"Is your guest count accurate?" Feature Request

[Kelly149]

Show of hands from hosts: how often is a one-person request really for one person??

Would it help you to avoid needless back and forth for ABB to include a check box with something like:

Your request/reservation is for TWO GUESTS. Is that correct??

Or how about give hosts the ability to adjust pricing BEFORE the reservation is confirmed? bc right now, I can ACCEPT or I can DECLINE, but I can't get the request to be accurate.

[Kelly149]

Same song 4th verse...

Lady yesterday requests for 2 guests, message says "we're doing a little trip to visit family and I’m gonna take a workshop at xxxx headquarters in Austin, love your place and can’t wait to stay there."

Immediately I respond with reposting our House Rules:

HOUSE RULES: Please read & respond.

- If you think you're a great fit for staying with us at the Barn, then first confirm that you have a complete profile (Verified Government ID, About Me info, & home town location) prior to entering a Reservation Request. We expect that Reservation Requests are coming from experienced ABB travelers with excellent reviews from previous stays and/or new guests that communicate well.

- Your Request message should list: Full name for all guests, any special plans for your visit to the Barn/Austin, arrival/departure timing (standard arrival 4p-9p, departures prior to 10am), what made you choose the barn over all the other options in town.

-No animal guests of any type. Abb insurance and the allergies of our cleaning staff and the family members who live here between guest stays require only human guests during ABB reservations.

-Also no additional guests beyond those you've included in your reservation request. (this doesn't just mean no additional sleepover guests, but also includes any drop-in guests. So, no additional guests really actually means no additional guests.) You should count all guests, of any age, in your request. 6 person limit applies regardless of ages. Please include all children in the 2-12 category.

-You'll be reviewed on your communication, cleanliness & how you take care of the space.

- We have the ability to have fully contactless check-in but reserve the right to verify IDs prior to or at arrival.

She clearly hasn't seen these but ok, that's pretty typical. So, now here they are front and center.

She doesn't respond for 14 hours, but then sends this:

My boyfriend (name) and I (name) are hoping 

your guys awesome barn could host us on our first visit to Austin!

I will be attending a xxxxx over the weekend in Austin and we will also be using the trip to visit with xxxx’s family who are native To Texas, living in the xxxx area.

 mom (name), sister (name), niece (name), nephew (name), and Cousin (name) are all hoping to come by at some point during our stay to visit and enjoy Austin together. These guests will not all be overnighting with us at the barn at once. They will be staggering in with they’re stays.

Our Family is very important to us as it seems to be for y’all as well. A big purpose for our trip is to be able to spend time with them and “The Barn” looks like a great place to do it! It is important to note that we are only anticipating family guests Friday April 8th - Monday April 11th.

We land into Austin after 10pm on arrival day and will leave on departure day by 7am.

We hope this works ok for you all. If you need any more information please ask. “The Barn” looks and sounds like a perfect setting to enjoy family so we are looking forward to hearing back.

All the best, xxx

Ugh, now we're 19 hours into her 24 hour request window and she's just blithely telling me that they'll be bringing a crew of rotating characters thru for part of their stay, despite what the House Rules very clearly say and also they'll (if they're on time with their transcontinental flight) be arriving about 3 hours after our checkin/arrival window. And nowhere here does she even acknowledge that she's asking for more than she should.

So, my message to her said:

xxx, have you been able to look at the listing on a full-size computer? Have you read the House Rules that you “agreed to” when you entered your request? They seem fairly straightforward to me. Yes, family is important. Communication is important. Respect is important. Please retract your request. Thank you, kelly

And I repost the House Rules

Now she's the one who's annoyed:

Kelly, I don’t need a full-screen computer to read all the rules for this little house, our main purpose of the trip is to be able to see our family and spend time with them, your rules are outrageous and I’m glad it didn’t workout because you seem hard to work with.

I will retract the booking and i will not recommend this listing.

It’s wrong of you to not understand the situation we’re in and how family is important now a days and if you needed us to pay for those extra people on those extra days you should’ve just say that and not made us retract the booking. We’re good people we don’t mean wrong, clearly, I tried to make you feel comfortable with name and ages so you knew it was just family. Don’t know how you have such good reviews, you’re not a good host.

So, when this thread gets posted on a Reddit AITA which is it: bad host or bad guest?

@Colleen253 @Sarah977 @Debra300 @Laura2592 @christine615 @mark116

[Laura2592]

@Kelly149 you dodged a bullet. You are supposed to value this stranger's family time over your own personal time, effort and family.  You stated your rules and she immediately assumed they didn't apply to her. She can be annoyed all she wants but your listing isn't a fit. I'm sure someone out there won't mind a rotating guest count (I would! But someone else may not). She can find another spot, period. 

For your guest count feature, wouldn't it br great if there was an option to input guests staying on different nights and AUTOMATICALLY flag those requests requiring all guests to have registered profiles plus give the host more time to connect with the guest and consider if it's a reservation they want? It seems like that would go a long way towards cutting down on parties. 

The rotating line up guests are people who would do better to buy their own vacation home or rent several places in the same area. Playing "sardines" with a low capacity ABB is just irritating on many fronts. Guests never seem to consider that beds might not be changed between multiple occupants (there's typically not maid service) and that a smaller space may start to feel really cramped with luggage and extra people. Thats a recipe for a poor review that has everything to do with a guest's "thrift" and nothing whatsoever to do with the space. 

[Kelly149]

this is very similar to some of your recent guest complaints @Laura2592 the space totally fits all of these people, but I don't want to host groups that large. I'm priced for 2 and I don't want 7, and I've yet to meet someone who thought those 5 extra people were worth (to them) what I wanted to charge to make it worth it (to me). 

