What is considered an overnight guest?

[Oscar403]

I have a guest that booked the home for a weekend.

The booking stated 3 adults, when they arrived I saw (through our smart doorbell) that it was actually 4 adults. Not really a problem as up to 4 ppl it’s ok. Now, they’ve had about 10-15 ppl over every night from about midnight to 6am. Seems like they are having a party, and house rules state no parties.

My question is, would those people count as extra guests? Also what constitutes a party on Airbnb?

Thank you all in advance for the advice.

[Ricardo85]

@Oscar403 

"8.3.3 You may not bring any additional individuals to an Experience, Event or other Host Service unless such an individual was added by you as an additional guest during the booking process on the Airbnb Platform."

Ricardo

[Robin4]

@Oscar403 

A difficult one Oscar, you can lodge a complaint with Airbnb but, if the property is returned to you in reasonable condition it is likely that Airbnb will not want to get involved in any form of 'witch-hunt'  for the additional guest dollars you are entitled too!

It sounds to me like the guest who booked was a local, and Oscar......that is a no, no! You never, but never let to locals unless they can give you an ironclad reason why it is your property they need instead of their own!

Mate, you can lodge a claim via the resolution centre for additional guests but my feeling is it won't do you a lot of good!

I think I would put this one down to experience and learn to be a bit more selective when another local booking comes along......you do have the right to decline!

Cheers......Rob 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Oscar403if you live in the same town go and visit them. If there are more people inside then booked ask them to leave.

Put in your house rules that only registered guests are allowed in the property day and/or night. No visitors.

[Paul154]

@Oscar403 

Forget about definitions and regulations. 

Do you want these people as guests?

1. They are not respecting your REASONABLE rules so they are not respecting your business arrangement.

2. If someone drowns in your pool, will your insurance policy support you? You KNOW there are non-paying strangers in your house.  You have effectively put out a "All strangers welcome".  Neither your insurance company nor Airbnb  agreed to this arrangement.

If you think your guests fees are high enough to cover you, then ok. 

If you want to continue this arrangement, you may ask the guest to increase their guest count.

[Ricardo85]

"Forget about definitions and regulations."

Really???

[Mark116]

@Oscar403  If you don't already have something in your house rules about no one on the property except the authorized guests in the reservation, then put that in.  If you already do have it, then the guests are breaking two rules, no parties and no unauthorized guests.  

A 'party' to me would be if they have any additional guests on the property over 1 extra, but we have it written that no one but guests on the reservation are allowed unless we approve it.  10 extra people is definitely a party by any definition.

You said they booked for the weekend, so they are probably leaving today or tomorrow.  You will then want to determine what to do about getting a revenge review..I would give them a bad review, but in terms of going after them before their review that is a tougher call, I would def. tell them again that they can't have parties and having additional dozen people is not allowed, you hope they understand.

Then, review them on the last day of reviews, and hopefully they won't have time to do their own review.

[Frank1346]

@Oscar403 

I have a case similar like this. In my house rule, it states 'Guests of our guest(s) are welcome. These guest(s) will respect and follow the same rules. However, we do not allow overnight guests. If guests are found to have overnight guests without permission, extra fees will be applied.' We are quite lenient to guest's day guests, but do not want unnoticed overnight guests. Here comes the gray area, the guest brought many guests between 10pm to 4am. Are these considered as staying guests/overnight guests.  I do think Airbnb should have a better definition of staying guests/overnight guests, it will help avoid any unnecessary disagreement and frustration between host and guests.

[Colleen253]

@Frank1346  To me, a guest is a guest, whether sleeping, or not. They all use the resources of the house that you provide...coffee, tea, toilet paper, utilities etc etc, and contribute to the wear and tear of the house. They also use more of those resources when awake and hanging out in your place at 4 am than they do when sleeping. 

You, not Airbnb, need to define ‘overnight guest’ in your house rules, and specify a curfew for visitors if you’re allowing them. “Visitors must be gone by X time”. Have fun enforcing that.

[Laura2592]

@Oscar403 parties are forbidden on Airbnb. Your guests are definitely entertaining in your space. You should contact them through the app and say "We had some neighbors mention that they saw several additional people coming and going the last few evenings. Please note that the reservation is for 3 guests, and additional individuals are not permitted to stay on the property beyond what is officially indicated on the reservation. Our insurance is very strict on that point." Even if the neighbors have not complained,  I would say that so that they understand that they may be disturbing others. And the insurance thing is always a valid excuse. 

