This has happened several times now. Just got an instant booking from a COUPLE that only paid for ONE adult guest. I’ve let it slide everytime because I hate to look like a b&$&h for five bucks. Thank you. Just needed to vent!
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Why not charge more and leave it the same price for one or two?
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I just send a friendly message along with the request for the money. You can just change the reservation to two people and they have to accept it. “Hi Belinda, thanks for choosing my place. You forgot to include Susie in the reservation so I submitted the change request for you. I’ll be back in touch on your travel day with information about checking in.”
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Moving forward, I would increase the nightly fee and not charge extra for additional guests.
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Great idea! Thank you! Now why didn’t I think of that?!
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Going to do that right now! Thanks!
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I see two people suggesting that you just make everyone pay and thats what I would suggest for a whole house when you are getting over $80 a night. But for me, my humble room is as low as $40 for one. My second person fee is from $4-8. I manipulate the price for a number of reasons but that’s what works for me. As a single traveler who uses minimal supplies and am a great guest I really appreciate hosts who try to cater to me.
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Yep me too… Private room and bathroom in my house.
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That’s exactly what I do. Completely stress-free hosting 
Two people don’t really cost more than a single person on our rentals. The only real variable when there are two people is more water for showers and ours isn’t metered anyway.
This is one of my rare disagreements with Jaquo. Two people do cost more at my listing.
Here’s the reasons why AT MY LISTING. (Each listing is different and they may not apply to you) More water, more wear and tear, twice as likely that something will get broken. They generate more trash and I find two bins are more likely used. A single often only uses one bin. They use more towels and sometimes that second person is an entire load of laundry extra. Couples are more likely to run the AC, take longer showers, leave a happy spot on the linens, leave stains on other stuff. Twice as many water bottles, coffee packets, toilet paper, and soap used. Two cups to wash instead of one. More hair to sticky roller up. They tend to check out later (at least at my place. ) Couples go in and out more doubling the chance of flies in the room. They bang the door more and watch TV and laugh loudly causing me to have to take the dogs and go into my room and shut the door and turn on the white noise so they don’t bark. Couples at my listing are more likely to have two cars because they are moving cross country or because one is here in the military and his gf is coming to visit.
Now I say this based on a small sample of 4 years/500 guests. Jaquo’s been doing this much longer than I. But for me there is a clear and noticable difference between one person and two and at my price point pricing for two would make me less competitive.
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Happy spots!
RR
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As with so many things, it all depends.
If you have a high % of single travellers, it might be good to offer them a better price.
If you have a high % of couples, make it one price.
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If you are getting a number of couples, is it possible your terms for couples are not clear?
I am inclined towards charging the same price regardless of headcount, as long as they stay under the max occupancy limit. I have a 2BR setup and I don’t differ my prices for 2, 3 or 4 guests. I just price it to ensure I won’t make losses on 4. I feel, per guest charging just opens up opportunities for guests to cheat, or may genuinely have overlooked and it’s difficult to enforce when you’re not on site. But if I’m doing a private bedroom setup I’ll vary the price by headcount. An extra person just uses more water, electricity and the margins on a bedroom are too thin to ignore.
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I am thinking like @PETRELLI, how much you charge & when depends upon your margins.
In my home area, a one bedroom listing with a private bath that is part of a home share for one person is about $40. It wouldn’t take much for an additional guest to kill the margin with a long shower, using extra supplies, eating/drinking guest snacks/coffee.
Based upon the market in my area, $45 a night for one guest would be perceived as high,
If your market will tolerate a higher nightly rate that will support one or two guests—do it, it is the easiest thing to do. If not, then back to watching how many are on the booking request vs. in the message & asking for the additional fees.
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That’s a very similar nightly rate to my area, assuming you’re talking in USD. I can only charge $55 AUD tops for a bedroom without ensuite, and utility costs a second mortgage here. I’ve cut costs in other areas by introducing coffee powder (high quality) instead of coffee sachets, lower quality toilet paper (since guests have a tendency to waste it), sugar in jars instead of sugar packets etc. I don’t compromise on cleaning though.
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I used to charge per person, but I had some guests get upset (same with the extra bed fee), so now my pricing is for 2 people and a third is an extra $25. I do, however, make sure that if it’s two guests that they change the reservation to two people. No extra money but with my requests for IDs for all guests, it keeps them honest.
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I’d send through an alteration so the count is correct. For insurance and my own peace of mind I want to know how many people are on the property.
If you feel awkward about it because of the price difference, maybe that isn’t the right pricing approach for you.
Like @PETRELLI, I price for the whole unit with a max occupancy of four and always set up for that max. This way I don’t have to ask about sleeping arrangements and I’m not peeved if a couple chooses to sleep separately and lay out their luggage on the extra bed.
Sadly, you are part of the problem - ‘letting it slide’ allows these guests to continue to book US and then give bad reviews to US because someone ‘let it slide’ while we did not.
Not wanting to give honest reviews, not confronting guests who flaunt house rules - this is why hosts have ‘bad guests’, who would not be ‘bad’ if they were not given a ‘slide’.
Thank you. Just needed to vent LOL!
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We all have to learn to stand up for ourselves. It’s definitely been a journey for me to stand up to guests especially when they are older (I’m 25). It feels like I’m trying to say no to an authority figure even though I know it is my house, lol. But we always confront people and make them pay for extra people or tell them to leave. and the blast them in the review!
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