically aren't any issues.

I have also been having an issue with this as I am a new sitter. I do my best to make the amount of hours they are paying for clear and to get a general sense of pick-up/drop-off times. however, i recently had a boarder the day before pickup say they meant to book for an extra day when i went to confirm pickup times. i had to extend the stay and just hope that on good faith they'd pay for the extra night. the gentleman ended up picking up the dog the night before instead. but I can't help but think what if he hadn't picked up the dog and hadn't paid for the new charge.

In the beginning if someone articulates to me that they will need to pick up their dog late then it's not an issue to me to stay up. With that said if someone leaves things open ended and doesn't respect that I have a life as well I'll ask that we extend the booking to the next day and they can pick up their dog after 9 am.