Currently, the search function allows people to search for homes based on the number of bedrooms in a home. However, this is not good enough to easily search for homes which will accommodate medium to large travelling groups because it is not possible to search based on the number of people who are able to sleep in a home. A home with 3 bedrooms could accommodate anything from 3 to 10+ “sleepers” depending whether there are double beds or single beds in each bedroom, and how many “put-up” beds are in a home.
It would be a very simple matter to add a single new data field to each house… the number of people who may “sleep” in a house. The search function would allow members to search for homes which support a specified number, or more, “sleepers”.
Even better, add 3 new data fields:
- number of adult sleepers
- number of child sleepers
- number of baby sleepers (defined as needing a crib)
Isnt that what the beds tab shows. I can accomadate 8 but only as 4 people who sleep together. It would be hard for me to answer how many adults teens etc I could accomodate. No babies but 2 girl teens may share a bed but my boy as teens rarely would. Not sure if beds is a search fx
Currently, you can search by number of bedrooms or number of beds (with or without other sleeping solutions). The main problem is that the beds filter doesn’t distinguish between different types or sizes of children’s beds, and the “extra beds” filter is even worse, as it doesn’t differentiate between baby cribs, 140 cm children’s beds, small sofa beds, large sofa beds, etc.
All of this could be solved if HE allowed filtering by types of extra beds (at least between cribs and single/double sofa beds), as well as by bed dimensions. This information would be easy for each property owner to enter, and also easy to search for later.
You are proving my point. My suggestion applies to the search function, not the host’s description of the “beds” capacity of their home. The problem is the disconnect between the search function and the way that a host describes their home… the host specifies the number of bedrooms and the number and type of beds, but the search function only allows searching on the basis of number of bedrooms. The guest may have a requirement that involves BOTH the number of bedrooms AND the nature and number of the beds (e.g. double, single, child, crib).
Due to this disconnect, many homes may appear in the search results that are not actually appropriate. The searching member must then evaluate in detail many homes that would not even have appeared in the search results if there was enough information available to the search algorithm.
To solve this problem, the search function should support users who specify a certain number of each “capacity” of bed (double adult, single adult, double child, single child, baby).
Another separate problem is that I have seen many, many members who describe the number of beds and bedrooms accurately but then in the narrative description of their home they will say “maximum of xx guests” which invariably is a number less than the maximum number of guests calculated by the algorithm. This is obviously a sneaky way of setting too high of a GP value for their home. They overspecify the capacity of their home to get a high GP value, and then do not allow any guests to meet reach this capacity. This has happened many times in searches that I have conducted,. This could be solved by requiring hosts to specify a maximum number of guests allowed in their home.
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You can not search by number of beds, only by number of bedrooms, so it’s even worse than you say. I agree with allowing filtering by types of beds, but also would require adding the ability to specify numbers of each type of bed.
And HE should force members to specify the maximum number of guests allowed in their home because many members have a theoretical capacity for more “sleepers” than they actually will permit in their house. This, of course, is their right to choose. But they should have to specify this up-front in the description of their home, other wise they will continue to appear in search results inappropriately and the GP value of their home will be unjustly inflated.
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@CapBimet, if you come across a listing where the theoretical capacity is higher than the number of guests the host actually allows, please report it as abuse to HE. It’s quick and easy, and it helps the HE team better understand the extent of this +GP strategy.
That said, you’re absolutely right. At the moment, we can’t filter listings by the number of actual beds. What I meant was that we can filter by number of people without using put-up beds, but I agree with you completely—this issue really needs to be addressed. It’s sadly common for hosts to add cribs, kids’ beds, or portable beds to boost their GP rate, and it makes the search experience very frustrating.
Even if they do have those cribs or kid beds, the core problem remains: it’s hard to know if there are enough real beds for everyone. I’d also love to be able to filter by type of bed—single or double—because many times I’m traveling with adults who don’t want to share a bed for the entire holiday.
There’s another related issue: the category “kid’s bed” is really vague. It can mean anything from a 120x50 cm toddler bed to a 90x190 cm single. It all depends on what the family decides to call a “kid bed,” so you never know if your child will actually fit in it.
HE should definitely provide clear definitions of what counts as a “big bed,” “kid’s bed,” etc.
I also wrote a post about this issue here:
The "extra bed" filter should be improved. It does not work properly as it is nowadays - #13 by Nathalie1
Let’s hope HE takes care of this major inconvenience and fixes it soon.
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