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I feel for you Jam but the jam you are in is, as Helsi said, of your own making. People who can’t, for one reason or another, mind their business shouldn’t have one. I just posted to another member who had a similar situation and she blames having to deal with 2 elderly Alzheimer’s beset parents. I’m always saying “we are not a social service agency” when guests have their tales of woe. It’s the same on our side. It’s really not the problem of the guest if you depend on xmas to make the budget. If it’s so important it seems you would have taken care of it.
All that scolding aside, the guest is a complete and total @$$ and I too would take whatever hit I have to take to get out of hosting them.
Maybe it’s just me (or my lack of understanding), but I wonder, like you do, why would a guest even want to stay at your place now? What are they trying to prove?
I think if they pursue the issue their stay would be quite uncomfortable, don’t you think? If I were in your shoes, I would be unhappy to have a guest that forced me to host them, and as a guest, I would be uncomfortable knowing that I insisted on keeping the booking after the host asked me to cancel.
I believe this plays into my opinion that guests forget that Airbnb is not a hotel. Sharing a home is not the same as staying in the hotel room. We do not have the same infrastructure, reserve funds, personnel and so on. And, “let me talk to a manager” in many cases will not accomplish anything.
Booking .com is a very tough system. They can legally reach into your bank account and remove money as I am sure you signed that right over to them. They can also damage your credit.
It is a good thing you cancelled your listing with them, as you dont sound like a good match to their policies.
Yes that guy is a nasty piece of work, … but I am surprised you managed to make the same mistake 2 years in a row… update 2018, 2019 and 2020 now.
I keep prices updated 2 years ahead and also put my very highest top rate in as base rate so this can never happen.
Yes Bookings is a hotel system which wants to be AirBnB as opposed to AirBnB which wants to be a hotel booking system as well. I keep my AirBnB calander 6 months ahead and had even updated for Xmas-Jan this year but I was a bit slack on Bookings and just blocked out January forgetting Xmas-NY. Which since my calendars are synced blocked out AirBnB. I know I should just have put $1000/night in the Bookings one. So I was trying to be a grown up.
Or maybe because I set my AirBnB calendar 6 months ahead I didn’t think it was time to update them all yet not remembering that Bookings is set 18 months ahead. My bad.
You seem appropriately contrite. Perhaps karma will be kind. LOL. Definitely time to move on and not worry about what can’t be changed now. I hope the punishment isn’t too severe.
When their CS rep rang to (I guess) talk about the guest I pointed out I had tried to delete my account 3 days ago but he said it was still active. He put me through to another CSR who said there was no record of them receiving a request to delete it but he arranged it by getting me to send him a direct email and deleted it while I was on the phone. I was worried he might say “Oh I see there is an outstanding issue so we can’t delete it until that is resolved” but he just said it was deleted and all existing bookings would be cancelled without penalty so presumably including the one at Xmas.
The way he said that made me think I could start up another account and there wouldn’t be any problem but I’m good not being with Bookings anymore. I am pretty sure the bookings with them I did get I would have gotten through ABB anyway.
Well just wanted to fill you in dear Karma. 2 weeks before this I was taking a Tupperware bowl of greens down to the ducks on the ramp and slipped on some dog poop and twisted my ankle. Sliding back up on my bum through lots of dog poop before I could stand up. Thankfully I have a wheelchair waiting inside. The old dog has lost the ability to go right down to the yard to dump and it just drops out of her bum. I avoid that ramp in Winter because it is a bit slimy. Was looking for the slimy bit not the dog poop bit. Crap! Have done in what I jokingly refer to as my “good leg”. Was so bad I couldn’t clean the downstairs apartment. A few sessions of physio made it better. Called a friend who came and cleaned for me. Really sucks. Then 3 days ago went for a drive when we had a scheduled 8 hour electricity outage and backed into a farm post. Modern cars being what they are I knocked out a reversing light and plate and it will probably cost me $1000 to repair it all. So hope you are happy. There’s my Karma!
Oh dear, that sounds terrible. And I’m not joking. I think that is a bit much. In reality I like to think of karma as a cosmic correction for some of the injustices of life but I’m skeptical. Sounds like you had a run of bad luck. Just in the past couple of weeks I had to have a roofer out for a roof leak, a plumber for a plugged toilet and a dog boarding incident with a $1500 vet bill. Thankfully I have kennel insurance so only $250 out of pocket. Still all unexpected expenses together at the same time.
I just had a booking for a date I did not intend to be open so I changed my calendar to closed by default so it will not happen again. Not sure if i can do that with booking and the rest though.
