Entitled guest demanding refund

So I had a guest book on Trip Advisor for 4 days at new years and a few days later realized my cabin does not allow dogs. Due to it being less than 60 days out my strict refund policy allows only a 25% refund, had she waited a few more days it would have been no refund at all. So she cancels, ignores all the prompts telling her she would lose about $900 and then emails asking for me to refund it all. I told her I would be happy to if and when I re-booked the nights. This is my second cancellation for that date, the other was early enough they were refunded in full. The guest then contact Trip Advisor, who then contacted me and I told them the same thing, TA then told the guest I was not making an exception to my refund policy.

What a breath of fresh air TA has been, no “extenuating circumstances” no strong arming me or overriding my policy.

I hope for her sake I re-book some or all of the nights but I really do not care one way or another. I am sick and tired of self entitled people who think they can enter into a contract and then just cancel said agreement without penalty.

It would have been way cheaper for her to just board her damn dog and honor the contract. Well she is honoring it, she got her 25% back per our agreement.

RR

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And you wouldn’t do the same If you had the same situation? You wouldn’t even try to get your money back If you made a mistake or didn’t pay attention? I definitely would at least try to talk to the host. You know, many many hosts do refund guests out of their good will.
I was refunded more times than I was not . And I refunded more times than I didn’t when guests booked so many months ahead of time and realised within couple days they made a mistake.

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I would contact host before I hit the cancel button, and if host unwilling to refund I would make reservations for the dog at the kennel.

I will likely get rebooked for some or all of those days and refund her, even though I am not obligated to. A contract is a contract.

RR

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More and more and more and more I find people expect complete and total freedom. My husband teaches guitar and bass. Mostly retired now, but for the last five years the marketplace in NYC was such that you could not enforce a cancellation policy. It was impossible. Folks expect same day cancelations without penalty for so many things. I think even doctor offices are having a hard time enforcing it. My husband even had folks just not show up and still were shocked that there was any financial implications. His only hammer was to “fire” students to did it too often.

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Some people don’t even know what they are doing. They have no idea that by canceling they automatically are left without any right to negotiate about their refund.

I do not buy that, it is clear when cancelling there will be penalties thats why the guest emailed right after the fact. Some people just do not think the rules apply to them, that they are special and the customer is always right or some other BS. I am a bit jaded about this, I am a real estate broker and enter into contracts all the time and it is amazing to me that clients think they are meaningless and that they can somehow just walk away from them. Business is business, a contract is a contract and by allowing a client/guest to walk away from an agreement then we are enabling the entitled mindset.

RR

Edited to add:
They never had a right to a refund, nothing to negotiate. The terms were clear and they got the 25% per our agreement.

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Agreed. Not my problem.

RR

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You will get rebooked. New Year’s is the peak of the season. Hope you will refund her . 900$ is a lot of money to loose like this

I agree. She should have not cancelled and boarded the dog instead.

Of course I will when I am re-booked.

RR

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My dog was really depressed when I boarded him. We stopped boarding him when he got older. Instead we used to hire a live in dog-sitter. Some people want to have their dogs with them at all times. They are a special part of their trips. I think k for her it was a total deal breaker seeing she can’t bring her puppy.
May be she was new at Airbnb but I would think if it’s so important to her. not part with her dog before spending 900$ she would read all the rules. After all not all places accept dogs. Weird…

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Just another example of truism I call PDR - People Don’t Read.

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I could not agree more.

RR

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I’m not familiar with Trip Advisor, but I think you handled it perfectly; You inspired me to update my ABNB settings from Moderate to Strict.

I had wanted to make it Strict just for Feb, March, April 2019 but I discovered that ABNB doesn’t offer the same type of flexibility as they do with the minimum # of days. I also realized that Strict is now limited to 14 days

I did add a statement in my House Rules:
Please make note that I’ve recently implemented a STRICT Cancellation policy*, specifically for February and March, as this is a very busy season. Should the dates you have cancelled be offset with a rebooking, a refund will be provided for those dates that were booked, minus the ABNB admin fees (that I have no control over).

*“Full refund for cancellations made within 48 hours of booking, if the check-in date is at least 14 days away. 50% refund for cancellations made at least 7 days before check-in. No refunds for cancellations made within 7 days of check-in.”

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I had to change my physical therapy appointment twice this week. After the second time of calling them within an hour of my appointment I said “I’m sorry about this and I understand that there will be fees I have to pay, just let me know when I come in tomorrow and I’ll take care of it.” Much to my surprise they said not to worry about it, those threats are mostly for the people who are no show/don’t reschedule/don’t call. I was so pleasantly surprised. However, a PT clinic with multiple clients and multiple therapists is not the same as one guitar teacher with one time slot. I’ve had some dog boarding cancellations recently that really put me out. People don’t realize that I’ve made my plans around their dogs and now it’s too late to change them.

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Exactly. Hence the title of the thread. People who don’t know what they are doing should stay in hotels. They should buy trip insurance. We are (for the most part) one host, one listing and a cancellation puts us out. I wish all hosts would give honest reviews to these entitled guests so those of us who don’t want to host them don’t have to.

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Some hotels have zero refund policies at a small discount and it doesn’t matter whether the room gets booked or not, there is no refund If you cancel. If I make boo boos like that I never think about asking for exceptions. It doesn’t seem right to make others responsible for what happened on my end. That is specifically why we have contracts and those life lessons help you learn for next time. But it’s true, a lot of people have that mentality… it’s not about what is just, it’s about what is best for them. That is not good. The more that this behaviour is reinforced, the more we will see it. Glad you had a good experience with trip advisor.

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Nevertheless booking.com customer service will call for you and ask on your behalf for a refund. And MOST hotels will give you refund.
Doesn’t matter if it says non refundable.
Not sure why does it call to be entitled. And why wouldn’t you even try and ask? If they are ok with it, what is the problem
I gave refund if I am nicely asked many times and I was given refunds many times by hotels especially in high season when they know they would be rebooked. Few times I lost money so be it.
I am not referring to situations when a guest blocks your calendar for weeks and then decides to cancel the last minute. Then of course no refund from me unless I rebook.
But in this case it was whole 2 months ahead. She cancelled within couple of days.
Also we don’t know hosts situation. Noone will offer refund , but when you ask they might.
Once we reserved a house and then things changed and we were ready to loose money but we had no choice, we couldn’t make the trip. Just in case we called and asked if the host will be willing to give at least partiall refund as it was couple thousands $ for us to loose. To our great surprise the host said that he will actually refund us all of it as he has another inquiry from returned guests for the same period of time ( major holiday).

No it was a month and a couple days. Still not re booked.

RR

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@Yana - What you describe is their decision based on the cost compared to the goodwill they will generate. If you are sure you will be rebooked, the cost is very small - probably just some of your time - compared to the happy guest that may book you next time and not cancel.

The example of your owner giving the refund is the same - he already had a replacement booking so his cost was very small or zero to do what you want.

For us (and I suspect others), we have a low chance of getting rebooked if the cancellation is too near to arrival date. So the cost would be everything we refund, and the chance the guest that cancels rebooks in the future is very low. So it’s just not worth it to us to offer refunds outside of our cancellation policy.

Edited to add - We do refund if we can rebook the dates. I tell people that if they want to cancel, but also tell them the odds are low we’ll get rebooked. I did have a miracle happen this past summer where someone cancelled only four weeks before arrival and we ended up with a replacement booking a week later. She got all her money back.

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Exactly. Why have a policy if you are not going to adhere to it? And since Air not involved to override it all the better in this case.

RR

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