AITA? Venting and help with a reply

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Reddit has a forum titled AITA; if you don’t already know what those letters stand for it’s “Am I the as***le?”

My situation is this: three days ago I had an inquiry from a potential guest (who is also an AirBnB host, btw) from New York City who wanted to book my standalone Victorian house that accommodates six people. She wanted to book herself and a friend for two months this summer to get out of the city. Let’s call her Amy.

Two weeks ago before I had an inquiry from a woman for the same house who wanted to book the house for herself and three other women who were coming here to do a clinical rotation at the local hospital and would be here for three months. Let’s call her Zelda.

During the last two weeks Zelda has stayed in touch with me letting me know that they were still interested and were only waiting to book until they had their starting dates for the rotation.

Amy first contacted me three days ago asking about the same house. She asked question after question, in spite of all the detailed information on the listing. She specifically asked about the cancellation policy and if she would be able to get her money back if she canceled. I told her that I would stand by my cancellation policy. I told her if she was not sure that she was coming, or sure that she wanted to come here, it would be better for her to wait and book after her plans were firm. I also told her the reason I would hold her to the cancellation policy is that I had other people considering the same house for an even longer rental and if she booked—and then canceled—it would probably lose me the other, even more lucrative, booking. So I told her I would be holding to my cancellation policy.

Well, sure enough, after three days of waffling and inquiring about my cancellation policy, and a whole lot of other questions about how far to various things and what recreational opportunities there were, etc, Amy booked yesterday morning. Mind you, I had told her I would uphold my cancellation policy. This morning I got up and Amy had sent me a message saying she wanted to cancel (only 24 hours after booking) and asking me to give her a break on my cancellation policy and refund some or all of her money, instead of the one month’s rent I would get to keep if she cancelled.

In the meanwhile, yesterday, just an hour after Amy booked, Zelda contacted me. They finally all had the starting and ending dates for their clinical rotation. She had noticed the house was booked and asked me about other options. I have another house on AirBnB. It more expensive than the other one that they wanted to book because it considerably larger and has more amenities. I have been staying there myself due to the pandemic because my husband is an essential worker and couldn’t isolate so I’ve needed to isolate from him. I worked out a deal with Zelda for that house, giving them a discount so they can afford it, which will leave me with some profit, I hope, but not a lot because having 4 people in that very large house will run up the cooling bills and other metered utilities quite a bit.

I’m furious with Amy for asking to cancel and get her money back. Her excuse is that traveling from New York City to where our Airbnb is would be “significantly more difficult and dangerous” than they had first anticipated. It’s a ridiculous excuse, IMO. It’s an 8 Hour over interstate roads all the way from there to here.

My husband’s essential work is that he is an over the road truck driver. One of the things he hauls are the plastic pellets used in making medical face shields and other PPE and medical supplies. He’s been out there since the start of this. He wears a mask and washes his hands and takes proper precautions. He has not acquired the virus. The risk of acquiring the virus simply by traveling for eight hours by car on the interstate is demonstratively minimal if they take any kind of precautions.

I feel Amy has been jerking me around and causing me a lot of problems and taking up a lot of my time dealing with her inquiries. Then she wants to cancel and wants a refund after I have specifically told her I wouldn’t do that.

Amy thinks I should just contact the other guests and see if they will take the Victorian house and then she wants her money back. I’ve already spent a number of hours dealing with Amy‘s questions. Plus I spent almost an entire day yesterday trying to work out a plan for the four women in Zelda‘s party so that they could be accommodated. I’m super annoyed that Amy did this. Maybe Zelda’s party will agree to take the Victorian house. But they may prefer to stick with the booking they already have. Plus if I go switching the reservation for Zelda’s party, it’s going to cause me a lot of work on the Airbnb platform and we all know what a pain that is these days.

So, AITA here for refusing to give Amy a refund in violation of my own cancellation policy? Especially after I warned her I would stick with it and especially since if I did give her a refund it’s going to cause me a considerable amount of trouble to rebook the other party? Even assuming Zelda’s party consents to being rebooked… If they don’t consent to being rebooked I will really lose out because the profit margin on the Victorian house is much greater, especially because I gave Zelda’s party a discount on the other house just so I could accommodate them. I feel at this point, asking Zelda’s party to switch makes me look like a flake.

Also, it’s extremely unlikely I’ll pick up a booking to replace Amy’s booking. These two bookings are the first we’ve had this year except for one that started before the virus took off and lasted to mid April. Our listing are entire houses, not simply a room in our house. We incur considerable expense when when the houses are not occupied.

Also anyone have any suggestions on how I word “no” to Amy so she quits coming back and asking for the refund? I’ve already told her no once. She just keeps coming back with more suggestions and pleas for getting her money back.

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Just say no, you stand by your cancellation policy.

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@Keugenia IMO you are and have been way overthinking this. Zelda and you had good communication, and when Amy inquired, I simply would have told her that there was another guest you were in the process of working things out with for those dates, and you’d get back to her after conferring with the first guest.
Then I’d have contacted Zelda and said that you really needed her to commit one way or the other, as you have others interested in the dates and can’t just hold them indefinitely.
Amy sounds like a veritable jerk. I would not have gone to so much effort to try to make the place available to her in the first place- she has all the markings of a terrible guest. You’ve given her an answer- no waiving of your cancellation policy. At this point, I would just start ignoring her messages. To be honest, I wouldn’t want her as a guest at all and I’d give her a full refund just to be rid of her- I wouldn’t want to take a chance on her following through with the booking at this point- she’s the type to complain about everything, bring extra people or a dog that pees all over the floors, and then leave a bad review.

