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I need help crafting a review. Long convoluted story so I’m struggling to create a review short enough that the next host will read it & understand .
Here’s my incredibly long and poor attempt:
Guest cancelled and forfeited 2 nights of rental payment and taxes and Airbnb fees because her Airbnb determined refund of 1/2 the cost of a night’s rental for 18 hours without air conditioning wasn’t large enough.
Upon arrival (3:26 pm) guest unhappy with location (disclosed condo not directly on waterway in condo description 2x, 2x in pics including aerial view of neighborhood, 1x in personal pre-booking message)
At 7 pm date of arrival guest complained about floors not being swept but condo clean other than that. I have pictures of the condo before check-in that appear properly cleaned.
8:50 pm date of arrival guest reports air conditioning not working. I requested a repair next day. Guest wanted to leave. I asked Airbnb to honor guarantee & re-home her & give her a full refund of my rental.
Airbnb couldn’t find alternate accommodations. Guest told Airbnb no hotel available so would wait to see if A/C repaired the next day
A/C repaired & cooling by 4 pm.
At 8 pm guest texted she was unhappy with Airbnb determined refund of 1/2 of nightly rental for the 18 hours without A/C so she was leaving.
I apologized for the A/C failure and asked her to consider finishing her reservation so she didn’t lose the rental costs.
10 pm She left the condo. Airbnb confirmed her cancellation.
Wait until last minute in hopes that guest doesn’t review you. it probably went down like this: She didn’t pay attention and was bummed about the location. So she starts looking at everything negatively (I found a crumb on the floor!). The AC was her “last straw,” so she left in a huff.
If she was a charmer whom you would love to have return, I’d consider an additional refund from you directly (or, if she had stayed, a dinner certificate or other gift), but that’s obviously not the case, so don’t sweat it.
“We had a short term problem with the AC, and we thank the guest for bringing it to our attention and apologize for any inconvenience. Our guests’ comfort is our top priority, and we completed repairs the day after Mary’s arrival. We were happy to work with Aribnb to provide Mary with a suitable refund, and wish her the best on her future travels.”
Oops, that was draft response to her anticipated nasty review. Maybe this for her review, if accurate?
Mary chose to leave prior to the end of the rental period and left the condo in good order. There was a problem with the AC the day she checked in, for which we apologized. We completed repairs and a partial refund was issued the next day. Also she indicated she preferred to be directly on the waterfront, which, obviously from the listing description and photos, we are not.
I received notice from Airbnb that she had completed her review.
I didn’t mention she failed to read the self check in instructions sent to her and on Airbnb. She texted unhappy she couldn’t get through gate.
Also when I told her that I would call the Air-conditioner repair person the next morning she response was for me to say that the A/C must breakdown all the time (new unit less than 2 years old).
I’m far from a “bad review” expert, but you need to get the points across that other hosts care about:
Guest didn’t read the listing and was unhappy with the location.
Guest didn’t read message with check-in instructions.
Guest cancelled on the second day of a X-day reservation.
Cannot recommend Guest who apparently did not read and understand the listing description, and who did not accept AirBnb’s offered 50% refund when we experienced A/C issues.
@Annet3176 From everything I have read from you on this forum you are a caring and sensitive host. The guest is a prize bitch. Unfortunately you can’t say that so I would go with the advice from Review Gurus @KenH and @Brian_R170.
Summary: Thanks to Airbnb’s involvement in the remediation, they promptly removed her inaccurate review.
I left her a “Cannot recommend” review very similar to @Brian_R170& @KenH ‘s wordings
Story:
Her review stated something like, “Stay here if you want the temperature to never go below 80 degrees…family vacation ruined…host fraudulent about refund…they kept my money after we left…host responsive until there was a problem then nothing”.
Because Airbnb worked directly with her, they removed her review for being inaccurate. If I had tried to negotiate a discount or solution without Airbnb CS involvement, I don’t think they would’ve removed the review.
