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My guest didn’t respond to my messages yesterday, so I called him at 8 pm to ask him when he’d be arriving. He said he couldn’t find his reservation information and booked another BnB, so he wouldn’t be staying with me.
I called AirBnB this morning to cancel and open up the calendar.
They called me back and said the guest had created two accounts and would I refund him in full. I said I would give him a partial refund if I could get another booking. They said they’d refund him and comp me for two nights if I didn’t get another booking.
A few minutes later I got the notification the guest had been canceled and refunded in full at my expense.
I have a moderate cancellation policy.
This is the second time I’ve encountered a guest who had two accounts. What is to stop guests from creating a second if they get a bad review?
Thank you, Jess1. I knew I’d find some sympathy here!
Update: I just got an email from CS that I would be refunded $294.00. It was a $600 reservation. I hope I’ll be able to get another booking.
I was worried if I called CS they’d cancel the reservation and refund the guest in full, and that is indeed what they did. However, I wanted to get it over with because the alternative was the guest getting home from vacation, realizing he’d paid for the lodging he didn’t check into, and then convincing AirBnB to give him a full refund after I had the chance to rebook some of the nights.
“They said they’d refund him and comp me for two nights if I didn’t get another booking.”
Sorry to hear about your situation. If this was me, I would go to Twitter and send a PM asking if they can listen to the recording of the conversation that you had. Offer the benefit of the doubt in case the CS made a mistake. If you can see when the call was, send the date and time. If they are trying to build a community based on trust they should be showing that they also are trustworthy.
We get enough email notifications about guest arrival that I am pretty sure guests would be getting some automated messages too. This guest really did have some responsibility to take action if he did get any notices about the upcoming booking. They also have a big photo of the property on them. If he has the same email address on both accounts this is a particularly unfair way to address your situation.
I can shed a bit of light on the 2 accounts. You are allowed to have more than one account. We have listings at 2 addresses and recently split my partner’s profile to 2 identical profiles to make one profile for each address. When you call CS, there is a screen that pops up with all the profiles connected to the number you are calling with.
In my case, I had a profile but it was pretty empty. I wound up deleting it and much later setting up another one. Those 2 profiles show up on the list as well so a total of 4 connected to the same phone number. From the screen with all the profiles, you have to click on the one that you are calling about.
I don’t think there is much to stop guests from setting up multiple accounts. It may be some consolation to know that they are being tracked for this likely by phone number as our profiles have different email addresses. Perhaps if they get flagged there could be action taken based on previous closed accounts. Not much consolation in your case but perhaps an explanation of sorts.
I hope this was a mistake and that you can get them to honour their word. It’s pretty discouraging if we can’t even trust that. By the way, whenever I call CS I ask them to email me a summary of the call. You have a recap with the time and the person you spoke with in your inbox then. If there is any discrepancy or follow up you can address it immediately in writing. They usually close the messaging after 24 - 48 hours but it is open to reach out to the same person for that time period.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I just sent a tweet.
They did email me a recap and I replied saying I only agreed if I got another booking. I had to lower my prices considerably to even be competitive to attract a last-minute guest, but still haven’t received a booking. I don’t want to drop my prices any more because if I go any lower, I’ll be attracting poor quality guests.
I talked to the twitter team and they referred me back to my case manager, who hadn’t responded to my email. I emailed her again at their behest, and still have heard nothing back.
I have an update with some good news. My case manager returned from vacation and refunded me for the night I wasn’t able to get rebooked. I was happy with this outcome, though I really wish case managers would set out-of-office emails so I know I’m not being blown off!
