Setting shown in listing "Extra guests: No charge" is misleading!

Setting shown in listing "Extra guests: No charge" is misleading!

I'm sure the reference to no charges is well meant but in reality it is extremely stressful for many hosts. That's because it acts as inadvertent open-door invitation for guests to bring along more than they booked for!

 

According to my own private 'survey' of friends, acquaintances, almost all of them thought it meant exactly that.

Book an apartment and invite as many as fit because "hey, we brought along a ton of air mattrasses or we'll all pile into the 2 available beds!"    

 

Almost every time I react to somebody on the community complaining of dishonest guests they had that setting on their listing. 

 

 

There used to be a way to trick the software into having that setting disappear completely, but it doesn't work anymore.

 

I suggest the statement could be: "Extra Guests: No exceeding maximum number guests"    

or  "Extra Guests: Contact host"     or simply have the option to leave it out completely.

7 Comments
Paul4
Level 10

Or "Extra Guests: Not Allowed

Linda108
Level 10

The City regulations of La Quinta, CA, limit the number of guests to the number of beds up to 8.  Therefore if I have one bed I can have two guests.  There cannot be extra guests, so I am uncomfortable with the current extra guests: no charge.

Louise0
Level 10

Agree it's misleading and annoying and that field should just disappear. Currently, the best way of discouraging those who think it's an invitation to travel with 20 of their besties and a truckload of airmattresses is as follows.

 

Say your maximum capacity is 4 and you charge the same flat rate regardless of the number of guests from 1 to 4.  Set your maximum capacity to 5 and apply an extra guest charge of $10,000 for any guest after 4 😉

 

Wyatt
Host Voice Admin
Status changed to: Popular

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This is really critical. Like many hosts, our large home is on several listing sites. We ONLY have over-occupancy problems on AirBNB. With new regulations in our community, a neighbor can count their cars, phone the sheriff, and law enforcement can come kick them out on the spot. Kind of important not to mislead the guests.

 

We price our home the same whether it is 1 or 12 guests (its huge and costs the same to clean all that square footage).  But I understand why those renting rooms only might want to add a per-guest fee.

I would change this language so the guest can select:

This host's price includes up to X guests (including children).

Additional Guests are $Y per night (remove if this doesn't apply).

Maximum number of Z guests, (including children).

Wei-and-Ting0
Level 10

THERE'S A WORKAROUND!

 

We have had to explain that phrase to a number of guests, and in one instance someone actually brought extra people and gave us a nasty review over it after being informed in person that it's not allowed.

 

Anyways here's the workaround I'm currently using: say your limit is 2 guests, but don't want to charge extra for the second person. In your price settings, go to extra charges, and in additional guests, set a price for additional guests after 2, and voila, "Extra guest: no charge" is gone from your listing page. Since people can't actually choose more than 2 people, they will never get charged or even see that charge (actually they still can on the mobile app but not on the website as far as I can tell).

 

I understand Airbnb is trying to make such listing standout by highlighting the value on offer, but the phrasing is problematic. 

 

Just curious what was your old trick that stopped working?

Tim-And-Jacqui0
Level 1

Why has Airbnb not done anything to change this yet? I have just listed my bnb and I physically can't have more people in my house than the number stated but it looks like people who book a room can turn up with as many extra people as they want. This isn't right and needs to be removed from the page. The workaround mentioned in the last post hasn't worked for me so now I'm worried that a multitude of people are going to be turning up to stay in my house for free.