Oven broke.
My guest arrived and immediate noticed the oven wasn’t working properly. The previous guest had just reported a problem, so I had begun the process to buy a new one. With supply chain issues, and installers in demand, I was able to buy a new one that could be delivered the 4th day of a 6 night stay. I told my guests that the problem had just been reported, and that a new one was immediately ordered, but it would be 2-3 days behind delivery. They wondered if they would have to “put up with the workers”. I told them it only takes 30 minutes to install. I decided to proactively offer a $150 gift certificate (the house rents for $300/night) as a “goodwill gesture”. The oven arrived on the 4th night, but the opening was 1/2” too narrow, so the new oven was left and plugged in, but it is sitting in the middle of the kitchen. At least it functions, and the guest is able yo use it. The repairman arrives the final day of their stay to cut the opening bigger and slide in the oven.
Question: is $150 gift card a fair gesture for being without an oven for 3 nights of a 6 night stay and then having the new oven working but in the middle of the kitchen for the other 3 nights?
I don’t know are the guests happy with what you offered @Lindeman6872
A lot will depend on if the guests ask for more. The process sounds more irritating than the actual lack of an oven. A stove in the middle of the kitchen would be a major irritant in a tiny kitchen, not so much if there is space. If there were usable burners, just a lack of oven capacity I don’t think it is as big a deal as the disruption of the workers. I might have waited until they left to do the actual carpentry.
I think that’s a bit telling. If the stove top and microwave worked they might have been hinting they would rather you wait and install after they left. They didn’t want disruption in the kitchen. Instead they got stuck with three days of working around a huge appliance in the middle of the kitchen.
You have an uphill battle here. I’d contact the guest and admit they were inconvenienced much more than you expected and ask what they thought would be reasonable to make them whole.
I think you have it exactly right.
It’s impossible to know what would make the guests whole without talking with them. If it were I, I might begin the discussion with a statement like “I am so sorry that not only did you not have an oven from the very start of your stay but that you were alert and kind enough to let me know of its failure and endured without it for awhile and then with it but in such an awkward and potentially disruptive placement, with the disruption of the service people to install and re-install. I feel absolutely terrible about this and am 100% committed to what I can do now to compensate you for kindness and patience but also make you whole so you feel wonderful about your stay here. Please let me know what I can do, whether it is a gift card of $X or something else. Please let me know what I can do to repay your kindness and patience, and make you feel good and whole about your experience here.”
Some guests would not use the oven at all and the disruption for the service folks to enter the home and then leave the oven out would be THE major disruption (though, too bad that if that were the case that they didn’t say so – but often we don’t think through our communications so we can’t blame them for not saying so). If the discussions go well the review might even be five star.
Other guests might have expected to use the full kitchen every day. So the absence of an oven, especially if there were no countertop alternative would be a HUGE disappointment.
So your advice to talk with the guests on the appropriate gift/refund is spot on. Admittedly the guests might feel their leverage and use it, but that’s a cost of doing business.
The good news to the Host is that the property will soon have a new operational oven without a loss in rentals, and for that a financial cost must be agreed to with these guests,
I just had a similar issue but with a fridge. I reimbursed them for the spoiled groceries and refunded a one night stay. I sent them funds through the resolution center and they were very happy. Although they have not yet reviewed. I think your guests would prefer funds over a voucher. They might not wish to return for another visit so they won’t be able to use the voucher.
I had assumed that the gift card was, like, with VISA not a voucher.
But to make it easiest for the guest cash is best.
I’ve communicated directly and immediately with the guests through the twists and turns of this situation. When the installers were there (and we found out the oven didn’t fit) I ask the guests if they’d prefer to keep the new oven (in the middle of the kitchen 
) or be without it … they said they’d prefer to have it. There is also a microwave, BBQ, and air fryer in the house, so I wasn’t sure how important the oven is/was.
They say they are appreciative of the $150 Visa gift card. They suggested a Costco card, but that was had to get. The Visa card can be used at Costco.
Now I’m just wondering how the review will come in .
You’re right. I didn’t read her last sentence in which she mentioned the gift card.
Ask them by writing something like:
I am 100% committed to what I can do now to repay you kindness and patience but also make you whole so you feel wonderful about your stay here. I can’t get a Costco card (not a member) but I understand a VISA card can be used there. Is it easier for you if instead I just refund $150 though Airbnb? Would that work for you? Do you have any other suggestions at all as I want to make this right for you?
I completely agree. As a guest I would have been quite unhappy.
As a host I would have taken my own countertop oven to the property and set it up, and delayed new range installation until after guests leave.
I travel to get away from property management responsibilities.
Since I can afford it, I would have been quite a bit more generous in my refund. And not a gift card either. I probably would have refunded every day the oven was not working, so 3 full days.
It’s water under the bridge at this point, but if the stovetop worked on the old stove, I would have waited to have a new stove installed until after the booking was over, offering a discount for the lack of oven.
Of course you assumed the new one would be a matter of half an hour’s installation time, but it’s always best to assume that there might be glitches when it comes to things like this. Murphy’s Law.