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I have noticed a lot of people search and book with incorrect number of guests. I’d like to bring in additional revenue in those scenarios.
Currently I do not charge extra person fees. If I set up extra person fees on the hosting side of Airbnb website, will it disclose the extra person fees in the description?
I need to show the same price whether a guest is booking for one guest or four. But if guest books for one and later adds another guest, I want to be able to charge them extra, in a way that doesn’t violate Airbnb TOS. I will only do that for longer bookings where the guest has chosen non-refundable option. If they leave a bad review, I will try to get that review removed by explaining to Airbnb that I simply enforced house rules so the guest review is a retaliatory one. I will not do this with the one or two-night bookings as I want good reviews from the smaller bookings to help me bury the potentially bad reviews from charging extra person fees.
Can I put the extra person fees under house rules? It is at the bottom of the page, and you have to click on show more to see the exact rules, so many guests might not read this while booking.
Any tips on using the extra person fees feature to maximize revenue ?
I have read ‘STR guru’ advice not to impose additional guest fees and instead price the property based on the desired target market and build into the nightly rate the additional guest fee that the Host would otherwise impose. I suppose the rationale is to attract and price the listing based on your target market.
Other benefits of doing so is to avoid disputes/issues arising with guests sneaking in additional guests (@PitonView has made this point) as well as avoiding perception issues about the proliferation of add-on fees.
Yes, I just tested this with our listing and the nightly rate price changes based on number of guests, even if the ‘display total price’ toggle is not switched on.
The answer must used to have been ‘no’ at least for the casual guest as we have received questions from prospective guests on why the price changed from what they had seen on the site.
I suppose the ‘tip’ might be to compare your listing’s competitiveness while comparing the listing with other listings at your desired number of guests.
We do impose an additional guest fee of $30 per person after the first two guests and have ourselves wondered whether this is the best approach.
One disadvantage of our current approach is that we need to clean all three bedrooms regardless of apparent usage – a nontrivial cleaning cost, turnover time, and linen wear/tear issue.
A potential approach for us is to have three linked listings, fully pricing each based on one bedroom being available, or two bedrooms being available or three available (each bedroom can be locked with a key). That approach would give us market feedback as well as somewhat reduce costs and avoid another additional fee.
In terms of maximizing revenue – or at least increasing revenue – imposing an additional guest fee seems to increase it.
But what we don’t know is: 1) how many of our bookings are made by guests who just need ‘x’ bedrooms, 2) What the guests are willing to pay for, and 3) How many bookings are made by guests using, say, just one bedroom when another guest might be willing to pay more for that second or third bedroom. [We haven’t (yet) tracked the number of guests. Even if we did, we really don’t know the value guests assign to the additional bedrooms: even two guests might prefer two bedrooms or just another room.]
So, like so many other questions the answer depends on your market and your listing’s position in it. I think linked listings would give you the most reliable information for both. If you chose not to take that approach, and if an intuitive approach is felt to be too naive, I would do whatever comparisons you do now to assess your listing by doing so with an iteration/scenario based for each possibility of additional guests. [I hope someone else has a better answer!]
In the current market situation, now my listing is not competitive. There are too many better listings at lower prices so I get bookings usually only after they get booked. That leaves me with bookings for the peak season weeks only. I can survive but not thrive in that scenario.
Thanks… I need to investigate this. Having multiple listings for the same place looks a bit odd though. I’d be concerned as a guest if I saw a host with multiple listings for the same place. Maybe there is a tool that turns listings on/off automatically. I could do something like one listing turned on particular days of the week and the other on other days. Can OwnerRez do that?
I’m using a different channel manager right now and I will investigate that.
Let me rephrase my needs:
I need to show the same price whether a guest is booking for one guest or four. But if guest books for one and later adds another guest, I want to be able to charge them extra, in a way that doesn’t violate Airbnb TOS. I will only do that for longer bookings where the guest has chosen non-refundable option. If they leave a bad review, I will try to get that review removed by explaining to Airbnb that I simply enforced house rules so the guest review is a retaliatory one. I will not do this with the one or two-night bookings as I want good reviews from the smaller bookings to help me bury the potentially bad reviews from charging extra person fees.
Why? If you normally charge the same price for 1-4 guests, and they add a guest to the booking later, what is the difference to you? It sounds like you just want to punish them for adding guests up to your stated max by charging them.
I can imagine many guests having a friend or family member decide to come along after the booking has been made. If they inform you of that, and aren’t exceeding your max guest count, why would you charge them extra?
