Roll Away Bed pricing

[jgessentials]

Hello fellow inn keepers!
I am new to the group and you will more than likely see a lot more of me in the coming weeks. I have just started as manager at a small retreat in California and am very grateful for the amount of information available here.
As my first question, how much do you charge for a roll-away / additional bed in one of your rooms?
Thank you for your replies!
James

 

[Madeleine]

It's best to price according to where you live. Some areas the 'extra person' fee runs high to force the guests to consider taking a second room. Some places don't charge anything.
So, search the websites of your competitors for an idea what goes in your area.

 

[BananaE29]

I charge $50 for an additional person. This covers cost of the cot, additional amenities (extra towels, soap, etc), sodas/snacks, etc and breakfast.

 

[Arks]

Do you serve breakfast? If you do, you should charge more for extra people over just the cost of sleeping in the roll away.
I have queen size sofa beds that will hold up to two people. I don't serve breakfast. In addition to the regular room rate, I charge $10 per person, per night, for use of the sofa bed.

 

[Country Girl]

Hi James,
Welcome. I charge $30.00 for an additional person/rollaway bed.

 

[Copperhead]

WELCOME! Glad you are here!
I'm with Maddie here. Check the others places in your area prior to settling on an amount.
If others charge nothing or very little, you may want to rethink the issue of offering the option or compare total room rates to see if you can pad them up a little. Each additional person in a room adds additional wear, additional water use, more laundry and if you serve breakfast, cost of food.

 

[Breakfast Diva]

It's a good suggestion to check other properties around you. We charge $30 for any additional person, including a child.
I think it also depends on whether you want that type of reservation and whether it fits in well with the type of property you have. We have only 2 rooms where it's even possible to add a 3rd person and there's no amount of money they could throw at me to add an additional person in any of the other rooms. It's not the kind of business we're looking for.

 

[Joey Camb]

also without knowing your pricing structure, we charge more for the actual room as it has to be a bigger one to start with and then $30-40 for the extra bed - also I use it as a way to get people to book direct ie you must have a larger room so you must ring to check we have one available.

 

[BananaE29]

It's a good suggestion to check other properties around you. We charge $30 for any additional person, including a child.
I think it also depends on whether you want that type of reservation and whether it fits in well with the type of property you have. We have only 2 rooms where it's even possible to add a 3rd person and there's no amount of money they could throw at me to add an additional person in any of the other rooms. It's not the kind of business we're looking for..

Yes, this is a good point. That's why I price mine high, and only have one room that can accommodate a third.

 

[gillumhouse]

I thought I mentioned a spring-loaded canvas cot and fee for it but I just looked and did not see it. Glad you made me look - I do not want to DO IT! I have been saying when there are 3 people that they will need 2 rooms and present the 2 that share the bathroom. So far that has been working well. Sometimes (but not always) I will lower the price on the queen room to seal the deal - I give up $15 and get 2 rooms.

 

[OnTheShore]

Haha, we charge $1000 per person per night for extras above the stated max occupancy of each cottage. At least that's how I set it up in ResKey! ;-)

 

[jgessentials]

Thank you I appreciate your replies!
We do serve breakfast and there is I believe a small charge for the third guest although that is something I have to check thanks for making me look at that.
I think $30/night makes sense in terms of our location. Much more questions to come, thank you for your patience and willingness to share with a newbie
James

 

[KatesCottage161]

Hi everyone, I have enjoyed reading all these comments, as I also had questions about the extra person charge. As I will be the only b&b in my area I really don't have any other properties to compare myself with. Larger hotels charge $15, which I feel is too low for what I am offering. I have only two rooms, one with a queen bed that is too small for a rollaway, and a king room where a rollaway can fit, albiet tightly. I will have to give this some serious thought and your comments are most helpful.

 

[April]

Hi everyone, I have enjoyed reading all these comments, as I also had questions about the extra person charge. As I will be the only b&b in my area I really don't have any other properties to compare myself with. Larger hotels charge $15, which I feel is too low for what I am offering. I have only two rooms, one with a queen bed that is too small for a rollaway, and a king room where a rollaway can fit, albiet tightly. I will have to give this some serious thought and your comments are most helpful..

