What happened when extra guests appeared and you try to charge extra..

Catie9
Level 2
Singapore

What happened when extra guests appeared and you try to charge extra..

Hi all, I have 2 recent incidents where you will see the irony. What will you do in these situation?

 

Case 1:

I have a guest booking for a private room for 1 guest. But he mentioned he will stay to celebrate birthday. So I asked him, how many guests will there be? He said he invited 15 guests and only 2 will stay. This is outright breaking the rules. But my entire apartment has 4 rooms which can accommodate up to 16 guests. So after the conversation, I offered to change the number of guests to "15" and for "entire apartment" in the booking, and for which extra charge will be involved. He accepted  the change request but without realizing that he has to pay for extra. Once he realized that his card was charged extra for accepting the change request, he started throwing all the insulting words and said he will complaint and dropped bad reviews on me. Then guess what, next I received an email from airbnb saying that there is

Problem collecting payment for reservation

which basically means the guests do not have enough money on the card he used for payment in airbnb. So I called airbnb customer service. The airbnb case manager told me that the change request is now official, with or without the payment. And since the first payment (for 1 guest and 1 private room) is successful, the booking won't be automatically cancelled by airbnb even without them paying in full as well. And I can't refuse entry for all the 15 guests if I choose to proceed with the booking. So I have 2 options:-

1. cancel the guests as a host (Basically refunded all their previous payment) -- Airbnb would waive my penalty as a host, but that's like an "of course"?!

2. host all the 15 guests in the entire apartment for the price of 1 guest and 1 private room.

 

Of course you will choose option 1 in this case.

 

Now taking into this as a lesson learnt, here comes case 2

 

Case 2:

Yesterday, I had 1 guest checking in to another private room in my apartment. Again, the booking says "1 guest" and "1 private room". Then 7 of them appeared but in different time. The guest who booked didn't read that it's a private room and just assume it to be for the entire apartment. And he knew that the room can accommodate up to 6 guests but it would cost extra for extra guests. So he purposely just put 1 in the guest list. And he appeared first, thinking to sneaked in another 6 family members later after the check-in is done. But guess what, my cohost lives in the same apartment that night and so basically they can't do all the sneak-ins. Having no choice, they asked my co-host how much extra to pay for the extra guests. My cohost collected the extra payment in cash from them and prepared extra bedroom for the extra guests. Later, they msg me on airbnb expressing their unhappiness that we charged them extra. Basically pushing all the blame to us as a host to charge extra for extra guests and threaten to my cohost today that they are going to put bad reviews on my listing.

 

It's sad isn't it? For us as a host to be under constant threat from the guests who are trying to break the rules and use the reviews to threaten us. I knew airbnb wouldn't help, but I was trying my luck to call airbnb and asked if this can be documented and if they put bad reviews, is there anything they can do about it?

 

Instead of helping me on the review documentation part, which the case manager said there is nothing he can do. To my surprise, the case manager, said that I shouldn't have collected the extra money from the guests!!! He said that this is called dealing outside of airbnb and could be flagged by security team. Then I asked, would you collect for me then? He said "I could try but I can't guarantee that the guests would pay. And if they don't response to my payment request, there is nothing I can do about it". What?! So basically what he said is

1. I shouldn't collect the cash on my own. Let them do it

2. But if they fail to collect the money, it's not their problem and I can't hold it against them.

 

He even suggested that I shouldn't collect extra payment and should just let 7 of them stay since extra guests fee is not indicated in this reservation. Which is like.. duh?! Of course it wouldn't reflect in this booking because the guest did not put extra guest where he should!

 

Alright, so anyone encounter similar situations as above? What should we do if the guest brings extra guests? We are now in a dilema it seems.

 

Bottomline, according to airbnb's policy

1. The right thing to do is for us to send a change request as a host. But if we change the number of the guests, the guest accept but didn't pay where they should, we have no payment and we are left with the option to either host all the guests at the original rate, or cancel (And lose all their original payment) --> Refer to case 1

2. If we collect cash from the guest, we are considered breaking airbnb's rule and guest can complaint on us. (refer to case 2)

 

Both cases were extreme. Hopefully some experienced hosts will share their experience if they have encountered similar situation before. What should we do as a host?!

 

 

 

 

11 Replies 11
Darren99
Level 2
Clinton, MD

I had a similar situation, where a guest booked for one person and showed up with his wife and daughter. I told him about it. He broke the rules for bringing extra guest and the toddler. I did not address it immediately, but when I looked on my camera, I notice the toddler repeatedly playing with the keyless entry pad while the father stood behind her letting her do it over and over. I then told him that he broke my rules for extra guest and for bringing a toddler. I asked him not to allow his daughter to play with the keypad and that I will not charge him extra as it was only for 3 days. The last day comes and I have another guest arriving in 8 hours , they asked could they get a late checkout. I said yes. They checked out at 1pm verse the 10 am as listed. They gave me great ratings and comment. 

I would have given you a great ratings and comment in such situation as well. But no offense, this offer (trade in the extra guests fee and late check out offer for great reviews) isn't always a viable option for a lot of hosts, especially when you have other co hosts involved and extra cleaning fees to pay to the cleaners since you don't live there...

Rebecca181
Level 10
Florence, OR

I have had this happen before. A family attempted to sneak another family in (with infant and dog), for a total of 10 guests (plus dog) in my rental that accomodates 4 adult guests maximum. It was the Eclipse weekend in Oregon and there were no vacant rooms within a few hundred miles of me. I charged for the extra guests in the interest of the children present, as they really had no place to go.

