Personal opinion and from my perspective stick with 6. The work load to clean and expense to host goes up with each extra person you add and in reality you can’t compensate for the extra people and use. We had allowed 10 at our cabin but bumped it back down to 8 as for the size and what we found manageable and what we were able to charge as a going rate.
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You CAN compensate for the extra work load and expense…add per person charges…I don’t understand why more people don’t do this.
I charge my base price for only one person and then an additional $20-$21 per person above that. When I do end up getting a booking for 8-11 people it is usually just for a night and that additional money pays me well for the added work and expenses like utilities, making up extra beds, making up futons, providing more bottled water, coffee, tea and oatmeal, tissues, TP, paper towels, trash bags, etc.
I prefer hosting for one person and am compensated at my preferred amount for anything more. And since few places allow the option of so many additional people it becomes worth it for the guests to pay a bit more than the cost of a couple hotel rooms that may not even have enough room.
And it averages at only about twice a year that I get such a large group anyways. If I started to get them more often, I would probably raise prices more anyways to make it worth my while.
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That is correct and the method we used also but we found out when we installed a doorbell camera a high percentage of our guests where not providing the correct number of guests actually staying, which we were suspicion of, based on the use of our place and dirtied laundry. Then you have another issue on your hand, do you confront your guest about the extra ppl or just pretend you never saw, as anytime there’s a negative exchange or confrontation between host/guest you open yourself up to be negatively reviewed. So that’s a little how we came to the conclusion to drop the number of people allowed and keep our price in the competitive range of the area.
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I used to do this. But it ended up being more work than it was worth. Someone would miss their flight and I’d have to give money back. Someone would be added at the last minute and I’d have to charge. And the extra-person fee was small compared to our base rate that it seemed petty.
So I gave up. Now I have a two-person listing with a flat fee if they bring even one more person at any time during the stay. Haven’t had any bookings on the two-person listing yet but I have my fingers crossed it works as I expect.
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That’s why I indicate on my house rules a much larger “unauthorized person or animal fee” of $50 each per night compared to the $20-21 when authorized and pre-paid.
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