hi @Carol9807 ,
I totally understand and feel similarly when guests do stuff like this. From our end we try to create messaging so that we can avoid this but it still happens regardless. Here's what we do:
- if you aren't already, you should reconfirm occupancy with each message. We note like this:
Your reservation is for: 6 adults, no children, no dog (or whatever it is), this is meant to account for all occupants day use/overnight use and if this is incorrect please reach out.
- two weeks prior to check in or whatever you deem proper along with whatever other messaging that's appropriate, you can ask outright: has your occupancy changed from "X"?
- in your listing, if you don't already, you should add a comment about: additional person charges of "x" above what is in the reservation apply if occupancy changes after check in
- in our case we have a permit limitation that we do not wish to ever exceed and occupancy numbers help guide our cleaning crew with managing time.
- and in practice, we don't necessarily bring up extra guests unless we are in violation of our permit. If a guest goes from 10 to 11, that isn't the end of the world, but when they go from 6 to 15 then we have a problem. In the latter case we asked them to leave and refunded the remainder of the days as we just didn't want these people in our home.
- if a guest goes from 6 to 8 or 9, we don't bring it up but do note on our end that they can't count and are not guests we want back in our home. We offer a return discount on a future AIRBNB reservation for those we want back and so they don't get this obviously.
- and finally we often have guests adjust their occupancy outright and we update occupancy accordingly, if they are already paying a higher seasonal rate we may not apply the additional occupant fee, and if they have a discounted rate we would apply.
Good luck!
