Airbnb guest wants to cancel mid stay due to extreme heat

1

Currently in my location we are experiencing some very hot weather

Guest is staying with us 4 nights

Following the first night, the guest has messaged to say that they would like to stay tonight and leave in the morning due to the extreme heat in town.

They then asked whether they can get a refund for the remaining 2 nights.

Obviously I sympathise with the guests, but I do not want to lose out on the fee…

What is the best way of dealing with the situation?

I would be happy to refund them, if I could get another guest.

My cancellation policy is strict.

2

Does the room have an a/c? Are they complaining about the heat in the room or just the heat in general that makes it difficult for them to walk around town?

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3

Are they wanting to leave the area entirely to avoid the heat?
Or are they planning to move into a five star hotel or something in order to access good air con?
I need to know how getting a refund will remedy the situation?
Also, how unusually hot is it for your area? I know in London we’ve just been issued with a severe weather warning which I’ve never experienced in all my thirty years here

4

It’s summer, & hot! What were they expecting?:roll_eyes: If there’s ac in the unit, stick to your cancellation policy. Sorry, folks, but I can’t control the weather…

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5

Room has no ac but this is common in my country.

The guest never complained about the temperature within our Airbnb. They only complained about the weather outside.

To be fair it is unusually hot and set to get hotter next week. But this is not within my control.

6

They never explicitly stated, but I suspect that they have provably found a place/ hotel with Aircon

It is hot… Nothing too crazy… But the media have been warning that temperatures will rise even further.

This is what concerns them.

7

To be fair it is unusually hot… But they wouldn’t know this as they are not from my country.

I would like to stick to our cancellation policy, however in the back of my mind is a bit of money worth a disgruntled guest possible giving you less than 5 stars?

8

As long as you didn’t list an a/c as an amenity, I don’t see why you should refund them. I agree with Mollimac, the weather is out of your control.

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Why refund? Do you refund when guest leave because rain is predicted?

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I’ve had guests leave (or cancel) when hurricanes have been due and I haven’t refunded if the guests had already stayed for a couple of nights.

If they cancel when the hurricane (or tropical storm) develops and they read about it before the stay, I’ll refund. True, I can’t control the weather but neither can the guests.

If you quickly fire off a message to social media offering the remaining nights at a discount you’ll not lose out financially.

Although I once had a delightful young couple staying during a tropical storm and they loved dancing in their swimsuits out in the rain, watching the palm trees blowing around.

I really wouldn’t worry about that. They’re only stars and we’re not at infant school,

:star:

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No idea what happened to what I typed. Can’t seem to edit it, either.

If your listing doesn’t already say so, I suggest this type of addition:

“The room/house/apartment has no air conditioning and can be hot in the summer.”

Or something like that for future guests.

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But they can read weather predictions. It is the guests’ responsibility to inform themselves of weather conditions, road conditions, cultural norms, etc, when travelling to a foreign country, and they cannot expect amenities which are not listed, nor expect to be refunded just because they would have preferred that there was an amenity provided.

Do you have fans in the unit? if not, offer to bring them some. There’s also a trick I read about, but haven’t tried myself yet- freeze plastic bottles of water, and then hang them from the fan grate, so the air blows across them. Supposedly, it feels like aircon, although it would be localized to where the fan is set up.

If they are adamant about leaving, I would tell them you’ll be amenable to refunding them if you can rebook the nights, as refunding for conditions outside a host’s control is not a valid refund issue.

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13

No refund it’s outside of your control.
don’t think there’s any need to bring attention to no air con in your listing. You’d never say that in London for example as no one has it, but this Monday is going to be 100 degrees they are saying. I’ve had enquiries from people who are obviously filtering searches to find places with aircons. I’ve got a thing which is called an air con but is barely more than a fancy fan, so I’ve come up in searches I guess. I’ve explained it’s nothing special and they’ve moved on. Your guest might have have found another Airbnb with air con, and that’s not on - changing Airbnb’s because your priorities changed due to the weather not being what you expected!

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NO Refund! Aircon or No aircon! YOU do not control the weather.

Besides, you lot over there never give us south Floridians any compensation when you refuse to turn on the heat when the temperature gets below 20C!! :rofl: :smile:

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15

I would not set up anything that mixes water – in this case condensation dripping from the bottles – and electricity. People have been electrocuted by jerry-rigged swamp coolers.

I would provide a fan and not a refund. It’s up to the guest to decide what they want to do.

To placate, you might take the previous advice of hosts on this forum: “You could certainly ask Airbnb for a refund, but I don’t know your chances as A/C is not common in homes in this country.” Although it may be best to just say no refund and not give the guests ideas, because I wonder if a heat emergency, if declared by a government entity, could result in an Extenuating Circumstances refund? Weather events seem to be excluded per Airbnb policy, but they’ve fooled us before.

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I fixed it. The edit buttons seem to be missing. This site has been janky since it was down a couple of weeks ago.

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I haven’t had any trouble with the edit function, but that the Quote box now appears several inches below the post you are quoting from, overlaid on another post, is quite bizarre. (Thanks for alerting me that)
Are the site owners aware of the weird tech glitches since the site went down? It’s funny, because this forum always had one of the easiest, most sensible, unglitchy programming I’ve encountered.

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Yeah, the forum hasn’t been the same since, has it?

Must have been a big deal if there are still residual issues, I’d love to know what the root cause was.

19

So Air contacted me and I explained that weather related issues are beyond my control, so it is not appropriate for me to cancel/refund.

However, if the guest cancels and I get another booking they will get a refund.

If airbnb have any further queries, they should revert to my cancellation policy (which is struct).

I also explained to the guest that money related matters and refunds are handled by Airbnb as opposed to the host.

The guest then messaged me basically saying that he thought we had agreed on him leaving early and getting a full refund. And that Airbnb have basically told him that I am refusing to end their stay early and give them a refund.

The media is not helping with all these warnings of upcoming extreme heat.

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20

Well, what do these people plan to do, leave the country and go home? It isn’t going to be any cooler anywhere else around. Even if they find a place with AC, they’re going to spend their entire holiday sitting inside their room?

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