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Hello fellow hosts. Just posting to vent really. Grrr.
A group of 16 from Paris booked our big place in France for a weekend away. Cancellation settings: Firm. Five days before I got a message saying that one person in the group had had a sad event in the family and they wanted to move the weekend to the end of August, big sob story, effusive expressions of thanks to me for being so understanding. Too short notice to get another booking for the original weekend (big groups tend to book far in advance). Today: they cancelled the weekend in August and got a full refund. Can’t help thinking we have been played.
The event has likely cost us two prominent weekends of bookings - our main market is family get-togethers for weekends.
Lesson learnt: ask guests who want to move a booking at short notice to cancel and agree that the new booking will be with ‘Strict’ or ‘Super Strict’ settings.
And I REALLY wish you could set difference cancellation policies for different dates.
Yes, this is well known here on the forum. Unfortunately many folks, like yourself, only end up learning how Airbnb works after they have a problem, not before.
Sorry this happened, stick around and read as much as you can and avoid more problems in the future.