Pro's and Con's of charging for additional guests?

Hi there,

I was wondering how many of you are charging for additional guests? My apartment can fit up to 4 people and until recently I did not charge for additional guests. Now I changed it so every additional guest after 2 persons pay about 10% of my nightly rate.

With it, It seems like I started to attract more couples based on my recent reservations.

What pricing method do you prefer?

Cheers!

I charge the basic price for the first 2 and then a per head per night rate after that

I have the same.
price for 2 and price for extra (until 6 person)

I have a small room attached to my home. It only accommodates 2 people, it’s $39 for one and an extra $10 for 2. Sometimes if I see my competition has lowered their price I might lower mine, or reduce the 2nd person fee a dollar or two. A second person uses more utilities and supplies and possibly creates more wear and tear on the room, for example twice as much luggage chipping the paint off the wall. Couples are more likely to leave stains on the linens that need extra treatment. At my price point every dollar or two matters. But if I had a more upscale listing at a higher price point I wouldn’t charge extra for a couple, just for each person above that.

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I charge $10 for over 2. We can only take up to 3 people. With 3 I know for sure they’ll be using the hideabed and that means lots of extra laundry, etc.

I charge extra for the second guest. Why?

  • 2 Guests costs us more than 1: Breakfast, towels, water, etc. …
  • I don’t think that people traveling alone should be condemned to pay as much as a couple. Certainly if they cost less.
  • On the other hand I do think that people traveling with 2 should have some advantage for making the effort (this sounds so funny :laughing:) of traveling together, so I don’t double the price for two. In my ideal world I would have 2 persons pay 50% more than 1 person, but for the moment that would make it OR too cheap for 1 person (to be making any money) OR too expensive for 2 persons (relative to the rates of the competition). So now we are charging more or less 30% more for a second guest.
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I don’t allow additional guests.

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@Arlene_Larsson. That is what I ended up doing. I tried to add a cleaning fee and in the narrative explain that the cleaning fee was actually a second bed fee which would not be charged if you only needed one bed. However, my bookings went silent after that change. It was a slow time anyhow, so I don’t know that this was cause-effect, but I have now changed to $10 for an extra person after 2. This fee doesn’t capture when there are two people who use two beds, but, given the limitation of the AirBNB options, I can live with this.

My increase per person isn’t huge– breakfast and water. The heat or air-conditioning remain unchanged. But the second bed is another load of laundry including carrying it up and down those stairs and the time it takes to make up the bed.

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We charge $15.00 for the second guest. Two guests is our limit. My reasoning is that it takes more time to prepare for and clean up after two people than one. I can’t imagine that most guests would get upset about it because the price is much lower per person even with the second guest fee.

This is also what I do. I now roll the lowest possible cleaning fee into my listing (assuming the cost of one bed used) and charge the extra guest fee to cover the use of additional beds/bedrooms. It doesn’t always work out to the exact amount, but i think it will average out more or less.

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Neither do I. But I have been lenient on a couple of occasions. I’ve had guests who have been super-wonderful and who have asked if their sister / son could sleep on the sofa. On each occasion, these have been guests who have been staying for 2 / 3 weeks and their third person has just been staying for one night.

So I’ve agreed but told them that they should ask their extra person to bring a sleeping bag or similar and that I can’t provide extra towels. (I could, but I don’t). I don’t provide breakfast so that isn’t an issue and I’ve never noticed any extra wear and tear. In fact, on each occasion, the guests have left the apartment in wonderful condition.

And it’s sometimes awkward when you don’t know if they need the second bed or not since ours is a hide a bed. We usually just make the sheets available if needed.

@jaquo @konacoconutz
I don’t think the topic starter meant extra guests after reservation. I think he is talking about a base price for 1/2 guests, and an additional cost for numbers above that. But only up to the number of people that actually fit in the place.

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As a general rule, you will get the largest proportion of bookings at the minimum rate at which you’re property can be booked.
Do the Mathis and see if it’s worth it to have your listing taken up 75% of the time by people paying that minimum!
If not, then you need to up the minimum!

We have a base price for 2 and then 35 euro per extra person up to 10. We very rarely get 2 people booking. It is typically in the 6 range which is ehat we prefer.