How does request for extra money generate to recipient?

Just started doing Air BnB and am enjoying the experience. Then I got a reservation from a Japanese university student studying in the states. She indicated she had two additional guests which is fine because my room can take 3 guests. However, after the student and her two guests arrived and I showed them the space, she indicated she had 5 more students in the car and asked if they could stay. I was flabbergasted but didn’t think I could just turn them all out at night, so I told her extra guests would have to sleep on the floor, and that I would charge an additional $15 per extra person as my listing clearly states ($15 for each extra guest after 3). So I sent a request for additional funds through the resolution center. Now the student tells me she can’t find the request. So where does it generate to? It’s not in the Air BnB inbox area and I’m having a hard time even finding it in my listing, and I have no idea how the student gets it in her account. Has anyone else had problems like this? Thanks for any advice.

Yes, absolutely. I have to send pet fee requests and quite often people can’t find them. Best I can tell they aren’t visible anywhere on the app or desktop site from the reservation, calendar, message thread. Nothing logical. The best way to find it is for the guest to check the email account associated with their Airbnb and Airbnb will have sent a link.

I hope everything goes well but even if it does I wouldn’t advise doing this again. You aren’t a social service agency and regardless of the cultural differences one doesn’t reserve for 3 and actually have 8. And what kind of car carries 8? Where does a space that takes 3, sleep 8? I wouldn’t even have that many towels or pillows or blankets.

This is one of the most dismayzing stories I’ve read on this forum and I do hope you will update us and tell us all went well rather than it being the nightmare I’m envisioning.

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www.airbnb.com/resolutions
You should also have gotten an email after filing in the resolution center with a direct link to the case. I don’t know why they make the resolution center so hard to find on the website!

Why did you use the resolution center, instead of just modifying the reservation and requesting funds that way? Just curious. The resolution center, the way I understand it, is for resolving disputes. This seems like a simple reservation change.

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Because you can’t change a reservation after it starts

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Thanks for your quick response. The experience, while stressful, did not turn out to be a problem other than collecting the charge for the extra guests which has still not processed. I clearly explained to the student who’d made the reservation that I was not set up for 8 guests, and they would have to sleep on the floor. Fortunately I have a roomy space plus couches in the shared TV room. We pulled out an extra comforter and pillow and told them to divvy up the bedding. I’d also asked my husband to help supervise and he indicated there would likely be no problems with Japanese students studying at a major university in the states, given they come from well-to-do families and their culture enforces politeness. He was correct. They were polite and left on time. However, he’s 6’ 6” and deep voiced, and they were all petite females so they may have been intimidated. Overall I just think they did not understand how Air BnB works. Considering the circumstances it could have turned out much worse. Nevertheless, I still expect to be paid the extra charge.

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My understanding is once a reservation is confirmed the charge cannot be modified—and I even tried to do so but the system wouldn’t let me. My only option was to use the resolution center.

Whew! Thanks for clearing that up. Is there confirmation in the message thread on the platform that there were 8 of them? Message her and tell her to check her email and accept the request. If you are correct about her being a model Japanese student then she should have no issues with paying you. But if she doesn’t, once the required period of time has gone by (72 hours) you can involve Airbnb. As long as there is evidence in the messaging that she did have 8 guests then you should be paid.

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Also if you have a limit of 3 people and you try to change to 8 it won’t let you. I have a limit of 2 and I can’t enter a change to 3 without going in and changing the number of guests I accept.

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Change your listing to 8. Submit the alteration. Change you listing back to 3.

I tell my guests they will see the alteration request either in “my alerts” on the phone app, or on the dashboard of the browser version. Thus far all of my guests have found the alteration request in one of those two spots.
It may be different if you are instead requesting money, but I suspect it might be the same?

Now the guest is indicating she can’t find the request for extra money because she doesn’t understand how to check the email associated with her Air BnB account. It is a very long complicated email consisting of

Last name-long string of random characters/numbers@guest.airbnb.com

How does she check this email?? I’m assuming that is where Air BnB send the request?

Thank you. Marie Wise

Another update-- guest apparently does not understand how her Air BnB email address is set up. I researched and discovered that she has a temporary email address consisting of (example) jane-def456@guest.airbnb.com, which according to this help topic https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/694/how-will-my-email-address-look-to-other-people is supposed to forward to her personal email address. But it is not doing so because she is not receiving my ‘request for extra money’. However, she has indicated (in the Air BnB inbox) that she wants to pay. She just isn’t getting the request, and I have no idea what to tell her.

Appreciate any assistance. Thank you. Marie Wise

That’s ridiculous. It goes to whatever email she put on her account when she set it up. The long weird email is just a mask on the website so that you can’t see her actual email address. It will forward to her regular email if you send something there or through the Air messaging or resolution system.

Tell her to call AirBnB.

jkamm is correct. She should check the same email she would check to get confirmation of her reservation, etc. If you have it on the platform that she is trying to pay there should be no problem getting the money eventually. This student is going to have lots of fun navigating America.

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just get it in cash at this point. I can’t believe you only charged them $15 for all this hassle.

She finally paid up. I charged $15 per person for a total of $75. My experience is that while Japanese students understand written and spoken English very well, they do not speak, write or text it well, and they don’t understand our technical systems at all. So be wary of renting to groups of university students studying in the states. In my case it all turned out OK, and the student paid the extra money, but it might easily have gone awry. Also, thank you to everyone who replied to this topic. It helped me learn more about how Air BnB works, which seems to be a big learning curve! Sincerely, Marie

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I’m afraid I would have called AirBnB to cancel. Not that I’m cruel, but it’s not my fault if folks can’t read the rules or understand them, and I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with an extra FIVE people! Why did she think she could just bring them along? Either she’s clueless, which means she needs to learn more about the US and about AirBnB, or she was trying to pack as many as she could in the van and in the room without paying for them!