Guest booked months ago and couldn’t make the dates so I allowed a move on the dates. First timer.
Then she couldn’t stay on the new dates, so had her family stay instead. They left a mess and did not communicate.
She has just left a 4 star overall review and as I dont get many Airbnb bookings this has tanked my review ratings.
Just called CSR t o get the review removed as she never set foot in my listing.
It appears that the policy has now changed and a 3rd party review will stand as it was "their’ experience!
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That could well have been simply one CS’s response, no? Where is this “changed” policy to be found?
Were you made aware by the booked guest that she herself couldn’t come, or did you only find out after the fact? If you knew beforehand, then yes, I would expect that to be Airbnb’s response. If the guest didn’t inform you, then you could fight it.
In any case, I hope she got a well-deserved bad review for the behavior of her family, and made it known that it was a 3rd party stay that you weren’t informed of, if that was the case.
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looks like your guest was a newbie who doesn’t understand the rating system. that’s annoying.
Yet another reason I don’t allow third-party bookings which are against airbnb policy.
When this occurs I help the guest to set up a second account for the third-party people arriving and then I also helped facilitate them canceling without penalty the original order and then having them rebook for the new people. It is a pain in the a$$ but I’ve never regretted going the extra mile and making sure the people in my suite are the people that should be there.
One of the ways I’ve been able to identify third-party is that prior to finalizing the booking within the first 48 hours, I request the names addresses and ages of each person staying in the suite. I also state that no guests that are not registered are allowed in the suite . I also explain that I need this information for my insurance and that if I have an unauthorized guest in my suite that they are trespassing and my insurance won’t honor a claim. Not quite sure if this is true but it seems to work when people push back on me For this information.
I know this doesn’t help you with your current situation but I would’ve just stopped it when she asked for the third-party and then requested her to make the change to the reservation and see if I could expedite AirBnB waving their fees because it had been after the 48 hour cancellation.
But again I agree with others and I would try another customer service rep in and see if you can get them to remove the review.
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What cancellation policy are you using? I’d rather tell them that if they can’t make it, to cancel. We use the flexible policy. As such, we never have to deal with this kind of thing. We had one person cancel at 1AM on check-in day. We got half the payout and didn’t have to do a turnover except to put in new fresh flowers and change the little personalized greeting chalkboard thingy. That’s much more preferable to my mind than getting to keep all the payout and get the poor rating.
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I asked her if she still wanted to come and offered her a free cancellation of her booking. I run at 90% occupancy with 80% direct bookings, so not concerned about rebooking or empty nights. She is a new user and her family treated my cute tiny heritage home poorly - dirty dishes, a nest made of all the spare linens and towels in front of the TV, aircon left on. Did not reply to any messages.
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I tried to remove a review once and was denied by one rep. Then I called again and a new rep “got it” and removed it within minutes.
I hope you can get this review removed. The Airbnb review system is a useless POS that adds no value to hosts.
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