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Reviews are so easy when they are not your guest! Here’s a draft but comment away:
(UPDATE: Thanks all for your feedback. Much appreciated. I decided to just let it go but check “would not host again.” My review will be short “Guest left suite in good condition.” Left her five stars on all but communication, which was a 3.)
Brittany and her husband left the suite in good condition. While I’d like to recommend her to other hosts I can’t. We offer stickers (for water bottles, etc.) for sale as an amenity, for $3 each, and never got paid for the two they took. There was acknowledgement she would send the money to pay for them, and I sent a formal request through the resolution center, but nearly two weeks after checkout the money hasn’t turned up.
Yes, I think it is petty. And I wouldn’t call charging $3 for a sticker an amenity.
Are you even sure the guest has seen the resolution center request? It’s possible she doesn’t have her notifications turned on and hasn’t even seen it. Even if she’s just ignoring it, while I understand being irritated by the principal of the thing, guests not following through on a promise, I wouldn’t spend a minute of my time fussing over something that probably cost me $2 to produce.
Thanks for your input. One correction, the stickers I went out to various stores to get and purchased with my money, and they were $3 a piece. It is an amenity because I’m saving them time.
I would be less specific, just clear and brief to inform other potential hosts:
“The guests left the suite in good condition, but failed to pay the agreed-upon amount for an extra amenity that we offer for a fee, after being charged via the Airbnb platform.”
I don’t think it matters that it’s a small amount. It was fully disclosed, they agreed to the terms and reneged. Speaks to character.
You might consider providing Venmo-type account information (with or without a QR code) or even a cash honor jar in the Airbnb, as guests lose focus once they depart.
Sorry, I assumed you ordered them online or printed them yourself, which would make them much cheaper.
However, I don’t quite understand why anyone would need a sticker for their water bottle, how it saves them time. If I wanted to distinguish my water bottle from someone else’s, I’d just write my name on it, or tie a string around the top or something.
I could see having things like food or drinks available for purchase saving a guest time, so they wouldn’t have to go to the grocery store, but who would make a special trip to buy a sticker? Sorry if I’m being dense.
Anyway, if I was concerned about the occasional guest not paying for a $3 dollar item, I would just raise my nightly price by $1 across the board so it wasn’t an issue.
They are a thing….i have a nice assortment and some stickers say the name of this town with a cool design or have a hiking theme, for example. I’ve gone and gotten the best of those around from the different retail stores.
Yes, a lot of people are into stickers and like to collect them from various places they go. Nothing wrong with offering them at all, it’s a cool thing to find in a rental that I would never have thought of. But, like I said, I wouldn’t bother charging for them, I’d just offer them as an extra, and up my nightly price by a buck or two, which won’t stop anyone from booking with you. Of course, you wouldn’t want guests to scoop a handful of them so maybe a note on them like “Help yourself to a local sticker, but please only one per guest- we do buy them for $3/each, so if you’d like more, they are available for purchase.”
This person would not put his business in a position where it is chasing guests guests for three bucks – because that might well make the business seem petty to some guests, and that’s not a good look.
I would either:
Have an “honour system” collection box by the stickers ask please “for $3 to cover costs so we can replenish our sticker supply for future guests,” and don’t keep score
Leave one sticker free per guest with a note suggesting what it is for.
Look at my budget and decide there was no return-on-investment in goodwill, good word-of-mouth, good reviews etc, and just scrap the whole sticker thing
My worry is that charging $3 is like a hotel asking you to pay for the postcard it left in the desk drawer of your hotel room – something that would make the hotel look cheap.
I agree with Muddy, it’s petty. I also don’t think it’s right to embarass them publicly with your review over something that is not an expensive item. Moving forward, perhaps you can raise the nightly rate and include the stickers as a momento of a wonderful trip.
Those suggestions are already implemented. The tray that holds the stickers says they are $3 each and I give them my Venmo account. Many people have just left $3 in the tray and several have used Venmo. I say they can have it for free if they leave a Google review. So lots of options.
Too petty – yes. But so is the guest taking something without paying. I wouldn’t pay that, but I wouldn’t take on either. The stickers are NOT an 'amenity" iMHO if they aren’t 'part of the package – like the bed, the hairdryer, the fridge, the WiFi… The way you present them is as something fore sale, not something that’s there to be used if needed…
I think the OP’s conundrum re the review was more to do with the fact that they didn’t follow through on what they said they would do, and warning other hosts about that, than the cost of the unpaid-for item.
I get that, as maybe they might damage or take something in the future and refuse to pay for it. But it’s also possible that the guest just forgot to do it, never saw the resolution center request, or were put off by the host bothering to ask for a few dollars when they had maybe paid hundreds to stay there.
What we write in reviews comes down to “Is this something other hosts would want to know?”, whether it’s that they were great guests or did something not okay.
For me, if a guest caused damages and declined to pay for them, or said they’d pay for a charged-for item that cost say $15 or more and didn’t follow through, I would want to be warned, but for a $3 item, I’d give the guest the benefit of the doubt that this wasn’t an indication of a pattern of poor behavior, and not bother to mention it. Especially since they seemed to be unobjectionable guests apart from that.
If every host blows off tiny infractions and never lets other hosts know, no pattern will ever be detected. They knew they weren’t free, they didn’t pay when reminded. I would like my fellow hosts to let me know. In my mind it’s no different than the guest who checks out only an hour late. Even though it didn’t cost me anything and isn’t a big deal, I let other hosts know.
Precisely my conundrum. The cost itself isn’t large, but she said in a message to me, “I’ll venmo you the money today.” She didn’t. Then when gently reminded after that, still nothing. @Muddy she didn’t pay hundreds to stay here, it was a whopping $120. AND, she booked and paid for four but only two showed so I, without asking, gave her back $16 upon arrival. (I keep my rates low and add an $8 per person charge over 2 people. I know some people don’t like to do it that way, but it works for me and no one has ever complained).
I didn’t include all that because I didn’t see it as relevant, but I did treat her fairly and it is irksome when it’s not reciprocated. The old saying …when someone shows you who they are believe them.
It actually is relevant to me. You were very financially fair to this guest, in a way that you didn’t have to be, and of your own volition, not in response to a request for reimbursement from the guest. When what you get in return is a promise to pay for something that they then ignore, it adds a layer to the disrespect.
I do agree with what you said in your topic post- it’s easy to offer review suggestions to others, not so easy when it’s your own guest.
I had a homeshare guest who was lovely- a young German gal who was friendly and easy to share my home with, appreciative, self sufficient, and respectful, prepared all her own meals but always cleaned up in the shared kitchen, and left her room and bathroom very clean and tidy. She was doing some artwork while she was here, and left me a sweet thank you note with a little painting on it.
But she happened to be an inattentive dishwasher- one of those people who manages to wash their dishes but leave bits of food and grease on them. I just rewashed any of the dishes I found like that, it wasn’t a big deal to me. If she’d been a permanent roommate or had a month long booking (she stayed 10 days), I would have mentioned it to her and I’m sure she would have paid more attention.
I wondered briefly whether to mention the poor dishwashing in the review, but quickly decided it wasn’t anything important enough to ruin an otherwise excellent review over.