I would also call ABB and alert them to the party that is happening. They are supposedly anti-party these days. I would leave the guest a review that reflects your experience with additional people being brought to the space. This is a huge No-No for many hosts, so be honest in your assessment.

You should also immediately decrease the number of individuals that your house can accommodate and raise your prices. With 8 guests at $160 a night you have people only paying $20 a night to stay....these bargain hunters will not be your A-plus guests (a POOL? for $20 a night???) Consider adding an additional fee per person per night over the number you would ideally like to host. You have to change extra beds and launder all those extra towels, yes?

We had a guest book for one person and bring 5. We know because the neighbors reported that there were at least 5 and we have a suggestion box where all 5 guests left their names. We have an additional fee over 2 guests and 4 people max. I left the guest a review that reflected the fact that more people were brought to our space than we authorize. It was a neutral to fairly nice review, but the guest was still upset by it, demanding to know what the problem was, why couldn't they bring whomever they wanted if they rented the house? There was also a lot of extra cleaning and the coffee pot was left plugged in and smoking when the cleaners arrived, so I sent pics of the mess and burnt out coffee, saying that not only were there guests beyond our limits that we didn't collect fees for, the space was left in poor condition with a fire hazard. I never heard from the guest after that. Some people really do not understand that you are renting someone's home and its not a free-for-all. They feel entitled to bring whoever and do whatever for their nightly fee. Your rules should always spell out very clearly what is included in that fee and what is not allowed so that if you have someone who gets huffy you can point back to that. The "extra people staying" thing is one of the top 3 complaints from hosts and most do mention it explicitly.

[Sarah977]

@Frank1346  There is no such thing as a "guest of a guest". I suggest you abandon that notion and terminology. 

If you don't mind your booked guests having friends or family over during the day, you need to be specific about hours of the day that is allowed. But you need to be aware that if you open the door to that, many guests will take advantage and it will require more vigilance on your part and disagreements about how long the visitors can stay.

It's one thing to give permission to a specific guest who has shown themselves to be respectful rule followers  if they ask to have someone over, but leaving it wide open to all guests is a bad idea.

And why would you want to finance unpaid for people using your utilities, soap, toilet paper, dirtying towels, etc, even if only during daylight hours?

[Frank1346]

@Colleen253  

@Sarah977 

Thank you for your suggestion of making my rule to defining overnight guest. I'll update my rules.

We have a Ring door bell,, it captures image and video for people coming in and out. It helps provide documentation to Airbnb to fight for extra overnight guests.

[Sarah977]

@Frank1346  I'm curious as to why you want to allow your guests to have unpaid for extra people over at all, even if they aren't spending the night?

I just host a private room in my home, and if a guest asked permission to have someone over for awhile during the day, I'd likely say yes, but I live here, so guests can't get away with any shenanigans. 

It seems like in an entire  home listing where the host isn't onsite, it's a lot easier to have a blanket rule against any visitors than to go through the hassle of trying to get payment for unauthorized overnighters.

And guests will try to push the boundaries. If you say visitors have to leave by 7PM, and don't see the visitors leave by then, guests will say things like "Well, we're right in the middle of dinner, they'll leave in half an hour." Then by 9, they still haven't left yet.

[Colleen253]

@Sarah977 Those are some of my reasons for strictly limiting guests to my max of 5, no visitors, period. So much less hassle. My guests can see their friends at the friends place, they don't need to be at my listing. As you do, @Frank1346 , I also have security cameras , and my greatest concern is a guest complaining about them, and Airbnb suspending my listing, as they are so apt to do. I'd rather not even remind guests or Airbnb of their existence. 

[Frank1346]

@Sarah977 

I agree that we don't additional day  guests, but sometimes it is inevitable when the whole house is rented. Many guests come visit family,  so their family and friends come over to visit or have dinner, we are okay, part of hospitality.  Hence, it is hard to enforce when host is not in the premises. I only raise the issue to guest and airbnb when it is too much (my ring doorbell alert is going crazy.)

@Colleen253 

Our Ring doorbell is at the exterior, hard wired. Guest can't remove it. I have a non-moving camera inside pointing the front door. No privacy is invaded. Even that, some guests don't like it. Some guests did unplug it, and it is not a big deal to me. We just have to plug it back when guests check out. By the way, airbnb requires us to list out all the camera on the listing.