Advice on pricing, second room, and additional people please!

[Cat24]

Just got my listing fired up and I'm confused about the best way to make my pricing clear and as automated as possible while showing up in the appropriate search results. Any recommendations much appreciated so I can avoid confusion or being taken advantage of by guests. Here's the situation:

I have two bedrooms on the main level, each sleeps up to two adults. I want to show up in search results for solo travelers and couples looking for just one room (about $75-$90 a night) as well as groups of 3-4 who need a second room or two people who each want privacy. I do not want to rent out each room separately as that's more listings and communications to manage as well as less privacy and more coming and going that could disturb the other guests. I've added a fee for additional people so that if a group of 4 books they automatically see the price for the second room included. And I've written out in the description in several places that the listed price is for up to 2 people in the first bedroom and an additional fee of $70 will be added if they want to also use the second bedroom. I don't want 4 people showing up thinking they're getting a total bargain and I don't want two people showing up and messing up both rooms.

Based on what I've read in here so far it sounds like I can send a "special offer" to make any necessary price adjustments in keeping with what my listing spells out.

Have I covered all my bases here? Again, I want to have the most likely scenarios be as automated and clear as possible while not leaving too many loopholes for a dispute. Thanks in advance!

[Michael477]

Hi @Cat24:

Forget "special offers"...big trouble and no guest will take the time to ask if (s)he can't understand.

Actually you have only one listing... that means, one single guest in one bed of one room will block your calender

Long story short, my suggestion:

Build three listings

1. Room 1, pricing for one person + extra person/extra price
2. Room 2, pricing for one person + extra person/extra price
3. Complete home/room 1 + room 2, procong for three people + extra person/extra price

The advantage: You can rent 1... 4 pax, 1...2 rooms.

Disadvantage: Whenever you rent room 1 or room 2 you need to blockl manually calender 3, you will have to block manually calender 1 + 2 whenever you have a guest for complete home (3)

Best flexibility.

regards

Michael

[Raffaele-and-Astrid0]

Hi @Michael477

I don't understand why Airbnb don't let guests select the number of rooms, and the host have to create for each room one listing, with the all related problems for the host to manage (as  manual sync of the calander.) 

for me is a mistery.. 🙂

Cheers Raf

[Cat24]

Thank you for the advice. Unfortunately that's exactly what I was trying to avoid needing to do. I can't understand why Airbnb hasn't accounted for this better.

[Paul154]

I gave a thumbs up to michael for Best solving Cat's dilemma.

But would like to add one more consideration for Cat.

Cat, do consider renting out your 2 rooms to 2 different parties - it may not be as stressful as you think!

That is the beauty of Airbnb, people don't have the expectation that they will get a private bathroom, nor do they believe that they will be the only guests in the house.

You will make more income, so that you can afford more care for renting out 2 rooms at a time.

I do respect your choice to do as you please, if renting out only one room keeps your life low stress than continue on.

[Alysoun0]

This suggestion seems to apply best for my situation as well.  It seems to me that the other thing we need to do in this scenario is turn off instant booking.  Am I right?

[Raffaele-and-Astrid0]

Hi @Cat24

I think your listing is fine how did you set.
if you have 1 or 2 guest, they get one room, if are 3 or 4 they get 2 rooms with the extra price, so till here it's work.

... but if you want 2 single guests that get 2 rooms (as friends traveller), I think that with Instant Booking it never gonna work, because the guest can book for 2 pepole and that's it.

I don't now if Airbnb during the booking process asking how many rooms the guest would like to have, (as booking.com for example) so in that case your are good, but if isn't like this you have to turn off the IB option, and deal with the guests case to case, or create the second listing.

anyway,  just wait some others Host more experienced with IB.

good luck

Cheers Raf

[Michael477]

Hi @Raffaele-and-Astrid0:

>think your listing is fine how did you set<

You are wrong. Please only help others, if you are shure about your statement:

>if you have 1 or 2 guest, they get one room, if are 3 or 4 they get 2 rooms with the extra price, so till here it's work.<

If one room is booked, @Cat24 's home is blocked in the calender and noone can book room 2.

Please check or try yourself!

Regards

Michael

[Raffaele-and-Astrid0]

Hi @Michael477

no I'm not wrong.

Cat specified: "I do not want to rent out each room separately as that's more listings and communications to manage as well as less privacy and more coming and going that could disturb the other guests"

So, for what she ask, the listing is set right.
Please read carefully before tell to the others that are wrong. thank you. 🙂

Cheers Raf

[Michael477]

@Raffaele-and-Astrid0: Please excuse me..... I was wrong. Must have overread that part as hundreds of similar requests are poppong up here 😞

Sorry again!

Michael

[Raffaele-and-Astrid0]

hi @Michael477

It's ok no worries! 😉

cheers Raf

[David126]

I have looked at your listing.

I notice you have no check out time and a very generous check in time.

The details of how you want to operate are in the description and as you will find many people do not read that far.

There is also an illogicality in that it is cheaper for 3 people, two in one room, one in the other than it is for two people, one in each room.

[Cat24]

I set a check out time of noon, or at least I thought I did! Yikes! I'm already getting frustrated with how Airbnb is set up. But this is all very helpful and I appreciate your feedback so I can avoid mistakes!

[Cat24]

You're totally right and that's because of the pricing options it gave me. I was thinking the price difference for the third person in the second room could be reconciled using the special offer option but now that seems less ideal. Maybe I just need to make that as clear as possible. I was trying to optimize for the most likely scenarios and really want to keep all the communication and eventually any reviews I get under the same listing. 

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

Personally, I would write a description for each scenario: 

1. 1-2 people, one room, price for one room with extra person fee for 2 people 
2. 1-4 people, two rooms, price for 2 rooms with extra person fee for every guest after the first 1

Then if 2 people show up who are only renting one room, just shut the door to the second room. Now sure why anyone would think they are entitled to both rooms.   If they, by chance, mess up the second room, you can send them a Resolution Center request for the difference from scenario 1 to scenario 2.  

This, to me, is more clear than the explanation in your listing details.  Guests are going to ask a lot of questions about it as is, which is what you are trying to avoid.   Also, it doesn't allow guests to search for your listing exactly if they only want 1 room - your property will get buried in the search results.