Paying for the Second Guest

[Mary742]

Be warned fellow hosts:  if you have a listing which is independent and self-contained, this may attract a guest who thinks no-body will see them bring in a second guest, or notice that they break house rules.  We've just seen the back of a guest who fronted up with an unregistered second guest, who refused to pay the second guest surcharge.  AirBnB Support Crew were great, helping us to try and recoup the surcharge through phone calls and messages.  Neither AirBnB Crew nor I could force her to alter the reservation, because the reservation had already started.  They nearly burnt the place down, cooking some large meal, despite the house rules of only small meals, there being a restaurant across the road open all day and every day.  So my husband and I learned that yep, in such cases, even the AirBnB crew can't enforce an extra payment for the extra guest.  So we evicted her and her second guest, with a clear utlimatum before-hand along the lines of:  "If you don't pay the second guest surcharge by such-and-such time, the premises will not be available for you for tonight," to which of course there was no response.  So we nicely packed their stuff into plastic bags, locked the side gate access to the premises and put their things on the front verandah for them to collect, despite their third and last night being paid for.  The third night's fee was the equivalent of the extra guest surcharge, so now we are all in balance.  We have to take justice into our own hands sometimes.  We cannot rely on AirBnB Support Crew to be of support, and this is understandable, as they are powerless after a certain point too, just like us as hosts.  We have to be vigilant, firm, business-like and sometimes quite drastic.  The guests finally picked up their bags late last night and they won't get refunded for their third night.....

[Patricia55]

@Mary742 

I like your style!

[Alison107]

I have a shared home, and, due to the number of guests who try to book as 1 guest but really have 2 guests, I changed my booking settings from auto book to manual booking. Now I can ask each and every single interested guest if it's just that one person, or more than one.  I can explain that it's $20 more for the extra guest. It is working out very, very well, finally!

[Alessandro64]

@Mary742 

I am astonished that you were able to put up such a stunt! don't you have housebreaking laws in your country ( i soooo envy you :)??? if i tried that in italy i would be sued for sure. And besides, the guests could alway say their Rolex collection disappeared and you would be in serious trouble!.....

[Jeremy-And-Shilo0]

Our solution to extra guests is to lock the two additional bedrooms with a lockbox. The master stays open, and we only provide the codes for the other rooms, if they pay for extra guests. It also keeps cleaning expenses down, and we're charged by the room. 

[Mel13]

Airbnb could have easily fixed this issue by applying the charge for the second guest.

Having a feature that allows charges that way, but that doesn't enforce it, when the payment side is completely in Airbnb's hands doesn't make good sense to me. Either don't have the ability to charge per guest if it can't be enforced, or do an enforce it. IMHO

~Mel

@tripmogul on Twitter and Instagram

[Lilly28]

@Mary742 @Alessandro64 

Airbnb cannot charge an additional fee for a guest once the booking has started. You can make the request for the charge before the check-in. 

80% of guests or even more - are not reding House rules - not in the listing, neither when you put them inside the house. As for additional guests - Mary, yes - more and more guests want as much as possible things free or for free! I very often had inquiry 2 persons to sleep in two different rooms - now I have a price for every person - although it is rather symbolic - and still guests want special offer!!!  

[Mary742]

Glad to hear it's not just me with guests breaking rules and being cheeky when it comes to the number of guests.  I guess it just makes us toughen up.  At first I legitimately thought the guest just made a simple mistake in the booking, as in a 'slip', but after asking her several times to make the change and no response, that's when I twigged.  Yeah, guests can be rather mischievous....!

[Mustafa38]

Goodness, reading through these posts has frightened me half to death, just registered for apt share. For let is a  large room, two single beds, house rules say no parties, no events, and no guests overnight, with breakfast provided, in a luxury residence, wondering now if I have made the wrong decision?

[Sarah977]

@Mustafa38   Reading your listing it appears that you are renting out a private room in the home where you live, correct? If so, you really don't have the worry about people having parties and trashing your house- that happens with entire place listings. And trying to sneak in an extra guest will also be a rare occurance, as it's pretty hard to sneak someone in when the host lives in the same unit. I only had that happen once, and she wasn't trying to sneak him in, as they made a lot of noise coming in at 3AM. She just didn't realize it was not acceptable, so you just have to make it clear to guests that they are not to have any visitors without first discussing and getting permission from the host (some hosts don't permit any visitors of guests at all, so you can also choose that approach). So the worst you'll probably have to deal with is messy guests, or ones who don't follow house rules like taking off their dirty shoes at the door, etc.

BTW, I would change your check-in time from flexible. Mine is actually quite broad, as I don't take back-to-back bookings, am usually home, so I am pretty flexible, but I state 11AM to 11PM check-in and 4 PM check out. If you state flexible, you could easily have guests thinking they can just show up at 5AM or 2 in the morning, without informing you. Set some times and if a guest has a flight or something that would get them in outside of those times, it's up to them to ask if you can accomodate an earlier check-in.

[Therese99]

I had a group of 5 or more stay when they had said 3  stay and made a compete mess with broken vodka and brandy bottels and cigarette butts and marijuana joints all over..Damaged table and linen. Airbnb did not help me out. Now I have a 2 night minimal stay policy and have not had any problems since then I usually communicate with the guests before they arrive.