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LOL. I hope her last name isn’t Cooper. If it is, you definitely are not the @$$hole.

I agree with muddy and Rebecca. You made it clear what the terms are.

The only thing I will say is that had you been posting this before Amy booked is that I would have already gotten rid of her. All the neediness and questions are a red flag. Tell her not to contact you again and if she does, try to get Airbnb to block her for you.

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No, her last name isn’t Cooper!

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Nope - you advised her of your cancellation policy all the way through. She sounds like she would have been a petty princess guest, so you have dodged a bullet. You have a group that will communicate your great service, so possible further bookings that way.
If I need to move a guest, it is always a free upgrade!

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She booked a reservation for 2 months less than 15 days before check-in? If so, that’s kinda crazy, if not, she’s still within the 48-hour grace period and she can cancel without penalty.

Hosts shouldn’t violate their cancellation policy and refund for anything that isn’t the host’s fault. Tell the guest to contact Airbnb about cancellations and refunds and let Airbnb do the job that they are getting paid for. If the guest is not due a full refund because they are within the grace period or they have extenuating circumstances, then Airbnb isn’t going to fully refund their fees, so why should you? If Airbnb asks if you want to refund the guest, don’t do it, because Airbnb will refund the guest from your current payouts instead of refunding the money they’ve already collected from the guest.

It’s fair to offer to refund any days that are re-booked, but moving guests from another property to satisfy that isn’t a good idea unless you think it’s easier to re-book the other property. Oh, and don’t refund anything until 24 hours after the guest’s original check-out date.

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It’s more than 19 days until her arrival. But for long term stays—those over 28 days, AirBnB’s long term cancellation policy applies. It does not mention the ability to cancel with 48 hours. It does say that their first payment might be non-refundable and if the guest wants to change the reservation, the host may need to approve it if it’s before the trip but within 30 days of check-in.

So I don’t think the 48 hour rule applies on long term stay reservations.

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Oh, and I have no current payouts. I’ve had no bookings this year (well, I had some but they were cancelled) except for one long term that started in January and ended in mid-April. That one has already been fully paid out, of course.

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Oh, sorry, I totally disregarded long-term. Those are fully refundable if cancelled less than 48 hours after booking and more than 28 days before check-in, but at less than 28 days, there’s no refund

https://www.airbnb.com/home/cancellation_policies#long-term

I’m betting this guest simply found another place that she preferred. The one risk you have is that you don’t refund, she decides not to cancel, she shows up, and she is a bad guest.
There were already warning signs of neediness, but now she might also be disgruntled.

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Agreed. I think she found something less expensive, or at a location she preferred, or both, and decided to try canceling and getting her money back.

According to her profile, she is a host herself. I think this may lessen her risk of doing something damaging to the property, but increases the risk of leaving a bad review.

At this point, I don’t care about a bad review, compared to the loss of several thousand dollars.

My guess is, if I don’t bend—and I won’t—she will keep the reservation for the full two months and tear me up in the review. I will throughly document everything before she arrives and will fight the bad review if it comes. I have 171 five star reviews—148 of them from guests and 23 from other hosts. Up to now, I’ve never gotten less than a 5 star review overall. So I think I can take the hit to my rep, if I have to, in exchange for several thousand dollars so I can pay the costs of having the houses.

There will not be a profit overall, this year. I’m just trying to cover our costs and keep folks who do work for us employed.

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(in Air msgr):

Dear Amy,

Thank you for reaching out to us. We are sorry that you decided to cancel. Please do so in the Airbnb system as soon as possible. This will clear our calendar and we would have the option to refund you for the days that are booked by other parties.

Thanks and regards,

RINSE AND REPEAT as needed. If she pushes about “the other party” you can ignore it but perhaps better to respond that “they booked a different stay”, so that is not possible. In her mind, THEY are how she gets out of this. If you take it off the table, this may be leverage to force her to cancel asap - in the hopes that you get a rebooking.

Other points:
Notice my wording - no commitment to refund. Just that you would have the option. I would not give her one dime, even if the entire place got booked. Even if you wanted to, you would have to wait until the timeframe is done and you have been paid for whatever you could get. This lady is such a piece of work. You earned the money. Bear in mind that even if you DO get it partially booked, your expenses with the other place will really eat into that. Her fault.

Oh and AITA - Amy is the … NICE how it works out that way, isn’t it? :slight_smile:

Do not feel bad. This is business. You did not cause the situation. She did.

If you try to get the other party to rebook, the whole thing can unravel and you can lose that entire booking.

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Amy’s the a$$h@!!. I’ve been in your shoes and learned my lesson the hard way. If it goes beyond 3 messages about the house/room, I say “based on the number of questions you’ve raised, this doesn’t seem to be a good fit for either of us. Please withdraw your request as I stand by my strict cancellation policy.”

It usually gets them gone, with some whining, and I’ve dodged that bullet.

Ask Zelda to switch back. Give her 10% off to move, explain the metered utilities. Tell her about Amy and mea culpa all over the place.

Zelda books the Victorian and cancels the other one, you provide a refund for Zelda and tell Amy to pound sand.

Then ignore Amy, take the money from Air, and learn from this.

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No.

then ignore her.

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She can’t do this quite yet - Amy has not cancelled. The Victorian is not available until it is released.

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Yes, true, very true.

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Just say no, maybe offer to refund 1/2 if the dates are re-booked.

RR