To maximize my revenue in a way that does not violate Airbnb TOS. Just trying to figure out a way to do that.
More people means more utilities and more wear and tear. More cleaning, etc.
Similar model like the airlines where if you pay for bags when booking, you pay less. But if you want to add it later, you pay more. It is the same bag but depending on when you pay you will be charged differently.
This is often stated but I don’t believe that this is a material expense. Although I believe that a Host needs to be aware of their costs, I don’t think that a revenue maximizing strategy is a cost-plus strategy.
Instead a revenue-maximizing strategy would maximize revenues based on value received, not costs incurred,.
I think you could do what you want by stating your complicated pricing in the listing. But I wouldn’t recommend that as it’s complicated and I would think be interpreted as off-putting.
Given your objectives – and trying to keep it simple – I’d at least think about a linked listing that only permitted longer listings, which would include an additional guest fee beyond one guest as $X (subject to your maximum occupancy) and tied (if this is possible) to a non-refundable cancellation policy.
As to multiple listings for the same property I would think you could include a statement in the beginning of the listing that says something like (probably in all caps): “This listing reflects pricing for longer-term stays with a non-refundable cancellation policy.” How’s that?
Yes, I understand that, but if that is your concern, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t just have an extra guest fee after 2 guests across the board. Punishing guests monetarily just because they add guests after the initial booking seems really mean-spirited and if I were a guest, would royally piss me off.
There is nothing wrong with guests adding more to the booking as long as it doesn’t exceed your max. They aren’t doing anything nefarious or disrespectful. You should be grateful that they are upfront about adding guests, as this would be the kind of thing that would lead guests to try to sneak in extra guests.
We charge additionally for each guest beyond two guests. I assumed that many Hosts do this. After all, that is the purpose of the additional guest fee, right? Further, I feel that this is a very accommodating approach to guests as the pricing reflects more closely the value received; it doesn’t force the guest the pay a higher price based on a maximal or optimal occupancy of the property.
As an aside, we don’t accept any additional guests added after the initial reservation is made (and so say in our house rules) until that additional guest physically arrives at our property.
Our unstated reason: An unscrupulous guest wishing to cancel could add a guest for whom there would be an extenuating circumstance (EC). OR, simply that the more guests the greater likelihood that a guest could experience a genuine EC, and why should we take that chance? We’ll simply add them when they arrive.
At least one guest appreciated that cash-flow savings approach as we explained that the guest gets to pay the additional guest fees later.
I don’t think you followed @muddy . The surprise was to charge more if you add people after booking that you would not have charged more for at the time of booking.
Yes I’m trying to formulate a strategy similar to how the airlines operate. If I book a trip today for Christmas I will be charged let’s say $500. But in November, then my brother decides to join me. He will have to spend $1000. So he has to pay extra because he values the experience of going on a trip.
You completely misunderstood me. Nothing wrong with extra guest fees. The OP here charges the same price for her listing regardless of whether the initial booking is for 1 guest or 4.
What she wants to do is add an extra guest fee as some penalty simply because 1 guest wants to add another, or 3 more guests after the initial booking.
Not necessarily. Sometimes the prices go down. If the price is higher, it’s because the demand is exceeding the supply, not because your sibling didn’t book at the same time as you. Your accommodation supply doesn’t get sold to anyone else, so it’s not an accurate analogy.
Not a reasonable analogy. No, he has to pay more because the price per ticket has gone up closer to the dates for all passengers who book when he did.
What you are proposing to do with guests is like an airline telling you that now that they’ve raised their prices for that flight, not only your brother, but you also you have to pay more.
I think you have the only way to do what you are asking - simply put it under the house rules as the fee for any guest that is not included in total at the time of booking
That’s presumptuous. You have no idea what payment arrangement the guest has with extras. Maybe his teenager who was scheduled to be away on a camping trip with classmates had that trip fall through so will now be accompanying his parents. So the parents who made the booking would indeed be paying more.
Again, irrelevant. You aren’t talking about a guest demanding a refund because their plans changed, you are talking about adding a charge after the fact for booking for up to 4 guests, when you normally don’t charge extra for 4 guests.
It really doesn’t matter what other hosts say here- many of your practices are what other hosts would view as unethical, and you don’t. You seem to like to try to monetarily penalize guests for things other hosts would accommodate and consider part of being hospitable, and see nothing wrong with your methods. To each his own.
We are a homeshare, guest suite entire 1800’ second floor. Bedroom has queen bed, daybed in living room. Max 3 guests, $100 per night, listing clearly shows additional $25 for more than 2 guests. Boom, pretty simple!
