The late check in wasn’t sprung on @Cinderelle. She agreed to it.
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Why use up one of your 3 cancellations on this guest? Shouldn’t he be the one canceling?
You may need that extra cancellation later down the road.
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I think refunding is the right thing to do. By your own words, he did everything right. Walking up to someone’s house when you thought they were expecting you to see a dark house… He texted. He called. Not knocking on the door in a new place after midnight, I can see it as a perfectly acceptable response. Once checked in, asking him to check out and move to your place for one night, is too much. No, you did the right thing. Next time, turn the light on and make sur you don’t sleep through any requested phone calls. BTW, if I had knocked on your door after midnight to hear a cacophony, I would have ran back to the car or taxi!
BUT he should request the refund. Tell him you will okay once he has requested it.
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What is odd in Australia?
I agree with @cabinhost - your guest is breaking your house rules by changing his check in time after he already booked! AirBnB should cancel for you, so it doesn’t count as one of your 3 cancelations that you might need down the road! They canceled for me when my guest didn’t knock on the door - which made both guest and host happy! I agree that you should not lose one of your free cancelations!
The host agreed to the change. Even said she requested and received a phone call from the guest when he was getting near,. She goes on to say she slept through the call. The Host and Guest negotiated new terms.
Well we used to have this happen and we live in a very remote area. We would wake to meet guests at unreasonable hours and would get complaints they couldn’t find the location in the dark. Which we felt was odd because we went to meet them. There are no street lights where we live. We found that some never actually showed and went straight to a hotel. We stopped taking guests after check in time because it was more trouble than it was worth and little payoff in terms of reviews. Strict means strict and Airbnb can accommodate both if they choose to side with the guest checking in several hours after your check in time. We think it’s done this way because guests can be thinking I’ll just get it comped through Airbnb which we told Airbnb is exploitable. I have also had nightmares about not waking up for guests and it’s something that you learn from and then add yet another section to your listing. There may be advantages to taking late guests but it’s rare and fleeting.
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Thank you for your advice. I had a very fruitful discussion with my guest-to-be and agreed to make a one-off exception and let him arrive two hours past the usual check in time. I know that I am not being consistent here, and I guess in nine out of ten cases I would have made Airbnb cancel this booking.
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Common sense prevailed then. Congratulations.
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