Our experience with roll away beds-especially when the room is small = unhappy guests. We do not offer them anymore. Way to much hassle and not enough $. Unhappy guests write bad reviews.

 

[Highlands John]

Hi everyone, I have enjoyed reading all these comments, as I also had questions about the extra person charge. As I will be the only b&b in my area I really don't have any other properties to compare myself with. Larger hotels charge $15, which I feel is too low for what I am offering. I have only two rooms, one with a queen bed that is too small for a rollaway, and a king room where a rollaway can fit, albiet tightly. I will have to give this some serious thought and your comments are most helpful..

As Arkansaw said in the other thread, make something up. How badly do you want the booking and how much extra hastle is the third person going to be.
If a couple want a room for 7 nights in quiet season and want a child to share their room I'll keep it low like £10-£15 per night, so as not to scare them off. If it's three adults who want a room for 1 night in peak season when I could do without the extra hassle of setting up the fold-up bed for 1 night and then putting it all away again I'll bump the price up to close to the standard room rate. That's how I work.

 

[Madeleine]

Hi everyone, I have enjoyed reading all these comments, as I also had questions about the extra person charge. As I will be the only b&b in my area I really don't have any other properties to compare myself with. Larger hotels charge $15, which I feel is too low for what I am offering. I have only two rooms, one with a queen bed that is too small for a rollaway, and a king room where a rollaway can fit, albiet tightly. I will have to give this some serious thought and your comments are most helpful..

Don't squish people in if you can avoid it. Their memory of the place will be 'gee, that place was small!' Plus, they then have to share a bath among 3 people.
We often have guests wanting to put FIVE in a room. Stop, people! Think about this. FIVE people in line for the bathroom. FIVE people trying to shower and get ready. NO!
If you room has 'enough' space for a rollaway, maybe you want to make a nicer sitting area with a desk and bigger comfy chairs.
Again, it all depends on who you think your market is.

 

[gillumhouse]

In all honesty, I have been known to GIVE another room to avoid having to put up and take down the spring-loaded cot for one night.

 

[EmptyNest]

In all honestly, I am with Maddie. If your room just has a tad bit extra space, make it more inviting for 2 people in the room. AND avoid the hassle of an extra person or child squeezed into the room. Don't even advertise the occupancy at 3. If someone HAPPENS to call and ask...surprise them and say possible but on the whole I never found the extra person in a room very acceptable.

 

[egoodell]

After all the work we did to bulld, I will not put three in a room. They would damage it. There is simply too much going in and out - especially with "girl groups" who will bring three huge suitcases, three massive amounts of bathroom makeup etc,
My rooms are plenty large enough for three and I do have singe and double couch beds, but after all the work making the rooms nice, I decided not to mention it.
We had, for example a group of 4 older professional women who met here for a vacation. When they left they neglected to mention they had managed in both rooms to yank the heavy duty towel warmer racks out of the walls in the bathrooms. All my DH can figure is they were hanging heavy travel wardrobes on them instead of using the closets. Probably had other stuff hanging in the closets. I can only imagine if I had more than two in the rooms.
So to me, the additional $20 or $30 per person would not pay for both housing and damage.
Riki

 

[Arks]

After all the work we did to bulld, I will not put three in a room. They would damage it. There is simply too much going in and out - especially with "girl groups" who will bring three huge suitcases, three massive amounts of bathroom makeup etc,
My rooms are plenty large enough for three and I do have singe and double couch beds, but after all the work making the rooms nice, I decided not to mention it.
We had, for example a group of 4 older professional women who met here for a vacation. When they left they neglected to mention they had managed in both rooms to yank the heavy duty towel warmer racks out of the walls in the bathrooms. All my DH can figure is they were hanging heavy travel wardrobes on them instead of using the closets. Probably had other stuff hanging in the closets. I can only imagine if I had more than two in the rooms.
So to me, the additional $20 or $30 per person would not pay for both housing and damage.
Riki.

...they had managed in both rooms to yank the heavy duty towel warmer racks out of the walls in the bathrooms...

The horror!!! I may not sleep well tonight, and I'm serious about that! If they did that to my towel warmers I'd...well I don't know what I'd do, but it would be some drastic action!