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Hello. I have a guest who booked for two days and during the stay, the main water line to the neighborhood broke and there was no water from the morning until 4pm. I am worried about the review (new listing) and wondered about providing a discount and what would be a fair compensation.
On a separate note, the group got a great price because somehow my listing had “Smart pricing” on (which I did not think I turned on) and was much lower than I had listed it for on weekends.
Smart pricing seems to be really Airbnb’s way to get your place booked because the price is super low (in comparison to comparables) and helps their bottom line by getting a fee from both guests and hosts (versus being unoccupied).
In our area the water is often off for hours for various reasons. Guests are usually fine about it, especially if I tell them as soon as I know about it. If your guests were unpleasant about it I’d have reminded them about the great deal they got! As you can guess, I wouldn’t give a discount. I make sure that in the event of no water, guests can flush the loo and have plenty of bottled water in the fridge. That’s all.
By the way, if you’ve got your pricing set up properly, Airbnb won’t change anything lower than the minimum price you set.
did you ask the guests what their thoughts were and what they think is fair? If not ABB will refund easily if they complain.
Could they shower? Were they home all day? How did the lack of water affect the stay?
I once gave a one night refund for a dirty sheet. (Previous guest had lipstick stains on the mattress pad that I didn’t see and it seeped through the clean sheets.). I felt terrible. I offered to come right over to change the sheets but they already had done that.
Even with trying to make it right, they still dinged me for cleaning so there’s no way to know how a guest will react.
I really appreciate the responses and should have waited for your replies…
We are in a highly competitive market so my husband thought it would be best to “ensure” a good review that we give them a small discount. They did have to leave the house and take showers at a local gym. We didn’t have any bottled water in the fridge for them and it’s like 100 degrees, also.
I did want to be “fair” and thought what would I have wanted if this happened to me, and although it was not our fault at all, I felt bad that the guests experienced the water issue.
In terms of issues at hotels, I have been compensated sometimes with a free meal at the hotel restaurant or a free night when there have been issues.
One night refund for a dirty sheet sounds expensive. I have stayed in several Airbnbs and I would not have expected a refund if I encountered that as long as I had access to another set of sheets.
I definitely have regretted some of my stays but none did I expect a refund when I thought that there was something wrong (moldy shower curtain, a/c not working, smelly room like body order, toilet not working, scorpion in house - yes, that was a surprise).
My husband calls the period when we started hosting “when we were whoring for reviews”. Our prices were quite low in order to bring people through the door until we had enough good reviews to our name. We’re mainly one or two night stays, so it didn’t take too long. Our very second review was a 4 page disaster (ghastly women with smuggled 2 yr old and a lot of dirty nappies) but it quickly disappeared. We gently upped our prices as we stacked up good reviews, and on the whole, the quality of guests has improved. You’ll get there too!
One night refund for a dirty sheet sounds expensive. I have stayed in several Airbnbs and I would not have expected a refund if I encountered that as long as I had access to another set of sheets.
I agree. Lesson learned. This was within the first few months of my hosting. While I work hard to give my guests a great experience, I no longer agonize over the few bad reviews and I no longer am quick to refund for anything. The more you give, the more some (not all) guests take advantage. I would say that 95 percent are wonderful (I’ve had over 400) but there are some you just can’t please or make them understand Airbnb vs a Hotel.
