Tenant lied number of people

[Belen312]

Hello,

im new at hosting. What happens when a tenant lied and said there would be two people but there are actually four? House can handle four but why lie?! She sent me this long thing about her parents staying at the house to visit her for Christmastime for several weeks. Thanks 🙏 

[Elaine701]

@Belen312 

I'm confused. For weeks, she has been telling you that her parents will be staying with them for Christmas, and you think she is lying? 

Or is it that she booked for two, and then told you that her parents are coming for a few days at Christmas?

It sounds to me like she's being rather transparent about it. 

Having said that, before you confront the guest and suffer some rather nasty potential punishment for doing that, first consider how this is damaging to you; Are you losing money? A lot, or a little?

Be careful how you proceed. The consequences can be far more expensive. 

Good luck. 

[Belen312]

Hi @Elaine701 ,

she told me the booking was for two and now four people are staying at the house. It was for her parents. 

[Helen3]

When she told you her parents would be staying did you ask her to amend the booking to reflect four would be staying ? @Belen312 

[Belen312]

Hi @Helen3 thank you for that. I was not aware that the booking can be amended. Does she she it on her end? And then I accept it? Thanks again!

[Greystone0 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Belen312 ,

I would say that most-many-all guests feel like the occupancy on the listing is the range that they are allowed to have without making any adjustments. This has been my general experience. So book for two but maybe three or four show up and since four is the max, no harm no foul.

Some hosts view it this way as well and are extremely lenient with occupancy - just don't really care - it doesn't bother them, they don't have neighbors close by or local laws to keep them up at night.

Many hosts DO CARE and this info is extremely important - the occupancy. It is a serious pain point of contention and if you do a little search you'll see lots of discussion about this along the lines of your comments. It's a hot button issue.

Perhaps this guest thought her comments to you about her parents joining was sufficient notice. 

As Helen mentioned, the booking occupancy can be updated - see this link:https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2369#section-heading-0

As a host, you can also update the reservation occupancy. In both cases the update is sent to the other side to 'accept'.

If you don't already, you can add in your messaging to verify/confirm their occupancy to help overcome the "I didn't know that was an issue". We do this for every reservation and I would say that 90% of our AIRBNB reservations need to be adjusted - 'oh, I forgot the children! or "I was doing so many searches and thought I had that correct" or "oops, we are 10 not 2" and so on.

Also, just as an aside, this platform defaults to "2" when searching and so often the guest doesn't recognize that they needed to make an adjustment.

Just some food for thought.

[Elaine701]

@Greystone0 

This has happened occasionally...

In the high season, we have a single price for the entire house (4 bedrooms) regardless of number of persons (max 8). Demand is high in this season, so there's no need to price on a per-person basis.

In the low season, the nightly rate depends on the number of people. Demand is lower in this season, and the most common group is 2-6 pax. There's one bedroom made available for each 2 pax. We lock the other bedrooms.

It's been rather amusing to watch when someone books for 2 and brings 4 or 6. They need to carefully dance around it until finally giving up and requesting extra bedrooms ("oh, some friends of ours will be joining us, can we get another bedroom?").

🙂