Extra (hidden) guests

[Denise1145]

I have a guest who snuck in two extra guests (including a young child - our property listing states it is unsuitable for under 12yo). Our property is suitable for two guests only. There is just one double bed.  When she left we challenged her on this, (we live on the same property) and she apologised and said to invoice her for the extra guests. We did this. The next day she messaged saying she felt it was very unfair that we charged her extra as a) she treated our property respectfully and b) she had given us Instagram exposure (un-asked for). And was also upset as she normally gets accommodation for free in exchange for her Instagram posts. She never asked for free accommodation, and we never talked about or agreed to any deal around this.

The time has now expired for her to pay her extra guest charges. It feels like we've wasted enough time and energy on this already. Do we pursue the extra guest charge through Airbnb? It's not a huge amount of money. Do we just write her a bad review?

Grateful for your thoughts.

[Huma0]

@Cave0 

I don't know how it is these days with all the delays and issues surrounding customer services, but in the past I have also found that Airbnb will cancel a reservation involving unauthorised guests.

I had a long-term guest who appeared to have someone stay over without my permission while I was away. I asked her politely about it, she denied it and became very hostile. At the same time, she asked me if her friend could come and stay in the room for one month for free. I said politely said no (she was a lot of trouble and I didn't need double trouble!). She then made up a bogus complaint about something random, calling Airbnb about it minutes after I refunsed to let her friend 'move in', as she put it.

Anyway, Airbnb absolutely agreed with me that the guest should leave given that 1. It seemed pretty obvious to them that she had snuck someone else in and 2. She was asking for someone else to 'move in'. They said I was generous to refund her for the rest of the stay, but I just wanted her out. I wonder how it would have gone if I was not willing to refund her or only partially refund her though...

The thing is that, even if you get a knowledgeable, helpful rep in the first instance, once something gests escalated, passed around to different case managers etc. the outcome is anyone's guess, regardless of Airbnb's policies. I think in these circumstances, it's better to just be rid of the problem guest and take the financial loss for the unspent nights.

Luckily, in this instance, I was able to fill those nights with a booking from a lovely, repeat guest, whom I have since become friends with, but didn't know that when I decided to terminate the other girl's stay.

[Denise1145]

The only disappointing thing for us though, was that because we mentioned 'Instagram' in our review of her, Airbnb of course blocked out that word.  But hopefully most hosts will read between the lines!  Next time (hopefully there is not one) we would write 'internet' instead of Instagram.

[Sarah977]

@Denise1145 "Social media"  would be well understood.

[Cave0]

@Denise1145 Well Denise, as it happens, I had one "young lady" and her beau who came to stay, along with a few friends that weren't announced, and I called Airbnb and had the reservation cancelled and then assisted them with an early checkout.

The "young lady" later took to her Twitter account and she wrote "Just been kicked out of the Airbnb.  It's not the first time and I guess it won't be the last"

No reference was made to where she actually had been staying nor did she attempt to leave a review.

However, what was most telling, and is possibly disturbing, is that her behaviour would appear to be almost the norm, given her comments on Twitter.

For this reason I don't put up with this kind of thing, it's not fair on me and I don't feel that I should turn a blind eye to it, which is basically condoning behaviour which will be repeated with another host in the future, maybe one who is less able to deal with it and who may be distressed by the event.

[丽萍0]

@Denise1145 Oh she is not too bad. You know what we had? A girl booked as 'one person' and smuggled 7 people! Some of them don't have valid documents! That's why when Airbnb didn't do anything, telling us to call policy, they left without a fuss because they don't want to be deported. It was such a strange thing to see at least 14 pairs of shoes and sleeping blankets on the floor. We are host from 2013...