She’s asking if it’s “ok to cancel a guest to accept a much larger reservation”.
I say ‘NO’, and am happy to let her know via the medium of a poll
And you also answered on the thread, so I am sure she got the message as to where you stand !!! 
But just to clarify: it’s a no, from me 
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I found the poll very helpful. I would have done it myself if I had known there was a way to do that. I wasn’t offended that someone made a poll on my post, but I guess some people might be.
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That’s good to hear Beth. I just think it would be nice to ask the person who made the original post.
I mentioned it because you appeared upset by some of the earlier responses you received…
Be good to hear what you decided to do in the end?
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This is from the “3 hour use of room” thread. I think something is brewing in Airbnb-land. Is this becoming more common?
@Beth I understand the appeal of the higher dollar rental. I appreciate that you asked because it seems some hosts don’t treat guests with the same respect you want to so you seem to be looking for the norm.
The following is from the Airbnb Help search for “I’m a host. What penalties apply if I need to cancel a reservation?”
Unavailable/blocked calendar. Your calendar will stay blocked and you won’t be able to accept another reservation for the same dates of the canceled reservation.
Account suspension. If you cancel 3 or more reservations within a year, we may deactivate your listing.
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Well, I was looking at a difference between $4500 revenue, and $30,000.00, so it was no small thing. I waited a couple of days to see what would happen, undecided what I would do, and then started getting other booking requests, so I went for those, and kept the original bookings.
Re my reaction to the earlier responses - I like the poll because it can be read without judgement. On the other hand it gives no opinions or learning opportunities, but I really don’t like the tone that comes down the pipe when what you are looking for is information/guidance. So many assumptions made.
Thanks for checking in.
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If this really is a serious question, put yourself in your guests’s shoes.
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But that was not money in your pocket. If you had canceled on the 4500 to try to get the 30k then your calendar would have been blocked so you would not have been able to get them anyway. Not unless the guests canceled. Well hopefully you have figured it out by now.
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this has happened to me before, i did think about canceling the one booking I had for like 1 second but decided that’s not the right thing to do, youll get bad karma!
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What I can’t understand is–how could the proposed long term guest book if your calendar stated that there were already bookings that month?? Did he/she suggest that you moved the others?
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yes there must have been some message enquiries
You can’t @courgette3.
It sounds like there was an inquiry about a long term booking and the OP was deciding whether to cancel three existing short term booking so she could take the longer booking.
My first thought: If you already have bookings, yet a person contacts you wanting to book longer, that’s a bad sign! They can plainly see you are already booked, which means they don’t mind throwing others under the bus. This probably isn’t going to be someone that you are going to want to deal with. They could just as easily turn their back on you and not book at all or be hugely demanding.
While it may be enticing to get a larger sum, it wouldn’t be fair to the current booked guests either.
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@brainstorm102 - I would not conclude that some unavailable dates are booked already. Hosts block off dates for all kinds of reasons besides bookings. We block off three straight weeks for maintenance, but I would consider rescheduling that for the right price.
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Ohhh, good point. It doesn’t specify.
Hi Beth, I can actually see your issue, I have as a host had to turn down a two week booking over Easter ($10,000) worth because I already had two families booked in for a total of 8 days. So I basically missed out on over $3000. However, I always call my guests and when I spoke to one family who booked he told me that he had already booked with someone else and then they cancelled on him. He was extremely upset, as I would be if I were in his shoes. So, there are Hosts out there that do the wrong thing and they make business in the future hard for all of us. Perhaps if you want longer bookings, make your min stay longer on the site and offer a discount for monthly stays. Hope this helps to know that you are not the only one missing out on longer bookings because you have already committed to shorter ones.
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The other thing to know about long term bookings is they charge them incrementally. So you don’t get all the money at once. Sometimes when they charge the second payment it’s declined yet the guest remains and it’s hard to get them out. I would never do long term. It’s hardly the gravy train you think it is.
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I can see what is motivating you to cancel, that is a lot of money! But even so, simply cancelling is a) dishonouring the guests who booked, and b) not going to free your calendar up to accept this long term guest anyway. As others have pointed out, Air will block the dates that you cancel and likely bar you. If you are looking for long term guests, change your minimum nights. Personally, I don’t accept long term guests because there can be a tendancy for them to be more demanding and feel like they own the place. You are kind of stuck then if the honeymoon period is over and things aren’t going well. And you wind up getting 1 review in 2 1/2 months which is a gamble. Actually, my biggest fear would be that they might not leave and I would be stuck with a long-term tenant that I have done no due diligence on and doesn’t pay ever again. Unlikely but possible. Where I live it could take up to a year to oust them without receiving a nickle. I know landlords who have been through this.
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Most of us at one time or another have been contacted about longer bookings which we can’t accept because we have shorter term guests.
I don’t personally think Airbnb is the right platform for those wanting to take long term bookings. Too much can go wrong.
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