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I’ve had a guest here well over a month, ok guest. Brought in an unauthorized visitor for a weekend, but we let it slide since the guest was long-term.
Guest was supposed to have another reservation here for all of November. Guest cancelled today, only <1 week before his next check-in/renewed reservation, because his job transferred him to another city.
NEVER, NEVER again will I set the cancellation policy to “Moderate.”
“Strict cancellation” policy it is from now on for us. And I’m no longer taking bookings more than a few months out either, since the hosts have zero recourse if guest cancels too advance of bookings.
We also added an “additional guest” fee and made it very clear “no unauthorized guests or visitors on the premises at any time during your confirmed airbnb reservation.” We once had a small group try to stay here, knowing we only accept 1 guest. I can’t believe some guests don’t even try to respect their host’s rules.
I prefer long-term so I don’t have a bunch of people showing up for 3 days, then repeat, with vacant days mixed in. I don’t even do 1-2 day stays, it’s just not worth it for me. That’d be too much cleaning, too many people with house keys, weirded out neighbors with random people coming and going all the time, too much back and forth welcoming/telling guests house rules, ick. I do a week minimum, but prefer monthly.
But, there are risks to long-term with Airbnb for sure. My rules definitely are set to “strict cancellation; no unauthorized guests or visitors not on the reservation at any time” and hope they don’t take advantage of it.
Being already in November now, I’m probably looking at an empty month, or at least half of it. Sucks to lose money because of a guest cancelling last minute. I wouldn’t do that as a guest, I’d at least pay the host partial fee for having offered me a place to stay. Next time, my guests will with strict cancellation policy.
From the details you provide in your post it looks like your guest is subject to the long term cancellation policy which overrides any short term cancellation policy.
My city doesn’t give tenants’ rights to homeowner-occupied dwellings like this, so no. If a tenant in my city refuses to leave a homeowner-occupied roommate dwelling, the cops will have them out in 10 minutes. I’ve seen it done here by my neighbor judge and other landlords.
Many, many cities favor tenants-- unlike my city. In many cities, and all of California, I doubt I would even consider remotely long-term stays that would give tenants’ rights elsewhere.
I do make long-term sign a paper lease on top of the Airbnb reservation for disclaimers and liablity waivers. They try to pull that, I keep their deposit, and my lease makes them liable for my lawyer’s fees.
The guest’s 2nd reservation that would have been for November hasn’t started yet. It would have started in a week. The guest had 2 separate AIrbnb reservations, his current reservation ending in a few days and a 2nd new reservation to stay here next month. Airbnb let him cancel on his own without any confirmation from me for the reservation stating within the week for the entire month of November, since I had previously set my cancellation to moderate.
I’ve had a few cases where a guest books, then cancels 5 minutes later. These were mostly done by guests who say “I’m in town for business for the night”. They never give a reason for cancelling. If they failed to read the listing, that’s their problem. I’ve considered upgrading my cancellation policy to strict, that way the guest will be more careful and be sure they are absolutely positive they want to book. I’m registered with Guesty so if a guest cancels I still have to pay Guesty their service fee. I’d rather have a guest not book at all than have one that books and then cancels 5 minutes later.
