Thank you! I just changed my cancellation from Flexible to Moderate - I’ll see if that makes a difference. My rental is very inexpensive (just a room in my small house) and I do think that’s a factor - people feel less committed (possibly regardless of the refund policy) when the cost is low.
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All I can go on is my own experience- my listing is also a bedroom/bathroom in my home and inexpensive. My guests tend to book a few weeks in advance. I have had very few cancellations over the years and maybe only 3 that cancelled after the 5 day full refund cut-off.
Now there may be other factors involved, such as I am in a touristy beach town in Mexico, so guests usually have flights booked, etc, which makes it less likely that they would change their plans at the last minute, because it’s not just a matter of them hopping in the car and driving a few hours.
Because with the moderate policy if the guests cancel less than 5 days before check-in, they only pay for the first night in full and half for the remaining nights, and my rental is inexpensive to start with, they don’t seem to be inclined to try to demand a full refund- they aren’t losing that much money. Whereas hosts with strict policies seem to get more of that.
If I managed to rebook the cancelled dates on such short notice, I would refund the guest who cancelled, but that’s only happened once, and not for all the cancelled dates.
When I used to have a flexible policy, I had far more cancellations. Once I changed to strict, the cancellations decreased, although I still had guests who would try to cancel. Usually, it was because they found somewhere cheaper. I found that when I did not accommodate the cancellation request, the, Guest would show up in spite of telling me that they couldn’t. The few times this happened, I worried that I might pay for not accommodating them by being left a poor review. But that never happened.
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How did you discover this?
As a result of the great feedback I’ve gotten from you and other hosts, I changed my cancellation policy. I will be interested to see the impact. (As a side note: I’m the cheapest rental in my small town, so I tend to think some folks decide to go with a nicer, slightly more expensive place in the area…)
I think that’s a very valid point. Whenever we’re looking for a rental, we’re put off by the cheaper places. ‘You get what you pay fpr’ etc. or to be blunter ’ it must be crap at that price’. 
Although logically we know that’s not necessarily the case, about any purchase, it’s still there in some people’s attitude.
Well, if the cheaper places have lots of glowing reviews, wouldn’t that also influence whether you chose them? Or do you just pass on even checking out listings that are cheaper?
I don’t quite understand why a guest would book a cheaper place, then cancel last minute to book something more expensive, unless their financial situation suddenly improved.
No, I check them. But I’ve been disappointed in the past when I’ve chosen cheaper places. Cheaper places, I might add, with great reviews.
I know it’s not indicative of a host’s standards but this race to the bottom that some hosts do is not a good thing.
Location, amenities, taste, these all play a role. Folks who book a place do it for many reasons other than ‘cheapness’. It’s possible, for example, too, that their priorities have changed (needing a place closer to a venue, for example) or that, upon reflection, that the new airbnb simply looks like would be more fun.
Not everyone looks at things as price-related. Just because restaurant A has a cheaper hamburger does not mean that people will not go to restaurant B.
We always recommend on this forum that a host not compete on price, but on quality…
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I definitely agree with the race-to-the- bottom thing. I constantly read posts from hosts who are having trouble getting bookings, who say “I’ve lowered my prices and still having trouble getting booked.”
Well, in that case, the reasons they aren’t getting booked apparently have nothing to do with their pricing.
And it’s one thing to lower your price if you have a large profit margin and can afford to do so, but if you are reasonably priced for your area and type of listing, or aren’t making much profit to start with, lowering your rates doesn’t make much sense.
My place is inexpensive for what guests get here, to the point that I’ve had several guests say, “You could charge more for this, you know”.
I probably could, but I felt the price was fair to both me and my guests when I first started hosting, never felt like I was putting in too much work for the profit, and get fantastic, hassle-free guests. So why change what’s working?
(I have raised my price by a few bucks every year to cover increasing costs of utilities, amenities, etc.)
That certainly isn’t my attitude and it’s clearly not the attitude of lots of folks who are booking an AirBnB, especially for just one night. My place is priced appropriately and it’s far from crap - it’s small with a shared bathroom, but it’s clean and pretty. I have lots of 5 star reviews. There are several AirBnBs nearby that are just slightly more, so I have wondered if some of the folks who say their travel plans changed (although often their travel plans did in fact change), maybe decide to spend $15 more to get a bigger bedroom or a private bathroom or closer to more restaurants.
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I know of one specific example of someone who did this (because I saw the review they left at the other rental), and I have wondered if others might be deciding to spend $15 or $20 more a get a bigger bedroom or a private bathroom or be closer to more restaurants (I don’t know the reason the specific person made the change, but the place they stayed instead had all three of those things).
Now let’s just be clear. I did not say that your place is crap. I don’t know your place.
I said, that many people (and I included myself amongst them) may think that when looking at lower-priced rentals.
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I have had a few more cancellations as of late as well…It makes me wonder why but plans change and they may have found something cheaper or what they feel is better value. We have no control but I don’t think you can lose your super host status unless you didn’t have enough stays or you cancelled…as others have stated.
In a couple of cases, they flat out told me. In another case or two I was able to deduce what happened because they were large parties with only a couple of other options in the area that would accommodate the entire party. When I checked those options, I could see that the same dates they had booked with me had suddenly been booked at the other place.
I’m not sure if we should make a separate post out of this…
How do people pick their accommodation and what can we hosts do to cater directly to our target audience that will be happy because they received what we advertise?
Apparently you booked a place that was cheap but that you also liked from the photos and especially because of the reviews. I’m very intrigued to hear what your disappointments were as exactly this could help everyone to improve a listing’s quality to address issues that you did not seem to be able to identify beforehand like unexpected noise, smells or other issues that might have even been only temporary and if not what were they?
We’re facing an over supply of accommodations in our area at the moment and we do offer a basic accommodation in a very quiet area of our city. With higher end accommodations I can see why a ‘higher pricing’ strategy can still work very well as long as the guests consider the value to be appropriate.
With a basic accommodation I feel it is more challenging to justify an above average price even though we can offer tranquillity and pretty much 24 hour host availability (on property hosting) for any needs possible. The issue is that some guests simply don’t care about tranquility or a host being responsive since they never need those things but we do get guests who particularly enjoy those things and who mentioned that our prices are too low.
I understand that these things can vary greatly from one listing to another - just trying to make an educated judgement what to tweak to further improve our overall hosting experience.
I think that’s a great idea. I’ve been talking to guests about why they chose us for years, so I’ve got stuff to share.
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Did you cancel it at their request? I just had someone want to cancel at the list minute and I reminded them they need to go through Airbnb to cancel. Then they asked if it was possible to move the date of the booking rather than cancel and I just said “You need to talk to Airbnb as they deal with bookings and payments”. It was cancelled a bit later and as it was after the check in they didn’t get a refund and I didn’t have to deal with them.
Spike and Becky are my 3yo and 12yo Jack Russels.
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