First time: Double-booked a guestroom

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What an evening for my wife and me last night!

While at a community dinner last night, I got a phone call at 5:30 p.m. from a single woman who said she just booked one of our guestrooms through Booking.com and was sitting in her car waiting to be allowed inside our house.

My wife and I rushed home and met the woman parked in our driveway in a rainstorm.

She first said, she lives 220 miles away and was traveling through our area yesterday and needed a hotel room. We were the only lodging available online. But we had both downstairs guestrooms occupied by a family of four adults, who were attending a nearby wedding.

After agreeing to sleep on our upstairs couch last night, the young woman went out for dinner alone and came back drunk at 9:30 p.m. She asked my wife to drink with her, as I went to bed. Then the woman took a 20-minute shower at 11 p.m.

She later told my wife, she lives nearby and wanted to get away from her toddler-child and boyfriend for the night.

Our four other guests returned from yesterday’s wedding celebration at 10:30 p.m.

It is now 9 a.m. and she is still sleeping on our couch, as the four other guests are downstairs.

My wife and I finally went to sleep at 1:30 a.m., as we were worried the woman was still drinking and could fall-down drunk in our house. Plus, I was worried her boyfriend would find her here and kick-in our front door.

I have now corrected my online-reservations calendar; so I won’t over-book guests again, as what happened yesterday. I was on the phone with Booking.com to teach me how to fix the calendar problem and give the woman her $149 reservation payment back, since she slept on our couch.

My wife and I will be laughing about last night’s fiasco for years to come.

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Oh blimey Don. What a performance. I’m glad you two can laugh about it though :slight_smile:

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Omg what a crazy story. Sounds like she needed a break from her home life. It was very nice of you not to charge her. Yes it’s very important to know how to block other calendars when you’re listed on multiple sites. We’re on homeaway as well as Air. A few months ago the Air calendar somehow got unblocked so unfortunately we had to cancel a booking to honor the homeaway booking. It’s best to check them frequently.

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Why’d she first say that she lived 220 miles away? So you’d feel obligated to find her a place to stay?

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Since she lied the first time, what makes you think that after that everything she told you was the truth?

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Brian_R170: She lied because, she actually lives four miles from our Airbnb home.

She did not want us to turn her away and send her back home; especially when there was a severe rainstorm here last night.

At this point, my wife and I no longer care about her lies. We are happy she had a warm and safe place to sleep.

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Although your kindness is admirable, you aren’t making good business decisions. In one weekend you’ve fallen prey to two guests who claim this or that (no way of really knowing if they are telling the truth) and as consequence you’ve given your space away. If you’d like to go into charity work I’m sure there are many refugee families that could use a free place to stay.

From a selfish point of view I’d say you are rewarding bad guest behavior and that’s just going to encourage them to try it elsewhere with other hosts.

OTOH, double booking is a BIG BIG goof on your part. It’s fine to try to make right but bending over backwards for manipulative people seldom pays off.

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Actually he wasn’t. My assessment is based on him housing another couple in one of his $125 a night rooms for free because the couple confessed they couldn’t afford it.

You might be right, he might be making all the right moves but based on the totality of his posts here over the past few months I have some concerns. Mostly only for him but if he’s going to give away housing to the general public there are other ways to do that wouldn’t potentiall affect all of us down the line.

I hope you’re right. This world needs more of your sunny outlook.

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Yes. He has a post in another thread about it.

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