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I always find your responses very helpful so hope you don’t mind me asking your opinion(s) yet again.
Our holiday home is a house in large(ish) rural property on the Sunshine Coast (AUS) and we live at one end. the only bad guests we’ve ever had is people inviting others over without our permission, loud music etc. so I made it very clear that guests needed to get our permission, so we have a booking for 7 adults and they asked in early April if they could have a ‘few’ friends over and I said I would need to know numbers before making a decision…no response until last night…they have said they want ‘3 families’ (note no numbers) for the afternoon…they’ll leave then 1 more family for dinner…so lets say that would be 20 people (7 + 12 for the families) for the afternoon and maybe 11 people for the night…does anyone charge extra for these kind of things? or do you say no and say they can stay but need to entertain elsewhere? I am actually inclined to cancel the reservation as we’re just not that keen on that many people being there…especially as I would def get extra insurance.
Do you have an additional person fee? If so, how much and at what number does it start?
I have a $20 additional person fee for any over one. I am also budget listings. What I have done is instead of charging Full price for someone who doesn’t spend the night is charge only half price and only for the days they will be there. I also have a house rule that requires the full name of each of those guests as well so that is how I am able to arrive at an exact number. I have outside cameras to help verify to some extent. If I wanted I could quiz each person that walked in on the doorbell camera as they were going in but that would mean I would have to actually be monitoring it and be available to interact. I generally only go through video to verify departure unless triggered by some unusual high level of activity alerts or if neighbors contact me about anything amiss.
In your case the guest is intentionally still not giving you the answer you requested. By saying family it could include all the aunts and uncles and cousins and cousins incense removed…you get the point. I would probably side with your gut on this one and not decide to continue with the booking as you are uncomfortable with the guest.
When you say ‘then 11 people for the night’, does the guest want these 11 extra people to stay? Or are you estimating the original 7 plus 4? When it comes to them just stating ; 3 families for the afternoon’ I agree it sounds deliberately vague @Bushandbeach.
Is there room in your place to have 11 people sit down and eat and space for them all in the lounge? Is there room and do you have enough bedding and towels for them to stay?
I am not sure you can cancel the guests just for asking, when you have said in your listing if they want extra guests they need to ask.
You can only charge, I believe, if you mention that you charge for extra guests in your house rules.
If you are not keen on that many additional people staying/visiting then just say no, or you could put number and time restrictions in to any confirmation of visitors. I think you say you live at one end of the property, so you may need to monitor the listing to make sure they aren’t trying to sneak extra people in to visit/stay.
Nope - sorry - I don’t allow extras to visit because of insurance issues and extra wear and tear. They put the kids in the unused beds for a afternoon nap, they use the bathroom, they have a good look around, they bring their pets and I resent it - the family rented the house, they did not rent an entertainment centre!
Thank you Helsi, and sorry, by 11 I meant there would be 11 or so for the nightly barbecue, they have said they’re not staying. We do have quite a big verandah and an outdoor table with 6 chairs and an indoor table with 6 chairs…def not enough bedding and towels for them to stay
JUST SAY NO! Too many people. You are not a party venue. If it was a get-together of seniors or such, maybe. But not “families” which means kids running about, and much more potential damage.
For future, when guests ask, tell them that a cash damage deposit is required if there are more than say 4 visitors.
If you do have a limit with which you are comfortable, then tell them that. For instance “Yes, you may have up to 6 people for your afternoon get together, and up to five people for dinner. The fee will be $150. If your dinner guests stay overnight, the fee will be $20 per person that stays. If there are extra people for either the afternoon or evening, they will be evicted and you will be fined $200”.
Then get ready to police it and enforce it - and be ready for a bad review. Otherwise, just tell them no, as Ken suggested.
For the future, have the situation plainly stated on your listing. We say that we allow up to four visitors during daylight hours only. If it isn’t in your rules then you have a harder time enforcing it.
Also when you get an inquiry such as this, simply reply thanking them and copy and paste the relevant part of your listing and tell them that you wish them luck finding a suitable place.
Apparently you are not in the hosting business. You are in the large party business. Forget the host guarantee. If anyone is hurt on your property you could be looking at serious liability.
I would put in a call to my home insurer. Pretty sure this is off the menu.
I also think your guests are out of line, and it’s a recipe for disaster, but that’s just an opinion. The insurer is a nice, neutral way of saying no.
Usually you setup a special rate for events like $700 AUD for parties with 12 or more people. You won’t be able to charge this now this late in the game once they’ve already got their reservation however so you might have to cancel. But you can be guaranteed they aren’t going to clean everything up etc so the $700 is needed to clean everything up and maintain the property after that many people come through. So basically yes its more trouble but you make that trouble worth your while or don’t accept that kind of reservation. So ask yourself how bad you think it could be and then charge enough to make it worth it.
I have a strict policy about this written in my house rules: you are not permitted to invite people who are not included in the booking into the apartment gardens or communal pool area. Only paying guests may enter and if additional guests stay the extra fee is charged for the whole stay.
I once had a guy with a 2 be apartment nearby asking lots of questions. I realised he was having a month long family reunion and was going to use my property as the hub : invading the pool and gardens with maybe 10 or 20 people, cooking for large groups every day. He was told in no uncertain terms that no people from outside were allowed and my neighbors would alert me immediately.
It sounds like your property is different though but if large groups are posing a problem maybe try making another listing as a smaller 1 or 2 bedroom with some rooms closed off and see how you do financially. Might get similar reservations and money but much less headaches.
Thanks so much everyone, you’ve all been a huge help (yet again) I will be refusing extra guests and do some major changes to my house rules and description for that matter.
I put in my rules that guests need permission to have additional guest at the house and that additional overnight guests are not allowed. My first ever guest in my listing (who was also a first-time Airbnb guest) wanted to have some extra people over. They were planning to welcome home their daughter returning from military service overseas. They booked for 10 guests (max for my listing) and later told me the total would be 25 guests for dinner and 14 total would stay the night. I politely refused the extra overnight guests and asked them to trim down the dinner guests to 20 or less (which is the number of people that can sit and eat at a table in my listing). They agreed, but later it ended up that a bunch of the people they invited couldn’t actually come, so they had only 6 total overnight guests and 12 total dinner guests. They turned out to be great guests, too.
