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So long story short, I had a guest change her long term reservation last night because of course she found her own place. I explained refund policy, she wasn’t happy but she said she understood. Today she left without telling me. Today was also payment day. I do not get my payment from airbnb. I emailed them and they said she set up payment through Alipay which does not allow automatic payments so she needs to approve each payment. So now that she has left, she most certainly will not pay I am 100% certain. Anyone have experience with this? I am so frustrated and upset. Of course I use this money to supplement the costs of my home and so without this I am screwed.
Any thoughts on what I should do? Airbnb customer service said they emailed her asking her to correct the issue but really, there’s nothing they can do I am assuming.
I’ve never done a long term rental. When do the payments for each month usually get made? If a guest is going to stay for the month of Nov. would you get paid at the beginning of Nov. or at the end?
I’m in the middle of a long term booking, I had no idea this problem existed. I would go back to Airbnb and expect them to pay this last one out themselves.
You get paid at the beginning. But because it is long term they need to give you 28 notice before leaving. My guest decided to change the reservation yesterday which I approved because I was under the impression that all guests make payments through credit cards and they would not be able to just not pay the balance. Yesterday was also the payment date for the following month. She did not approve the transaction and now I am out a month payment. And she just moved out without saying anything yesterday. I didn’t even know she has left.
I think airbnb, through the service agreement, has an out for this one. The whole reason I use airbnb is because I thought the payment was guaranteed through a credit card. I didn’t have to worry about a guest deciding not to pay.
I will not do long term ever again because of this.
That requirement that they give notice when leaving a long term stay is starting to fade away in practice. I had a guest who booked 30 days and when he left early Air strongly encouraged me to refund the balance of the month, in spite of their own policy!
I still have a strict policy so I don’t get screwed over on these long term bookings. But now I won’t see a dime. And this is money that if I rented regularily to a tenant, I would have received as last month’s rent. I don’t get that with airbnb rentals but the money should be no less secure. My biggest problem is I was under the impression that the payments were secured beforehand. My guest was able to change her dates the day before her payment and then sneak out and there’s nothing I can do. If she paid by credit card, this wouldn’t have been an issue.
She changed her move out date. Originally she was booked from Aug 25th until Dec 15th. She mentioned she wanted to find her own place (she booked my place to get aquainted with our city first and then find a place and move by Dec 15). I told her that if she decided to leave early she needs to change the reservation 28 days before. I also explained the strict cancellation policy. No big deal. A few weeks ago she says she thinks she found a place so I asked her when she was leaving and she said she didn’t know. I asked her almost daily what day she was leaving. She kept saying she didn’t know yet. On the 25th (which is the beginning of her month in terms of payments) she says she wanted to change the leave day to October 27th. I showed her how and then when she got the adjsted payout she asked why it wasnt all her money back from the 25th. And I again explained that she has to give 30 days because she has booked off my place for a specific time that I have now missed possible bookings on. (as a side note, I have given full refunds to people. My rule is, if I can rent it out during that time, you get back exactly what I earn for the room which I told her then)
Anyway, she changed the date, and then yesterday while I was showering she packed up her luggage and moved out. My payouts get processed for her stay on the 26th. It did not go through. So I contacted airbnb and they said she paid through Alipay so its up to her to approve the payment first. They sent me the following in an email today:
“If your guest doesn’t successfully submit payment or if they cancel or change the reservation before making the payment, Airbnb isn’t liable for issuing your host payout.”
UPDATE: After contacting the guest myself (when I contacted airbnb) she did get back to me herself.
I don’t know if she is giving me the run around but she is promising to pay the balance owed. Her Alipay account is in China (where she is from) there is a time difference so she has agreed to get back to me later tonight or tomorrow. She is now aware that she left without paying. I think she may feel bad because she is aware that the day before she left my father passed away. I’ve been dealing with that and her and I think she might feel a little crappy about screwing me over.
Where do you see that? That’s for a regular LT tenant perhaps. One that you have signed a lease agreement with? But a guest can cancel and leave anytime they want. No notice needed.
As I understand it, Air breaks out the payments in 28-day increments. If you have a long term booking, you get paid at the beginning of each month. Did you sign a lease with this person? If not nothing’s in writing and nothing is enforceable.
I don’t know why you are calling your guest a tenant?
But you should reconsider doing long term anyway. Once they pass the 30-day mark, guests do become tenants in most all states and receive all the rights and due process that tenant status confers. If they decide to squat, you have to go through all the proper eviction motions to get them out.
so you accepted the change to the end of this month, assuming you’d get paid for November anyway. Not sure that was the best decision because as far as Airbnb is concerned it now looks like you were ok with them leaving early …
I am aware of tenant rights but I am not in the US so this does not apply to me. Also, I use guest and tenant interchangably. Is this really a big deal to you? Relax. Also, please read the long term policy before you jump down my throat about guest tenant rights etc. “If the guest books a reservation and decides to cancel the reservation during their stay, the guest must use the online alteration tool in order to agree to a new checkout date. Regardless of the checkout date chosen, the guest is required to pay the host for the 30 days following the cancellation date, or up to the end date of the guest’s original reservation if the remaining portion of the original reservation is less than 30 days.”
My post is regarding the guest being able to deny payment through Alipay. All other guests I’ve had have paid through credit cards. Even airbnb said they can’t do anything unless she decided to approve the payment and that this is not how they usually do things.
Thanks for your rude response when people are trying to help you. I don’t need people like you telling me to RELAX.
No one here knows about Alipay. That’s something you can’t find in the AirB&B information. And has nothing to do with Airb&B.
Your “TENANT” is obviously trying to stall you, so good luck with that. And you come to a host forum, join yesterday ask a completely irrelevant question and tell long time members to relax??
You are obviously the one who really doesn’t know what Airb&B is about. Your rude responses are not appreciated.
Her leaving early has nothing to do with the remaining payment owed to me. Please read the long term policy - which I did extensively before I ever agreed to long term stays. Even if I were to forgive her the balance remaining, she still stayed two more days which I did not get paid for.
The real problem exists in that I didn’t know she was paying through this pay service Alipay. She can change her reservation at anytime and it shouldn’t affect the cancellation policy instituted and whether I will get paid or not. And to be honest, she could have just decided to not pay me for any of the months she’s been living here it seems. I don’t think guests should be able to pay with anything other than credit cards for this reason. They said if she had the payments on a crefit card we would have had no issues.
Alipay is an online payment system like Paypal. Alipay is owned by Alibaba, China’s e-commerce company.
I believe that you could face payment problems with any long term stay. When the stay is short term, Airbnb verifies that the payment method is in good standing and verifies the funds prior to the booking being completed. With a long term stay where you get paid every month, the guest could easily cancel the credit card, charge enough that there is no longer enough credit, etc.
