You are very right in your comment, It is certainly not okay to bring more guests than the number that was paid for.
It is total dishonesty and very decietful. The majority of hosts work hard to bring the best possible experience for their guests regardless of what is charged. Hosts have their prices set on their websites and this is very clear to understand and to follow. This should be respected as everyone out there who are hosts are trying to be a succes and make a living.
Airbnb should have a policy that covers hosts in these situation when it occurs. It is nothing to do with greed at all it is to do with being fair and following and respecting the hosts house rules and conditions.
This has recently happened to ourselves twice that we are aware of. The first time it happened 2 guests were booked and the whole family/friends turned up and that was many more than our cottage has indicated capacity of 4. Unforntunately our cottage is self checking and we have service personel who look after it for us in France as we are in the UK. The service personel at the time did not check on this but we found out from our maintance person who has nothing to do with guests and he indicated that there wher a whole crowd of people turn up. Hence we found out this some number of months later....to late to make any claim with anyone. We soon discovered from our water bill etc that it seemed higher than usual later on.
This has also just occured again this last 2 weeks on another booking site whereby 2 guests were booked and 3 adults turned up so hence only paid for 2. This was checked by our new service personel and she referred to me immediately, hence we contacted the booking site pronto and after some emails to and fro and lots of going around in circles and disageements from both guest and booking site we got a solution. The booking site read all correspondance from everyone and came to the conclusion that the guest needed to pay the extra. The amount was taken out of the security deposit although this is not the usual practice the booking site said. So as you can imagine if the security deposit did not cover any extra guests who have not booked and turn up by surprise then the host misses out as there is no other back up in the booking sites poilcy to cover the additional out of pocket charges that have been incurred by the host. This can equate to quite a sum of money if it is added up.....extra electric, water (if teenages then thats a lot in the shower for long periods), washing & ironing charges and change over fees or adding your time if host do this themselves....but all equates to time is money if your running a business.
Then on top of that you have wear and tear, breakages and maintaince costs.
We have also had a few months ago had a breakage and maintaince issue with a guest breaking our shower unit, when our last previous service personel was employed, but it was not reported therefore we had to replace the whole shower at a cost to us of just under 1200 Euros.
So hence all guests should be accountable and pay for who stays and not cheat not on hosts.
Overall it is a pleasure to host those guests who respect the rules and our property and the fact that they enjoy their holiday is very satisfiy to hear.
Kerrie
