Last minute 10 day (possible) cancellation, considering switching cancellation policies

This happened to me as well. The guest claimed a last minute mother in law illness and were refunded in full.

Here’s what they should do. Add $3 to every booking to go toward trip cancellation insurance. It’s not fair that we hosts have to eat this capriciousness!

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They should handle it like every other accommodation provider does. Say “so sorry to hear about your accident, as you have booked a non-refundable rate, we would suggest you contact your travel insurer”.

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People have suggested integrated travel insurance. I don’t know how this would be implemented, obviously. But that sounds like the way to go. Asking the host to eat the cost isn’t reasonable. Airbnb could implement something in-house, possibly. They’re big enough now. Or they could outsource it to a insurance company. Whatever.

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If you don’t mind me asking, since the guest did not cancel…I am assuming your calendar was blocked the entire time? And did Air pay you out and then apply their refund to future payouts?

Or did Air block the payout and open your calendar 2 days after the gust checked in?

Great idea, so no duplicity (or too much economic incentives).

That’s correct. By the time Air handled it (which took them ages of stuffing around “reaching out” to the guest etc) the calendar had been blocked for about 8 or 9 days. The payout had obviously already gone through. The put my account into a negative balance so it took another few guests to pay it off.

As I said, a hotel doesnt’ refund you if you’re “sick”, so why does Airbnb?

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Wow, that’s terrible. And they refused to cancel / open up your calendar in the meantime?

Quite.

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It took them 8 days to actually get somebody who could help to contact me! And they just gave the usual AirBNB template responses.

That’s really terrible. What communication did you use? I wrote via Twitter, and, since they didn’t respond immediately, also used the Airbnb form on the site, which led to a chat exchange with a Airbnb idiot, as quoted above. But at least the idiot cancelled the reservation and freed up my calendar.

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I initially used their email system but called a few times to followup. Calls from Australia are sent to a Manila call centre which is… lets say “not great” (I’d say my cat would actually do a better job as a call centre worker). It was eventually someone in the USA who got back to me but they were pretty hopeless.

Yes, that’s been my experience too. I wonder if they were better before, and got worse. The people who’ve been doing this for awhile could probably say.

An unexpected twist, the same guest sent me another reservation request, after cancelling the previous one.

Hello Fahrem
We are in Jaipur coming to Mumbai tomorrow now do you still have vacancy as we need accomodation.we come in with jet airways at 10.20 am I hope so!

The period is check in 13th to checkout 18th. I’m genuinely flummoxed as to what to do here. Thoughts? My first thought is to wonder if this guy has a screw loose. Why would he first cancel and then rebook for part of the same period? The original booking was from the 13th to the 23rd. Should I just decline? Should I engage him in conversation?

ADDENDUM: I just sent him this message:

Hi xxxxxx,

Sorry, I’m very confused. You just cancelled a reservation starting 13th November to 23rd November due to some unspecified health reasons, and now you want to rebook part of that same reservation? I don’t understand.

I don’t know what his trip insurance cancellation company would require, but that could be a reason.

I have never used something like that and should find out. If a company doesn’t require any kind of real proof or investigating whatsoever, then people can use a cancellation as a scam to double dip.

This guy just needs to go away

So you’d be inclined to decline, then? That’s certainly my inclination.

Without starting to read the thread from the beginning…if it’s the same guy with all this drama - then yes, I would not want him in my home at all. Not unless I could keep an eye on him and was advertising a shared room, like a hostel.

Keeping in mind that the reservation is not actually cancelled until the guests clicks the cancel button I would not consider their statement that they are not coming as a cancellation. Rather I would go ahead and send them a link to the Airbnb policy which states that the reservation is not canceled until the guest cancels via the cancel button.

In this way you will actually stay virtually the same thing however you will not be giving them any additional leeway simply because they choose to shirk their responsibilities in terms of understanding the Airbnb policy. The ball is completely in their Court to cancel it.

Sounds reasonable. If this situation comes up again (and I hope it won’t) then I’ll add a link to the relevant page. Though anyone with a sufficiency of functioning brain cells should be able to figure it out by himself or herself.

Hi @cabinhost,

I don’t know about drama, but this is the same guy this thread is about. Who sent me a message saying he had cancelled a 10 day reservation 5 days before the start of the reservation, but didn’t actually cancel, and then when I pointed out that he hadn’t cancelled, repeated that he had. Hence the followup.

I’ve declined the new reservation. This is just too weird. I’ll also send Airbnb a message on Twitter about this, though I’m sure they won’t care. And I may take a hit from declining the reservation, but in this case it’s definitely the lesser of two evils.

And he started all this back in May - so now this is the third time he is playing around. Good for you for declining!

He did send me an inquiry in May, yes. Which was sufficiently peculiar that I hesitated before accepting his 10 day reservation. Though I didn’t really have anything solid against him, so I accepted it after a while. Also, he didn’t respond to my query about his reservation request till after the 24 hr period for accepting or rejecting had elapsed, which was probably also not a good sign. If the person who is making the reservation request doesn’t respond after the initial request within that 24 hr period, it becomes rather awkward for the host to make a decision.

Does that bad guest lounge still exist? If so, he might be a candidate. Though technically he would be a bad potential guest…