Extra Fee? Guest informs me via the app after one night that her boyfriend surprised her

[Sofia496]

Hello everybody!

I am new to hosting. I don't have any reviews yet for my current listing. I have a guest who booked for 5 nights. One night passed and she informs me via the app that her boyfriend surprised her and there will be two people living in the apartment now. The boyfriend will stay for four nights.

I rent the entire apartment which accomodates four guests. She booked the apartment for one person only.

I have changed the listing multiple times since she booked adding new rules and increasing the cleaning fee and adding extra charge for extra people. 

What is the process for claiming an extra fee, since an undocumented person arrives? Is the money worth to maybe get a worse review?

[Mike1034]

@Sofia496You may not want to charge extra guest fee if there was no fees for extra guest after one when she booked your place.

If you are sure that there was a fee for extra guest, you could use Request Money button in their booking confirmation page to get the money. If the guest agrees to pay, she will accept it. Otherwise, you have to go back to Resolution center to involve Airbnb after 72 hours.

[Pat271]

 Hello, the below is just my style; other hosts may have other viewpoints.

1) It would have been nice if the guest would have asked you instead of told you, but your max limit is 4 - do you really have a problem with 2?  With your particular guest circumstance, I would go ahead and pretend she “asked”, and accept her boyfriend.

2) I would not impose extra fees for extra guests over 1 if your max is 4.  Extra fees such as this tend to rub guests the wrong way.  You may be better off just raising your price a bit, or raising the cleaning fee a bit, to accommodate the extra cleaning you might have to do sometimes.  Also watch it with “extra rules”, which are also a turnoff to guests.  A handful of clear, concise rules using a friendly tone should be adequate.

The above are especially crucial due to the fact that you are brand new with no reviews.  You might do better to bend a little farther than you might have normally done for a while.  Those first few reviews are crucial.

As you get more happy guests and 5-star reviews, you can adjust to a more firm style if you feel compelled to, and if the market will bear it.  Always keep the current supply/demand state of your area in mind.

[Anonymous]

@Sofia496  When your guest booked the apartment, the listing indicated that there was no charge for additional guests. Ethically speaking, fees and rules that you added to the listing later shouldn't apply retroactively to existing bookings, so in my opinion it would be inappropriate to charge this guest an additional fee at this point. 

However, I do recommend altering the booking to reflect the correct number of people in the property.

You might consider adding a rule stating that only registered guests are permitted to enter the property. No matter what your maximum capacity is, you're by no means required to allow any number of "surprise boyfriends" into the apartment on a 1-person booking 

[Sofia496]

Thank you Mike, Pat and Andrew for the advice. I left out an important detail: I co-host the place and I get paid for this. 

I want the reservation to reflect the addition of the extra person even if that doesn't mean more money. The reason is I want to be covered in case the host  blames me. I have tried to change the reservation, so did the guest, but no luck. It said that reservation had already started and that i cannot alter the number of guests. Is there a way to do it? In another forum, someone said that I should change it so that the host can be covered in case of Host Protection Guarantee. 

Honestly, I do not care so much for the extra fee (if it was there or not to begin with. The guest changed her reservation three times). The problem is that the owner will not let me hear the end of it when she finds out (which she will as she lives on site and has friends living on opposite buildings and they will notice and tell her. The place has a huge balcony, a huge asset for the place.) 

[Sandra126]

Talk to the host and tell her your reasoning. That way she will be in the loop before her friends tell her.

[Linda108]

You, like so many of us learn as we go and develope processes and rules because guests present us with something we had not anticipated.  I agree, @Sofia496 that you should not focus on extra payments and instead focus on the guest experience.  If you were staying someplace wonderful and your special person showed up, would that not make you happy?  Some hosts will find this to be some scam the guest did to get something for nothing, but since there were no rules about extra guests or extra costs, she was being responsible in telling you about her boyfriend.

[Sarah977]

@Sofia496  I would venture a guess that her boyfriend didn't "surprise" her- that it was planned all along. But I'd echo what the other hosts said, that on this one, just let it go, and beef up the rules and extra guest charges in the future. 

But be cautious also in the future about giving in to guests' sense of entitlement or demands just because you might think it will lead to a good review. The guests who have you bending over backwards to accommodate their special requests tend to leave bad reviews no matter what you do for them.

[Dimitar27]

You should always be prepared for a reservation change. Of any kind. Extra people, extension, cancellation....just any. The reservation ends when your guest checks-out.

[Mykola3]

It makes no sense to charge more for more number of guests as they consume the same amount of residence. Say her that everything's all right and don't be  greedy.

[Sarah977]

@Mykola3  Really? 2 people don't use up more hot water, more toilet paper, more towels, more soap, create more garbage? Then they both likely have their separate devices plugged in and charging, so more electricity as well. Two people definitely cost more to host than one. What makes no sense is thinking there are no extra costs involved.

[Lisa723]

@Sarah977 @Mykola3  ... or calling people names.

[Sofia496]

Thank you Sandra, Sarah, Lisa, Dimitar and Linda for the advice. I will make a note of your advice.

As for the namecalling from Mycola, the only thing that I have to say is that he judges others by the way he is. 

The owner has told me she prefers to host lone wolves travellers. There had been an incident in an airbnb in our neighbourhood last weekend. A couple had sex on the balcony at 23:00 in front of their bedroom with the light on. 23:00 is not late on a hot Sunday night (27 degrees) when people are sitting at their balconies. The host wants to avoid issues like this. 

[Sarah977]

@Sofia496  The host is certainly welcome to only host solo travelers, that's what I do as well.

But I think that couple having sex on the balcony was just a one-off- it's not the sort of thing that 99.9% of couples are going to do. For that matter, a single guy could stand out on the balcony pleasuring himself in full view of the neighbors, if that was what turned his crank.

[Sofia496]

I believe that this incident is not the norm but the next day the owner freaked out thinking that this might happen to our listing! She lived there for decades.