Clarify guest booking numbers

[Peter0]

We need a better way to categorise guest numbers. My room is a double bedroom. So normal use is for two. Most of the summer I have 3s and 4s with one or two children on mattresses. But I then get 4 single adults trying to book and it's almost impossible to get it to work. There could be a normal layout checkbox with higher numbers explained differently.

[Keith1]

I think the new feature where you could specify the bed configuration for a room should help the guests self select out listings that aren't suitable for their group.

I'm not sure how airbnb would implement this in a way that wouldn't make the search user interface very convoluted.

Any thoughts on how to present that so it's easy for users?

[Melanie58]

I think the easy way for customers, and a good way to get at the whole issue of people bringing extra children, pets, etc in their party is to have people say how many of each category are in their party:

How many pets?

How many children 0-2?

How many children 3-12?

How many persons 13+?

Then guests can't get away with saying they didn't think they needed to count this person as a guest because they were young/animal/etc.

People who disclose pets/young children etc on a listing that doesn't take them could get a reminder - hey - this listing doesn't take guests under age blah or more than 1 pet or whatever.

Then the owner could set an overall max # in the party, as well as limits for each category.  In my case I would set a limit of 5, with a max of 4 adults, no pets, and max of 3 children.  

[Louise0]

I wish there was a way of forcing guests to specify at the time of booking all the following - 

Age and names of each guest, designated room (eg Room 1, Room 2) and bed type required for each guest - eg share queen, non-share queen, single, cot, child's bed, air bed etc and a way of automatically calculating the total rate that would apply given the configuration requested.

This would go a long way to preventing -

Children turning up at a non-child friendly listing

'Surprise' guests who aren't included in the booking numbers 

Guests who intend exceeding the maximum legal room capacity

Guests who require additional services, eg two guests who won't share a bed

The end result would be - 

Hosts feeling less exploited, guests not feeling 'ambushed' with extra charges, CX not having their time spent sorting out disputes and handling resolution requests, more money for Airbnb as the extra charges would be folded into the upfront booking cost and therefore attract the hefty service fee.   It's a win win all round, so why wouldn't you do it?

[Frances18]

totally agree! this would solve an enormous number of problems and avoid awkward negotiations with guests