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I had a guest book my place and then 20 minutes later ask for a steep discount. I said no, I don’t negotiate discounts and she was booking during peak season anyways. She asked 3 more times for various other discounts (a little less each time). She made it clear she was holding my reservation but demanding a discount while also shopping for other properties.
No offense to people who do negotiate with their guests but I don’t like how much time it sucks up. I just tell everyone that post my prices with the intention that everyone gets the same deal - my advertised price. I’ve already considered the market etc…
Anyways I didn’t want her holding up my reservation until she canceled and booked with a discounted property. It was long enough of a reservation that I didn’t want to have more limited time to get it rebooked. Sh*t happens and people need to cancel but this seemed to be abusing the intent. I cancelled on her saying she broke house rules of not committing to the price she booked for and I was not longer comfortable hosting her. I honestly did not want to host her if no one else discounted her and she begrudgingly stayed in my place. Those guests are difficult.
I hope I get the VRBO waiver as she was technically breaking the custom house rules I had set up. Have other hosts had guests that block a property by booking it and then demand discounts and refuse to cancel while they are trying to get you to compete with other offers?
I only do Airbnb, but would just say that any discounts are already in my price structure and are determined PRIOR to booking. I have occasionally refunded some money when there was any problem during a stay with utilities, etc. but no post reservation discounts.
I’ll be curious what VRBO says. We’re on VRBO and what we really like about it is the insurance policy – the gust pays $79 for $3,000 of insurance (the usual price) – and we’ve had excellent experience with that.
I’m not familiar with penalties they might assess for cancellation.
What rules have you set up on VRBO that differ from Airbnb? I was surprised to read of a rule that the guest ‘commit’ to the price the guest booked for, trying to figure out what that meant beyond this example or is THIS the very situation the rule was designed for?
VRBO just allows for some custom rules. The rule I said they broke was one of my custom rules. I suppose Airbnb does allow for custom rules too, although it’s laid out differently. However by definition (and confirmed by VRBO support) by booking a place you are committing to that price. If you want to negotiate, the time to do that is by sending an inquiry.
Someone could book my place and hunt around for a better deal and not tell me. Then they could cancel if they got one. I wouldn’t be able to do much about that. Blatantly telling me and asking me to offer them a better price, I didn’t want to waste anymore time on the reservation.
Yes, and I’ve reported them to AirBnB because it’s always a Request to Book and they won’t take no for an answer. After my first “no,” I ask them to go elsewhere, cancel the request to open my calendar, and give them 2 hours to do so or I will contact Air and get them canceled.
This worked until the guest from heck and Air refused my cancelation both before and during the stay despite my proof she was breaking ALL my house rules.
I don’t compete. Stay here, follow the simple rules, pay the price. Unless you’re a returning guest, then RTB and I’ll send a special offer.
And I don’t negotiate past a couple of messages and I set time limits.
I don’t care how big the reservation is. Trouble is Trouble.
Do they request to book or confirm a booking? My issue with this lady was that she booked for 2 weeks and then tried to negotiate price. This blocked my calendar. The conversation was going nowhere. Does Airbnb allow me to cancel if this same situation occurred on their platform? VRBO agent was a little vague but in reading the fine print she was breaking a rule (rule being price paid) and I am allowed to cancel on guests who are breaking house rules.
The way to end this, and stop them from blocking your calendar on Air, is to switch to Strict refund policy so they only have 24 hrs to pull this crap. After 24 hours, no refund. The other thing you have to watch for with slimebags like this is that they’ll keep the booking but sell it to a friend, so it becomes a 3rd party booking. A house rule that says that the person booking MUST be staying there for the duration of the booking can help with that.
If strict cancellation, I believe that Host service fee is increased (FYI),
The house rule you suggest might provide, in theory, a little more protection because the guest would need to be there on day one (and so would you to confirm, so self-check-in not an option) but I wonder really how much incremental benefit if any it would give you since Airbnb already prohibits third part bookings. The downside is yet another rule, which might be off-putting to a prospective guest.
3)I think we really need to hear from @casailinglady who has experience in reporting such shenanigans to Airbnb, and how Airbnb responded.
Wrong - unless it changed in the most current revision of TOS. There used to be SuperStrict policies that some properties could get and pay a higher host fee. The rumor is those are not available any longer
Last night I was doing a deep dive into the different Airbnb cancellation policies and was surprised at how many are now offered and changes made. I don’t know when the changes were made. I’ve had the same cancellation policy for years so I haven’t paid attention.
If you list on Airbnb, you may wish to take a look.
I think “Firm” was introduced about a year ago or so, and the non-refundables for a couple of years.
But the non-refundables don’t seem to be a good option for hosts, as Airbnb reps have, surprise, surprise, overridden them when guests get stroppy about getting refunded.
Super Strict Still exists…the difference is that they no longer release the funds 60 days in advance for an extra %. As far as stopping this nonsense on VRBO, the answer is either no refunds, or switch to being API connected (such as OwnerRez) and charge the guest a cancel fee
Superstrict was developed/created/implemented by AirBnb approx 10 year ago due to pressure from full homes…and they were chasing those listings at that time. The purpose was to entice full houses to subscribe on Airbnb…because full house mgt companies and owners objected to the lenient cancel policies, and so Suoerstrict got created ( by invitation only). We paid a 3% fee for the priviledge and we got our funds at 60 days prior to arrival. During Covid they quietly took the advanced 60 day payment away. Now, they dispurse the funds the day after check-in, but do it in 2 payments. The main payment is the owner earnings, less 3%. Then another line of deposit gives the owner the other 3% which would have been taken if they gave the money 60 days earlier. So Airbnb has not eliminated it entirely yet, or the dispursed funds would no longer reflect the 3% fee and get paid in 2 different payments. The fee is higher for the host / owner…but not the guest. The guest would not know this,
