Wondering if I should change my hosting rules from adults to 3 adults.I dont mine parents bringing a kid who is grown(no little little ones). They would have to sleep on the couch.And pay an extra 10. What do you think?Or if you cant provide a bed I shouldnt take in a 3rd person?Wondering if I am leaving business on the table!
I’ve wondered this myself and look forward to other’s responses.
OP, do you think it would be worth an extra 10 bucks to have another area of your house with a guest in it, and for the extra laundry and other work associated? I have a queen air mattress I could put in my den. But this would mean more sheets, more bedding to change, blow up and un blow up the mattress…
2 times I was asked if I can make 2 separate beds in my airbnb. I did, and will never do it again. My place started to look like gypsy’s camp + extra bedding + an air mattress to take care. One time there were just 2 ladies who did not want to sleep together and another time there was a pregnant woman with a husband.
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We have a 90 square appartment.
We have a price 1-4 persons then 23 dollars for each extra after 4.
My guest room is too small for 3 in my opinion but if someone really wants to put 3 in there with someone sleeping on the floor I might accept. But I’m not changing my listing to accommodate more than 2. I don’t want a third person on my couch or on my airbed in the living room. I have thought about putting a day bed in my 2nd bedroom that I currently use as a study and they could use the bathroom across the hall and not have to share with anyone. But they would have to be in the same group, I wouldn’t rent to two separate groups. I just don’t think I can charge enough to make it worth my time and inconvenience.
Sorry – to me having guests sleeping on floors and couches and four in a bed is very third-world and very un-classy. That’s not a quality home-stay experience, that’s a fragging refugee camp. If you have a double/queen or king bed, you sleep two adults. Not adults plus kids. A couch is for sitting on, unless it is a hide-a-bed. Then and only then should it be slept on, and the house rules should require the guests to fold it back into a couch every morning.
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I’ve had guests ask to bring one more, and it is possible as I have an extra spare room upstairs they could sleep in, and I have done it, once, my home is small, 3 extra people besides me is not comfortable.
Also, had one set of guests that booked 2 months ahead for a 2 night stay because they were attending the annual dance festival in a nearby town. Well, the day before they arrive, they emailed me, because somehow they just then realized my ABB offers only queen sized bed, and they didn’t want to sleep together.
I did know when they made the reservation that they were both men because they provided their names, but I thought maybe they were in a relationship.
Well, so they wanted to bring an air mattress. I almost said no.
Decided to say yes, let them bring the air mattress.
They sent me a text message one day advising me that they thought they left one of their cell phones in their room, would I go get it and plug it in so it would have power when they arrived home. So, I did that, and I was grossed out by the sight of the airbed on the floor of the bedroom.
So, never again.
Either peeps can sleep in the proper bed, or they can stay elsewhere.
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I had the same thoughts - refugee camp in a middle of my artistically designed Airbnb. NO airbeds any more.
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Personally, I think, the more people you can accommodate the better your chances of a booking. As a mom who has traveled with a kid (totally perfectly sweet child, of course…) I would welcome a chance to have a place to stay, and my daughter would be find on a couch with some bedding. It just depends on the quality of your space, what you are trying to accomplish - your mission, that is. When I first started I had only airbeds and a lot of junk was employed. My guests loved it; it was priced accordingly.
You could always try it…
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I will accept or reject on a case by case basis. I just accepted one for 3 (he was a host himself w 2 teenagers)., it was same day so the day was going to expire…and when he left it was immaculate, he mustve made the kids clean, I didnt even find any stray hairs!Thats a first.Cleanest guest ever. I like hosting other hosts…
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We’re considering doing the opposite! We have a 45 sq. metre apartment, with a separate bedroom and the a sofabed in the living room/kitchen. We’ve decided to reduce our numbers from 3 to 2 adults, but continue to accept parents with one child (no non-swimmers!) who would sleep on the sofabed.
It’s mainly because, like @Marina says, I carefully set up and designed the apartment to be attractive and easy to keep tidy and didn’t realise how much extra mess a person sleeping on a sofabed would create. And I am definitely going to put this:
in my House Rules right now!
But it entirely depends on your personal situation. We’ve been almost completely booked, mostly with couples but if I was having difficulty getting bookings I’d change it back to 3 people to widen the target market, I think.
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I wonder if guests don’t know there is a feature to search for two bed listings. I have two beds and specifically have groups of two, such as guy friends, book with me because they don’t want to share a bed. I don’t blame you for not wanting to make up a second bed. It is a lot of work! I used to offer a third bed (a futon I stored in the garage) but it was too much work to set up, even for the extra $15 per guest fee.
My second bed is a hideabed, self service, so it isn’t extra work for me. I’ve said here before that I hate it when guests sleep on the couch (no sheet or anything! Using the decorative pillows!) but I haven’t gotten around to making a photo guide explaining how to pull the bed out, so I haven’t changed the house rules to require guests use the hideabed instead of sleeping on the couch.
I’m glad this has come up as a topic, because I was wondering about it myself…
We have 3 spare Bed rooms, but only advertise 2, 1xqueen and 1x2xsingle. So 4 people max.
We did this thinking we would have couples or Mum&Dad&1or2_Kids, but we are finding we get all sorts of combinations.
We have the 3rd room with a queen, but if we use that we charge for an extra person, which is $34 a night, by using the ‘special offer’ button. Some take the offer, some choose to share a bed with a ‘non partner’ and save the money.
We don’t allow couch surfing, as we’re not running a back-packers or YHA, others people can cater for that market
Also to note is this is our home, not an entire house situation. There have been times we people have mistakenly booked it as an Entire House, only to find it’s not. I think these people might think ‘we’ll sneak an extra person in for no extra charge’. We’re happy to accommodate additional people, at the appropriate additional charge!
At $34 pp pn (above 2 people), our additional charge is probably on the high side (our competition are mostly around $7 to 20) but the guests we wish to attract are not the penny pinching type, and the only comment we have ever had on pricing is “you could probably ask for more…”
So that is our experience. Only been doing it for 6 months, so still open to all possibilities and feeling our way 
S