Would you take extra guests to a holiday let?

No, I wouldn't. It usually says in the lettings agreement that only the people named on the booking form can stay in the property overnight.

We had a holiday house in Cornwall which slept up to 8 people. We used to wonder if at times more than 8 people stayed there but how do you know!. Often there’s no way of knowing but people do try it on and get away with it.

It was let through a local agent and the only other people who went into the house during the holiday period were the cleaners and the laundry people at the end of each stay when the house was empty for a few hours.

When I was involved in the tourism industry, the mid week cleaning had a second purpose, and that was for cleaners to flag up any concerns, be it evidence of more people, or dirt and breakage, damage, etc, which would be reported back to Head of Household and tackled there and then.

It is incredible how some people behave- we have a family of 5 parking their mountain bikes, full of mud, on the new hall carpet, and worse- cleaners would take photos with date and report.

No, CFs. Have you given them your opinion OP?

Blossoming

No, CFs. Have you given them your opinion OP?

Yes, I did say that the host might not be OK with that, and mentioned insurance. She was genuinely surprised!

In a non-COVID year I take members of my family on holiday in the UK two or three times a year and I have never taken more than the number of permitted guests. Sometimes there has been a ‘changeover’ where one of my children leaves with their family at the end of one week and another arrives for the next, but if we’re all going to be together for the whole time and can’t all fit into one cottage I book two.

I had a holiday home I let out,they would be told to leave by me.

Someone I know took their two dogs on holiday where the terms for the holiday home were specifically for one dog only.

It would have served them right if they had been caught out, and made to leave.

If she reads her holiday let contract she may find there is a clause saying that having more people in the house than the number it is let for breaks the terms of the let and she can be evicted on the spot.

I remember seeing such clauses in the contract for houses we have rented.

Have used holiday cottages over many years, still do sometimes for
just the two of us. To over occupy is unreasonable , no have never done that.

Less important, but another thought is that there may not be enough crockery, cutlery, glasses etc for the extra people.

If she wants to sleep 9 she should hire accommodation that sleeps 9 or find extra accommodation elsewhere for the additional 3. Perhaps ask the owner of the cottage if there is anywhere else she can recommend. This is mean and sneaky.
Dd regularly rents a cottage on IOS and always sticks to the rule of 6 which includes the children and gets on very well with the helpful owner.

No I wouldn’t do it, for one thing I wouldn’t like to be crushed in sharing amenities, like Kali2 we normally under occupy, if only to get additional bathrooms.
But I think it’s unacceptable anyway, some people just don’t care.

A big no from me too.
She should pay extra for another 3 occupants,they will use more electric etc.
She has a cheek beyond words.

Absolutely not!
I thought it was illegal anyway. Many years ago I was involved in this sort of situation when I went on holiday to rented accommodation with three girlfriends. The brother and boyfriend of one of the girls, plus another male friend arrived ostensibly to camp nearby but by the third day had moved in, without my approval but nobody listened to me. The accommodation we had rented was substandard and not what we had booked but when I complained the owners said, justifiably, you haven't honoured the agreement by allowing three extra people to move in and refused to listen to the complaint.

I'd never do it - but some friends (who are very well off) regularly hid their youngest two children, under blankets, in the car on arrival - to 'sneak them in'. They got a kick out of saving money and getting a bargain deal - also crowing about how clever they were!

I bet they didn't know about insurance being invalidated.

Would it invalidate the host's insurance so that if the property were damaged there would be no payment?
That seems unreasonable if the host could not know of the cheating.
Also, it's unlikely that cheaters would care about that.

How rude to take more people than the cottage is registered and insured for.

I had friends who had a B&B and discovered a family of four in a double room. They were swiftly evicted!

Cheating in any form is simply not in my nature ?

It sounds like a form of theft to me.
We may be old fashioned but my husband and I have always tried to live by the principle that if you gain anything dishonestly you will never get a moment's pleasure from it. It is also about the example you set for your children.

I booked a two bed apartment on a holiday island where my daughter was working (same price as paying a single supplement) and asked the owner when I arrived if said daughter could stay with me for a couple of nights. The answer of course was yes and we had a great time.. the owners were very interested in her conservation work.
But I wouldn’t have dreamt of smuggling her in without asking first!

We rented a house to sleep 10 for our daughters wedding. One extra couple had their flights changed so were without accommodation for the last night - we asked the owner, he sent a maid to make up a sofa bed in the study and we voluntarily paid a bit more. The only way to do it imho

Absolutely not. Deception and theft! What is she thinking of??

That’s just taking the Michael, so no, wouldn’t do it. Someone somewhere is losing out on possibly badly needed income. We had big family Xmas in 2019 with 16 of us, but managed to find adjacent properties in a lovely location which accommodated us all. You need enough room for everyone to have personal space, if you don’t then that’s when disagreements occur. We’ve been back twice since then in various configurations, it’s been such a good find.

Definite no,for the reasons you mention plus it's just plain abuse of the holiday let system and mean.