A guest arrived to check-in, BUT I was never notified by Air Bnb of her request, booking, or anything. To avoid further conflict in the reservation schedule, I immediately blocked off the days she told me she had booked after she showed me her confirmation on her phone and showed her bank detail of the total amount of stay withdrawn from her bank account.
I now see in the depths of Air Bnb (not anywhere near my dashboard) that the reservation was canceled. By whom? Not me. I did not receive any notification from Air Bnb of her request or arrival.
Has this happened to you?
No. Not ever.
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Call AirBnB right away and get this straightened out. You probably wonât get paid for her stay unless you get this straightened out now.
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This is highly unusual. Get on the phone asap with airbnb to straighten this out. And please keep us posted.
Thank you for your replies. Approximately 22 hours after my initial contact to Air Bnb on Thursday afternoon, all I have received from Air Bnb are apologies with no resolution in sight. Any pointers on dealing with this are very appreciated!
I guess you are on instant book? Another reason not to be on IB as you would have had to accept the reservation.
Yes, I am. Good point!
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Hello @Rhonda257 I worry for you.
I would not have accepted this guest without a confirmed booking no matter what they showed you. Just because the payment showed going out of their account. Doesnât mean it didnât bounce because of a lack of funds.
Not sure why Airbnb is taking so long to get back to you. Surely itâs simple either the guest payment has gone through or not.
In your situation, I wouldnât let the guest continue to stay without a confirmed booking. You are now four days on from when youâre guest arrived. Why are they still there with no payment?
What you could have done when the guest arrived is get them to immediately send you another booking request, if the payment went through you would have been fine and they could have got a refund from Airbnb for the first booking if indeed there was an error. Please donât let them stay any longer with no payment in sight.
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A few questions to add some more context:
a) In addition to email, what types of notifications have you set to receive? SMS? App?
b) For emails, did you check your Junk folder to see if the booking-related emails ended up there?
c) Do you not coordinate your check-ins with the guests? â what time they are to arrive, how you intend to receive them, etc. How can they just turn up out of the blue at your door?
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Perhaps I am too trusting of others. I thought Air Bnb would âhave my backâ. Thank you for your comments and thoughts.
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Post on Airâs Facebook page. An issue that had been ignored for two weeks was solved in under 10 minutes.
My pleasure. What have you decided to do?
Great idea! Thank you!
From the Air Bnb Site:
âWe have your back
If youâre ever uncomfortable with a reservation, before or during a trip, you can cancel penalty-free.â
Maybe with that, but not with other things. 
Donât mind me, Iâm still reeling from some atrocious customer service, or customer NON-service, as the case may be, I received recently from them. 
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Airbnb states clearly on itâs website and Help Centre, that if the guest payment doesnât go through, you as the host will pick up the tab, not them.
Thatâs why I suggested you will need to ask them to leave ASAP. You are in effect paying for them to stay with you.
However another host on here tonight said Airbnb suggested a way the guest could pay her directly. Why not ask them about this?
Thanks for the suggestion. I really hate to bother the guest with all of this, but you are right, that might be my only choice.
Your guest hasnât paid for their stay either deliberately (most likely) or through a technical glitch. So why would you be concerned about âbothering themâ? They are staying for free at your place.
They should be doing everything to resolve this situation, rather than letting you try to sort things out.
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I suspect that the guestâs credit card bounced - therefore the cancellation by Air. It also means that the guest hasnât paid you yet.
The guest may have received a confirmation from Airbnb before their card bounced. However, in this case Airbnb considers the original booking null and void - and they canât really help you because they canât find a valid booking between you and this guest. Iâd ask the guest for direct payment.
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