Explaining Extra Guest Fees to Airbnb Guest

[Chris Gottshall]

I had a guest book with me yesterday who indicated 1 adult on her reservation and then explained in her message that she was bringing 5 people and 2 dogs. She accepted the alteration request that I sent which raised the price for the extra guest (we allow up to 4 with the base rate) and our pet fee. But then, today, she came back and said it wasn't clear that there was an extra guest fee and wanted me to waive it because she wasn't aware of it. I invested a good chunk of time in crafting a polite, "no," response. So, in the interest of giving back/sharing with this community, I want to share the message I used to explain this to her in case someone is in the same boat and finds this saves them time. This particular guest has zero reviews, so I suspected she was just new to Airbnb'ing altogether. I'm curious if anyone sees anything that was 1) factually inaccurate or 2) has suggestions on how to make this more succinct, as it is quite lengthy:

Hello [guest],
I appreciate your question and I'll do my best to explain why you didn't see the extra guest fee initially. I assume from the lack of reviews on your guest profile that you probably have not used Airbnb much in the past, but if I'm assuming incorrectly, forgive any unneeded details that follow.

Search results on airbnb do not indicate whether or not any of the properties have extra guest fees when you are searching. Extra guest fees, including the threshold at which the fees kick in and the amount per guest, are set by each host for each property individually. Many properties do have extra guest fees once you click on them and enter the number of guests in your party. If your total guest count goes over the threshold, you can see the nightly rate jump up, and if you click the "?" icon, Airbnb will show you the details on why the price changed.

Extra guest fees are added automatically by Airbnb based on the number of people that are indicated in a party. Pet fees are not added by Airbnb. You'll likely recall that there's no place for you to indicate "I'm bringing a pet" when you requested your reservation. "Pet friendly" is only a search option to help filter out places that won't allow them. When you book, that's when you type a message to your host letting them know about the pet(s) you are bringing. The adults, children, and infants in your party are to be entered up front in the booking process.

Pet fees are added by your host after booking. I am assuming that you read the house rules where we spell out the pet policy and fee for our home under "Other things to note" since that was something you knew about. At the very end of that section, we address the matter of guests who bring more people than they booked space for, wherein it is mentioned that "guests who misrepresent the size of their party at booking will be charged for additional guests at $50 per extra guest per night." While I understand that this language does not explicitly call out the fact that there is an extra guest fee; the reason you did not see the extra guest fee when you booked is that your booking request was for 1 adult only, not for 5 guests. Based on the content of your first message, I realized that this was an error and corrected the booking details to correctly reflect that you had 2 adults and 3 children. Had you entered those numbers initially, it would have shown you a higher nightly rate and explained that there was a $245 (7 x $35) extra guest fee line item in there.

I'll send you some screen shots from my phone to illustrate what I'm referring to with the goal of helping you know where to look for your future bookings. I hope this explanation has been helpful. If you have any follow up questions, I'm happy to answer them, as well.

[Sent 4 screen shots showing the difference between booking for 1 adult versus 2 adults and 3 children]

I am certainly understanding of the fact that you may still feel surprised by the extra guest fee. If this means you want to reconsider your accommodation choice for your trip, there is still have time to cancel without any penalty. That being said, I hope that the explanation of how this works gives you more confidence in how the current price was derived and that you'll join us in just a few weeks!

The end result was her thanking me for explaining all of this and reaffirming their intention to keep the reservation. I realize that I risked them cancelling because I didn't give them what they asked for, but with the confidence that I had operated fairly, I was optimistic that they would understand, and thankfully they did.

How have you handled similar situations with your STR?

[Luke Carl]

TLDR sorry bud. Totally feel your pain but I’m not reading that. To me that says “I’m going to write big paragraphs and spend lots of time on you so go ahead and take advantage of me”