Guest asked me to change my cancellation policy

Pres. Biden announced new mandatory policies for vaccinating federal employees and contractors and others under existing US law. Our federal system where the US has some power and the states have some makes this a more complicated issue in the US than in most nations. Hopefully this will be the boost we need to get to the levels we need. There will always be a minority that screams the loudest but the thing about the virus is that it doesn’t care. The pro-covid people will never stop being wrong.

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Hello guests i am a forum newbie here, and im browsing the forum to help my in my tough spot, as i cant create the topic i hope the original poster wont be mad at me for a little distraction.

I had guests booked for 28 days(longer reservation cancelation policy) , now after liek 12 days they are here they said they want to check out 12 days earlier and would like to get a refund( airbnb policy said they are not entitled to it), i dont know if ill be able to get my apartment booked.

So now im comunicatiing with the girl and am acting dumb… but something in my gut is screaming at me so i found ur forum. I offered that i will give them 50% of the money of remaining days minus the airbnb provisions… but she wants me now to modify their reservation till the day they leave( fishy part).

What would you do in my situation? I mean its not my problem that their plans changed…

Best regards
Mr. B

Do you mean that they informed you of their new departure date only 2 days in advance? They spent 12 days in your Airbnb and then told you that they would actually leave 12 days before their initial departure date?

If that is the case, you can modify the booking to shorten their stay but you don’t need to modify the price. Keep the same price and don’t refund them anything until you get rebooked all the 12 nights or some of them accordingly.

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Tell them if they don’t accept the modification to shorten their stay, the rest of the room nights will be blocked and no potential guests can see them and you will have zero chance to get them rebooked. So the earlier they accept the modification without refund, the greater the chance that your place will get rebooked for the cancelled nights and then they can get refunded at least partially depending if you have to lower the price to attract last minute booking.

Please take into consideration the discount you have given them for booking 28 nights. The price per room night for 16 nights may be different from that for 28 nights. They are no longer entitled to the same discount.

I mean “4 days in advance”.

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Thanks for your response Miyima, they informed me yesterday that they want to basicly half their stay. Only issue i have is that it is an offseason and i had to decline another reservation for like 25 days so they could come in for 28 days. As it is offseason im not sure if ill get a booking.

We both payed fees money is in my account and i am afraid if airbnb will charge me something in advance because of the modifcations and obviously they are not in longterm stay cancelation policy. I had the idea that i would give them cash (50% daily rate -booking fees payed as an act of goodwill) but i want to be sure if im not scammed in anyway.
Regards
B

Please don’t do that! @Miyima has given you good advice. Stay on platform for everything and only refund what you can recoup. Put it in writing to them in the platform as a guarantee they can refer back to you if you are able to recuperate your loss. Don’t forget to charge day(s) lost for turnover and cleaning fee. & great reminder from @Miyima about the discount reversal!

Also, you should call AirBnB and document your situation with them in case you have any issues or possible retaliation or extortion issues.

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Do NOT MODIFY the reservation. That is a scam. That would give them 48 hours to FREELY CANCEL and step around your cancellation policy. NEVER do it. Just message them that they can cancel on their side.
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From the way this looks, I bet they knew from the very beginning this was their plan.
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If you are WILLING, you may offer to refund them 100%, 50%, whatever - for days that get rebooked by other parties, after you receive those payments.
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We would write, “Sorry that your plans have changed. Please cancel your stay so our calendar opens up and we may then have the option to offer some refund for days that are rebooked, after we receive those funds. Thank you for your understanding and for choosing us and our stay”.
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Note the careful language - there is no COMMITTMENT to a refund. Since it looks like they were seeking to scam you, we would let them think they would get money later and they would get nothing at all, even if we rebooked.
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Regardless, never give a dime until you have the other money in your account. They are adults, they made choices and you are running a business.

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Really? For a stay already in progress? Good to know…but honestly it doesn’t make sense. They already checked in. What are they going to cancel? Asking for and/or accepting a modification makes sense.

