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But it was unlikely that he booked. You really don’t know the odds. For all you know a flight was cancelled that has passengers scurrying for listings. Or fill in the blanks (hard, since you don’t know).
But if you refund you know 100% you lost the booking. And for what?
He cancelled after check-in time? This is a no-brainer: no refund. If you want to give the money away, give it to a charity rather than someone who tied up your listing, took your time and reneged on their agreement (or is trying to let you out of it) because they found a better deal. If you refund you also make it harder for other Hosts who don’t refund as you’re teaching this guest that ‘nice’ Hosts refund.
This is why you need to have a refund policy, at least in your thoughts. Ours and many Hosts have an informal policy to book to the extent the days are rebooked. I don’t see why that would be different for you even though you accept same-day bookings.
With a policy you treat everyone the same, and are not vulnerable to time wasters, sad stories or whatever.
Whether or not the room could have been rebooked is less important, IMO, than giving guests the idea that it’s okay to do this to hosts, which refunding him will do. If he gets refunded, there’s nothing to stop him from booking 2 places at once in the future, and thinking he should get a refund anytime he changes his mind. Not to mention the rudeness of cancelling after the check-in window. You say that you get a lot of last minute bookings, so as far as he knows, you might have had an inquiry for the same night come in at 7:30 and turned it down.
This scenario seems different to me than agreeing to refund a guest who books weeks or months ahead and cancels shortly afterwards, when the host has plenty of time to get rebooked.
Ha. That was my thinking. I was wondering if anyone might convince me of actually offering the refund. Muddy, I knew you wouldn’t. You and I are of a like mind about such things.
I encouraged him to go through ABB to ask for a refund (assuming he wouldn’t get one). Otherwise, I’m fine not offering one.
I’m not actually that hard nosed about refunding myself- it depends on the circumstance. For instance, I offered a refund to a guest a couple years ago who decided to leave after 3 nights of a 5 night reservation. Her leaving had nothing to do with my place- she had no complaints and was a nice guest. She just hadn’t researched the weather in my neck of the world and was miserably hot- not at my house, I have good fans that keep things comfortable, but it’s a 20 minute walk to town where the restaurants, stores, and the beach are. Since I was surprised to get a booking at that time of year anyway, so her booking didn’t block anyone else from booking, and since she didn’t ask for a refund, I offered it to be nice.
But when another guest cancelled 3 days before her check-in day, after taking up a lot of my time messaging, in the middle of my high season, I stuck to my moderate cancellation policy. I told her I’d refund if I got a booking for the cancelled dates, and I did get one for 3 of the 8 day cancelled booking, but didn’t refund anything, since I did probably miss out on replacement bookings for the other nights.
And I’ve offered to refund the first night of a 2 week long booking twice, when the guests had delayed or cancelled flights and missed the first night. But they never asked for a refund- I offered it to be nice, and both times the guests refused the offer.
It’s guests asking for refunds in contravention of the cancellation policy that would irk me and that I think sets a bad precedent if the host relents.