 

With that said, had payment failed to go through, then there is no true adjusted / altered reservation (because in my case I make it clear in my listing what my maximum occupancy is - so if a guest exceeds this maximum with extra people tagging along with their suitcases in hand, the registered guest is clearly breaking my house rules). Which means the Host Protection Guarantee does not apply, nor (possibly) my commercial insurance coverage. That's a big problem for me. Therefore, I would have let the primary renter know that they may stay but their extra guests can't. If they were not amenable to this, I would have demanded that Airbnb follow their own policies and support me in cancelling the reservation, given the paid guest was breaking my house rules by attempting to sneak unregistered guests in. In my example above, if it had not been the Eclipse weekend, I would have told the unregistered family that they need to find other lodgings as I am not willing to host them as it is beyond the capacity of my rental to do so. If things turned ugly, I would call the police, because my safety comes first. So in your case, you might have had more options to cancel if you listed a maximum occupancy (if I am reading your OP right - that you do not list maximum occupancy).

Ivana61
Level 3
Okrug Gornji, Croatia

Didn’t have such experience with Airbnb guests. But because reading about I wrote on my house rules we have liceence for 2/5/6 guests and each guests need to mark exact number of guests before booking. So I hope nobody will do something like that. But with old fashion agencies in the past we have that situation few times. Once they covered guests under the shower curtain...

Ivana Okrug Gornji, Croatia
Keith6
Level 4
Daytona Beach, FL

I have this issue all the time, they book for 1 or 2, 7 - 14 show up.    I changed my description to state that they MUST put in the exact number of guests (I put that in many times, many places), it seems to  be working.

Did you ever get the extra fee?

 

Susan837
Level 3
Portland, OR

I have a weird one. These people had a reservation for two. The showed up with two extra people and two dogs without contacting me. I told them they would have to pay for the two extra but they said nothing. Well, they stayed for the two days without paying the extra fees and left in the dark the final day. The place had a lot of dog hair floating about because they had left puppies in a crate without water for five hours in 80 degree weather. (I went in and gave them water.)

So, when the agent contacted them they lied about it being dusty which brought on an asthma attack. There was no dust, it's the pollen season in rural Oregon. Everyone gets stopped up in this couple of weeks.

Then they told him I went in when they left their dogs there for five hours without water. That is supposedly against the rules of Airbnb. I have to go in on more than a one day stay to clean the compostable toilet. It would overflow with four people using it. The dogs drank all the water I gave them. They were puppies.

So, the agent gave them back the $100 that they never paid. I'm trying to tell him they never paid, so that isn't necessary. He wrote that they'd take it out of my next fee!

Ian-And-Anne-Marie0
Level 10
Kendal, United Kingdom

Hi @Catie9 

I think you were acting in your best interests and did the right thing in taking cash off your guests. Its no surprise that Airbnb don't back you up over guests that just appear over the amount of those listed in your reservation, they don't want any conflict, they just want to be the angels who provide accomodation at any cost and least disruption to the rule breaking expectant cheating guests.

 

Lets just clarify this. Airbnb sent you a booking for ONE guest. They never sent you a booking for SEVEN guests - so why do they think they are entitled to take the payment for the other 6 guests when they won't guarantee payment for them?  "He said "I could try but I can't guarantee that the guests would pay."

Are those SEVEN guests on your booking - No! Only ONE guest is on your booking and Airbnb have been paid for him. The rest are not Airbnb guests and Airbnb will not take responsibility for them so just do it yourself.

 

 Thats makes it tough on Airbnb! If they want their commission on the extra 6 guests they need affirm that the booking made through them is for ONE and not SEVEN and if that changes they need to guarantee you get paid. SIMPLE.

 

If they don't like it, they need to change their ways and work WITH hosts in these situations and not obfusicate matters with their petty rules they only apply when it suits them.

Carla1358
Level 2
Eugene, OR

Hello,

I am new to Airbnb. I have a studio apartment ideal for one person, but doable for 2. My listing allows for up to 2 people. A guest who currently has no reviews volunteered that she may have a friend come for 2 of the 4 nights she is booked and offered to pay extra. I have two concerns: one is, she is booking over Memorial Day holiday, and I just read an article about Airbnb cracking down on people booking on holidays with no reviews and that she may add a friend. Its positive that she disclosed it up front, and it all may be just fine. I'm just a little unsure without the reviews and how to go about charging extra for an additional guest. Any advice would be much appreciated. 

 

Thanks,

Carla

 

@Carla1358 I won't charge extra if the number is under my maximum. In your case, I won't charge extra. But it depends on you.  I accept guests without review. But you can always ask her questions, if you gut feeling is not right. You can cancel it (if IB for "not comfortable with guest" 3 times without penalty. but be sure call Airbnb to cancel) or not accept it. I am more careful on younger people and shorter term rent such as two days in this case, 4 days should be OK.

Hello,

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to give me some advice. I thought I had responded to you via email on Saturday, but just discovered that I have to respond through this feed. So, my apologies for the delay. 

 

I will probably go forward with this guest as she was straight forward with me with her plans. I just find it odd that she has been on Airbnb since 2017 but doesn't have any reviews. I was unsuccessful in finding her on social media as well. I should just give her a call. 

 

Thanks again!

 

Carla