Does refusing a guests' changes to their booking automatically cancel the booking?

21

I have the opposite question. I have a guest that booked in January for a two night visit in April. 5 guests are coming for one night and then there will be only 4 the second night. Foolishly I sent her a small discount for the fact that one guest is leaving, but she never accepted the change.

Then she contacted me early March and asked if a 6th guest could come. But she didn’t know for sure if she would come.

Yesterday she got in touch with me. Since she never accepted the first change we couldn’t move forward. I explained to her in clear detail what the new price should be. Meanwhile she’s asking me what kind of church I go to (I was messaging her during church, and told her so, because I couldn’t resolve things on my phone).

But she wouldn’t accept the first offer. She finally did, so then I sent her an increase of price to accommodate the 6th person. The price is exactly what is quoted. She is freaking out tell me that she doesn’t understand! “I agreed to 20, 40, and now you ask again!!”

You should see the number of messages this person has sent me!!! It’s eating up a ton of my time!

So I called airbnb and spoke with Alex in CS to make sure that they thought my messages was clear, and they said yes. I told her again what the new price is, and that, if she has questions to call airbnb. I told her that 2x in the message.

I also reminded her that she is free to cancel and told her there was another property near mine that looked like it would accomodate her group for just a bit more money.

She said “Oh NO! I WANT TO STAY IN YOUR HOME! I had not understood but all good now!” So I said “OK, then, click accept and we’ll move on! If you have any confusion, contact airbnb and they will help you”.

The next message was “I paid 20 eauros and now 40 euros so I’ll pay 60 more while it is $30 is normal suddently?!!”

So I told her again “Call airbnb, they can help you” and explained that I’m talking about $ and don’t know euros.

She still has not accepted the upgrade.

Obviously if she shows up with 6 girls I will stop her at the door. Meanwhile - if she doesn’t accept by this time tomorrow, I will ask airbnb to intervene.

Any other thoughts? Other suggestions?

22

@dcmooney I would cancel…this sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen. Call CS and say you can not come to a resolution and the guest now wants to bring more people and you do not feel comfortable. Yes, you may miss out on the $$ for the time period, but you could be avoiding a crappy review and all around headache. This is the theory I used yesterday when cancelling on the wonderful family of 9(!!) that wanted to stay at our house this weekend. The $$ was just not worth it.

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23

Well, she did accept it, but continued to message me “why is it 20 30 60 euros” then “the money is not out of my bank yet - when will I pay you?!?”. I keep saying “contact airbnb; they can help you”. Finally she said “Ok, well, tomorrow, I sleep now - I have to work tomorrow” and of course I wanted to say “yeah, well I’ve been working all day and will work all night!!!”.

I will see what happens tomorrow. One more message like this and I will contact airbnb again.

Thanks

nbm

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24

Oh dear!!! This sounds very confusing. She probably did not understand the first alteration… which in the future, DC, you can withdraw! If it ever happens again, you can go in and withdraw the alteration request! that might have solved the whole thing!

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25

I wouldn’t do it, its the host cancelling after all so they should get the bad auto strong textreview for cancelling this is why the guest won’t cancel. Why do you have instant book on if you don’t want ppl to instant book?

26

WHy dont you just cancel her, can you still do it? I would, based only on the amount of ? and ! she put there.

27

yeah, I did not see that option, or any option; I couldn’t even open the request to look at it…

28

won’t that hurt me in some ways? I don’t really care - it’s just two nights - thank God. I’ll see if the situation straightens up today - so far, so good…no more questions.

She’s new - it is so easy to become concerned that you are being ripped off - especially if she’s reading the messages on her phone - and in a different language - I think if she calls air and speaks to someone in French she’ll calm down.

29

Did she book you already? Then of course you can’t really cancell her without being fined.

30

@dcmooney I believe even if you did not IB you can call Air and say the guest is bringing more people than originally requests, and they will waive the cancellation penalties. Just be adamant that the guest is making you feel uncomfortable and refuses to pay the extra person fee.