But, if she had entered, say a 5 person guest count and then wanted a couple of those people to swap in the middle, that would have been a different story. I host 5 people for 5 person $$ but I won't host 5 people for 2 person $.

[Colleen253]

@Kelly149 Math is hard, and apparently so is reading and comprehension. I think the solution is entrance exams for guests. Pass with a certain mark to continue on to the booking request stage. 

[Kelly149]

@Colleen253 my actual, professional life is teaching people to read. So, yeah, I probably get a little extra bent out of shape at the outright refusal to read and/or understand some fairly simple words. No means, no, and all that.

So, in line with this whole thread of "is your guest count accurate" I really do think there should be a third choice on all incoming requests from guests.

1. Accept, as is.

2. Decline, no more discussion.

3. Alternate proposal (this is the one that hosts would use to correct these guest "oversights" in terms of guest count, arrival time or other adjustments that they're so sure should just be included gratis).

If I wanted to accept anyone, on any terms, then I'd be an IB host with no House Rules. This lady was out of line, but ABB is not doing anything to help mitigate these issues. And now, both she and I are more miffed with ABB as a platform than we need to be and neither one of us likes ABB very much at the moment. ABB thinks that being sneaky (not showing guests house rules, not properly counting guests) about these things brings in more goodwill and more bookings but I disagree.

[Debra300]

@Kelly149,

To me the potential guest believes that she should be entitled to have whomever visitor she chooses like with a traditional rental.  People fail to recognize and acknowledge that when its not their home and furnishings that the are rules regarding usage, but they readily accept similar conditions for other temporary rentals (e.g., car rental agencies restrict who can drive the vehicles).

You would get varying responses on Reddit.  Many will be on your side, but there will be a bunch who won't, because there are plenty of people who believe that it's okay to take liberties with other people's stuff. 

[Kelly149]

@Debra300 we have a LTR too (college town) and even that lease puts restrictions on how many and how often they can have guests over and above the actual people mentioned in the lease. And as you say, in that instance the furniture belongs to the tenant and the utilities get paid by the tenant and the insurance is paid by the tenant and I have a security deposit for damage and I collect a whole bunch more rent than this lady's couple nights fee.

The bottom line is that he with the gold gets to make the rules. 

And this lady was feeling huffy to say "well, I won't recommend you!" Well, ok, but I've been as fully booked as I want to be for 5 years and there will be others who come in behind you that are gracious and happy to pay their fee without complaint.

[Sarah977]

@Kelly149  Jeez, unreal. I just do not understand this level of entitlement. Where do people ever get the idea that complete strangers are supposed to care about and make exceptions for their personal desires and circumstances? And then think the appropriate response to being told no is to lay on some guilt trip.

[Kelly149]

@Sarah977@Debra300 I think part of it is this whole idea that ABB has really propagated on purpose that sure, it's someone else's house, but you should feel a-ok to use it like it's your house while you're there. It's a mismatch in expectations that ABB should really focus on rectifying if they want to be long-term viable.

This lady for example thought that she was being really magnanimous bc she was telling me all about these extra folks she was intending to bring thru. It genuinely didn't occur to her (despite my very clear directives to the contrary) that this wasn't an ok thing to assume. And this is a 5* rated, has already had a few ABB stays guest. This is a 50/50 her problem/ABB problem.

[Laura2592]

@Sarah977 just wait until you start hosting again.  Welcome to #entitlement #2022travel 

[Sarah977]

@Laura2592  Actually, due to my inattention to getting back to my calendar in time to block dates that had opened up, I got a request last week for 2 weeks at the end of April/early May!!!

I decided to go with it. If I'm ever going to host again, I have to start sometime. She has 5 good reviews, she sent a nice initial message. I messaged her back, explained that her request was a surprise as I had just forgotten to block dates that far ahead, and explained why I had been blocking, but that I was missing hosting and that if she was vaxxed, I'd be happy to host her.

She wrote back immediately, said she's double vaxed and boosted (not only personal choice, but also required for her workplace). We exchanged a couple more short messages- she's a middle-aged surfer, has been to this area several times, is going to rent a car to get to all her fave surf spots, so it doesn't even sound like she's gonna be around that much.

Real profile photo of her smiling face, verified ID, profile bio, and her payment info was obviously all good because the booking was confirmed within 5 minutes.

So far so good. 🙂

[Mark116 · Accepted solution]

@Kelly149  She wants to have 7 guests but pay for 2, because it will be 'staggered' and not all 5 of them will be staying overnight at the same time.  Ha.  Also, no notice of your check-in time.  But, true to the times we live in, becomes irate that her plans to break all your rules is not acceptable to you.  Apparently, anything goes as long as it's 'family'.  Ugh.

[Laura2592]

@Mark116 I love it how @Kelly149 is supposed to stop in her tracks at the mere mention of 'family' ...

Apparently hosts don't have families themselves? 

[Kelly149]

@Laura2592 my family is super important to me, I mean, not enough to pay anything for them, but definitely important enough that you should host them for free.

[Kelly149]

and to just show that it's not all doom and gloom here, a guy requested today with a polite message, but he hadn't seen the house rules, so I sent those and then he messaged back confirming that their guest count was accurate, they weren't hosting anyone else, weren't bringing any pets and that their plans for arrival/departure fit with our parameters. And he appreciated being considered and they intended to be respectful guests. So, that guy is confirmed. He's happy, I'm happy, win/win.