Question about Cancellation within 48 hours of booking but also within 48 hours of stay

Does anyone know which rules supersedes the other?

Guest sent in request to book. I accepted and send in my info needed message.

Guest then tells me she wants me to change my rules and let her use the den’s day bed as a bed and make it a 2nd bedroom. (There is nothing in my listing that says it has 2 bed, or 2 bedrooms and specifically states that the daybed is not for sleeping.)

She then sends me most of my info but refuses to send info on where she lives. Says she’s going to cancel but never does.

It’s now a day before check in and I’m wondering if I will get paid (I have strict) cancellation.

Thanks.

Not sure what you mean which rules supercede. If you have a rule that the daybed isn’t to be used as a sleeper, that seems like the rule. It sounds like she plans to bring more people than she booked for.
Do you normally just accept Requests without having a conversation with the guest and them answering any questions you have? If so, I don’t understand that. The whole point of Requests is that you can dialogue with them before deciding whether to accept or not.

The rule was about 48 hour free cancellation but if you booked within 48 hours of the reservation if my strict cancellation policy overruled the free 48 cancellation.

But it turns out my strict cancellation policy does superseded the 48 hour free cancellation.

She tried to pretend she had Covid but she readily admits that she wanted the second bed (which I eventually offered her).

And yes, I accept request to book if all looks good and it did. Mom and daughter were traveling in the area. She didn’t post the question until after was booked.

The whole point of an inquiry is to ask questions in my opinion. A request to book means that they are satisfied with their booking.

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They only get the 48 hours to cancel if they are booking more than 14 days ahead of time. If she cancels, you will get the full pay out minus the cleaning fee.

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Yes, if guests have questions they should send an inquiry, but I am not talking about questions the guest may have, but things the host may want to know.

You assume that if a guest sends a request that they have thoroughly read through your listing info, house rules, have entered the correct number of guests, etc?

They may be “satisfied with their booking” based upon little more than the price and the photos.

Of course a guest who you dialogue with before accepting a request can spring something on you after you accept, but to deal with a request as if it were an IB, which essentially you are doing by accepting before commmunicating, isn’t a great idea.

That’s your opinion. Generally, I have not had many issues with requests to book. 've been an Airbnb Superhost since 2016.

The same push back I have with providing legal addresses happens both with IB and Request to book and my house rules say that it’s required. The bedroom issue was just stupidly on her part for not reading. (I have it listed correctly and even in the photos I mention it.)

She ended up cancelling saying she had Covid but in the same paragraph she admits to being unhappy with not having the second bed. She’s a liar and held up my booking so I really don’t have sympathy for her. I had even offered her to open the 2nd room as bedroom.

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Yes, but with IB you don’t have an opportunity to decline if they refuse to give you the the info you require, with requests you do.

I’m not saying I never accept a request without first having some messaging with the guest. If they have a bunch of good reviews and send an informative message with their request that makes it clear they have read the listing info and will be a good fit for what I offer, I may. But with most requests I have a little back and forth to make sure I feel comfortable accepting. I also want to see if they respond promptly and completely, as that is an indication of future response behavior, as when asking them for their ETA, or to confirm that they received the map I email to them.

I used to be on non-IB and actually rarely used the option to ask questions when people send a request, so switched to IB. Some asks questions after acceptance, but none have cancelled after I answer them very detailed and without much room for misinterpretation.

One reason I don’t use IB and like to dialogue a bit with my guests , is that I’m a homeshare host who shares my kitchen and some other common spaces with guests, and also guests to this area tend to book for one-2 weeks. So it’s important to me to make sure a guest will be a good fit for me, my place, and my lifestyle, and also get a bit of a sense of them, because they aren’t just booking for one or two nights.

I can usually tell from the way they communicate if this is going to be a guest I end up chatting over coffee or a bottle of wine with and having a great time, or whether the guest is more private and will keep to themselves. Either one is fine with me, and I get both very sociable guests as well as those I barely see, who never use the kitchen aside from getting drinking water or stashing a few beers in the fridge, but it’s kind of nice to get a sense of what to anticipate.

I really don’t ask guests many questions, if any, when they send a request, other than to make sure they are aware of what I’ve written in the listing, if they haven’t given indication of that. And I really don’t have house rules- I just expect guests to behave respectfully and 99% of the time they do. For instance, there is nothing written in my listing info about cleaning up after yourself in the kitchen, no notes on the wall, but no guest has ever not cleaned up. And if they didn’t, I would just talk to them about it.

Amen. I never even use the term ‘House Rule’, sounds too High School, makes me feel like the Hall Monitor, who I hated and wanted to beat up when I went to HS like a century ago.

Funny, after IB is usually when I get chummy with my guests, which I also think is part of the fun in hosting.

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Yeah, I would be put off booking a place with those long lists of rules, even if I had no intention of breaking any of them.
No shoes in the house, no smoking, no vaping, no children, no pets, no parties, no music after 10PM, no parking in the driveway, no sunscreen in the pool, no using the pool without first showering, no visitors, no cooking of fish or curry, no knives in the dishwasher, no meat down the garbage disposal, no flushing of wipes, no running with scissors.

All quite reasonable, but not my cup of tea.