Number of guests

[Gigi76]

My house is listed as a Max of 16 - the guest has requested one guest on the initial contact (has no previous reviews so I suspect just new to this...) and after I accepted he commented that "He looks forward to spending the holidays with his large family".  So I inquired and he said there would be 22 of them.   As some of them are children I am not as worried about the 22 people as I am the time it will take to change all the linens etc.  Can I either charge a larger cleaning fee or increase the nightly fee to compensate for the additional guests?

[Susan151]

@Gigi76. No, you can't charge more cleaning for more people. You didn't set your listing to charge more per person so you will probably be "stuck" with the $400 per night. However, if this is just a request, you might be able to negotiate some extra money for the guest count over 16. Will be a slightly tricky dance, but I bet you can pull it off.

[Gillian19]

@Gigi76 I would be contacting Airbnb and cancelling the booking. They booked for one, not 22. Your property has a maximum of 16. Stick with the maximum.

[Kath9]

@Gigi76, given that they didn't let you know until after you accepted the booking that it will be 22 people, you are well within your right to charge for the extra guests. Explain to them that you accepted the booking based on 1 person and weren't aware that they were bringing 6 more than the maximum number. State that the maximum is normally 16 people, so they may either cancel the booking or agree to pay an additional fee for the extra people. Alternatively, as @Gillian19 said, you could contact Airbnb and ask them to cancel the booking based on the misleading number of guests.

[Inna22]

@Gigi76 I generally agree with @Kath9 advice except I would not say you were expecting one person. You clearly have a large house so it would be silly to book for one. Do you say maximum 16 or 16+? If it says 16+ I am afraid you are stuck with them. I list my maximum capacity (which is more than 16) in several places throughout my listing.

[Lisa723]

@Gigi76 you accepted a booking for ONE person. If that person wants to change the reservation they can request to do so, and you can accept/deny or change the terms. Otherwise if they show up with more than one person they are in violation of the reservation agreement and you can deny them entry. Not suggesting that's a good outcome, just setting context.