But for stays that have not started, definitely I would not allow a modification of the start date depending upon my cancellation policy (& my mood :slight_smile:)

Ok, you just confirmed what my gut was telling me, the girl knows what she is doing. And if i change the dates to a lesser stay they have ability to cancel on me. i think ill manage to book it somehow. i’m gonna go with your way. And for the refund i am basically ok from a moral standpoint to give them 50% of the remaining 12 days - the airbnb fees. But i wont modify anything.

How will you unblock your calendar to attempt to rebook w/o a modification of the booking? Or do you plan not to?

i was reading that they can modify their reservation stay even without the refund. So if they do that that should unblock my dates, im not giving the mthe money or doing anything before they do that.

Yes, but I guess they’d only do that once you sent them the 50% refund? & why trust them? If they do make a mod request make sure the price isn’t changed. I’d document and agree via Air message, talk to CS and then I’d send the modification to change the date and the price to reflect the new total I’m offering (the 50% on remaining days, less that discount ;- ) & the new checkout date they want. They can take or leave. Sorry if I’m not tracking

If they wont do that i wont give them back the money. Because i am doing THEM a favor. so my idea is when they modify the dates and i get the notification we can talk about the money. That way i dont need to trust them, they need to trust me. It is their mistake for whic hi shouldnt pay… i am doing this because im nice :slight_smile:

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You have no obligation to refund them anything at all especially when you have declined a booking of 25 days to accept theirs without mentioning the very short notice they have given you. Why would you want to refund them in cash? They didn’t pay you in cash.

You won’t be charged anything for modifying the reservation unless it is a modification that will increase the payment amount of the reservation. I have done that many times. By changing the date of the check-out day, the system of Airbnb will recalculate the total price but you can change it manually.

For example, I had a guest who booked for 2 weeks at 50€/night before discount. I gave 10% discount for 1 week rental and 20% for 2 week. The guest asked to check out 4 days earlier after a week’s stay. I modified the reservation from 14 days to 10 days. The total amount before the modification was 40€ x 14 nights + clean-up fee - Airbnb service fee. Now it became 40€ x 10 nights + clean-up fee - new Airbnb service fee. I changed the new total amount back to the original amount because I wasn’t sure if the 4 nights would get rebooked. I lowered the price from 50€ to 40€ and the 4 nights got rebooked. The payout for the 4 nights was 40€ x 4 + clean-up fee - Airbnb service fee. The amount I refunded my guest was 40€ x 4 - Airbnb service fee - 10 nights x 5€ (discount difference).

Well, if they are smart they’ll have you agree in writing in the app. I guess I prefer the “clean kill” in this case. I’ve done the “I’ll pay you if I rebook for the same or more earnings” and it’s frankly a pain in and of itself.

These people were running a well- known scam. They never intended to stay the whole month. They book long term to get a monthly discount, then want to leave early, because the refund would be based on the monthly discount price per day. So they figure they’ll get a short term stay for the price of a long term.

I’m reading of so many guests doing this these days, that I’m sure there are online blogs advising this, among other ways to scam hosts.

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The thing is that i already got payed, and im really not interested in talkign with support negotiating and wasting time about their mistakes. Because if i quote the airbnb rules they are entitled to nothing. And from a business standpoint(which i am looking at… i got a 12 day reservation instead of 25… and now they want me to pay for them). so when i get confirmed in my app that their dates have changed we can even start to talk about money.

Right now the guests are under the Long Term Cancelation Policy which will cause them to lose 30 days of payment because it is a long term stay, effectively a month-to-month lease. Which is fair since they booked for so long.

If the host allows them to modify their reservation then they will fall under his cancelation policy for stays that are not long term, which could be flexible or moderate and then he gets stiffed when they cancel.

Never ever modify a long term booking to less than 28 days.

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exactly my point jjd, i want to keep them on the airbnb long term stay policy for cancelations. if i modify the dates they can get on the less strict cancelation policy

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