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I had a one day stay who didn’t arrive. She was supposed to run here in a marathon, and texted me the day of arrival that she was advised not to come for medical reasons. She wrote “please consider this a no show”. She didn’t take any other action, and I got paid. I probably should have told her to cancel (that would clearly have been the sensible thing to do), but from a combination of apathy, as well my previous experience that I wouldn’t even get paid in full for that one day if she cancelled, I didn’t tell her to do so.
Which then brings up the question - is it worth leaving a review for her? I think it’s safe to say that she won’t leave a review for her, since she didn’t show up. And all I can say in a review for her is that she didn’t show due to health reasons. But the only reason I can think of to do so is that Airbnb slightly counts it against hosts if they don’t leave reviews.
Parenthetically, I’m still thinking about dropping one day stays, but my one day guests have almost entirely been positive experiences, and one gets quick reviews from them. And I think nearly all the 1 day reviews I’ve gotten have been good as well. They’re too much work for too little money, though.
Not sure why you wouldn’t write a review. You can certainly talk about pre-checkin communication. A lot of hosts would be pleased to know that even though at the last moment she was unable to stay at your listing, she didn’t cancel and beg for her money back. Really the only thing you can’t comment on is cleanliness.
Thank you. That’s a very interesting perspective. I hadn’t thought of any of that. Anyone else care to weigh in? And do you think I made a mistake in not telling/asking her to cancel or not?
I’ve written a review for someone who couldn’t stay at the last minute (due to the London Bridge terror attack last year and missing flight as a consequence). She seemed very nice and kept me updated the whole time and, like your guest, did not ask for a refund. She was a one-night stay too, I think. Anyway, she wrote me a pleasant review too saying how professional I was or something and how she was sure she’d have enjoyed her stay etc. (Mind you, she did only give me 4* overall!!!).
In short, I agree with @anon67190644 that it would be good to review your guest. She sounds like a very good guest as far as communication and the fact she didn’t ask for money back is a big plus too.
No, I don’t think you should worry in the slightest about not telling her to cancel. I’m pretty sure she would be able to work that out for herself. Also, if it’s a cancellation on the day of arrival she wouldn’t get any refund anyway, would she? You could always offer her another night in the future free of charge (so to speak). I did that with my guest and it went down well, although I reckoned there was a 99.9% chance that she wouldn’t take it up so it wasn’t pure generosity!
Yes you should have told her to cancel. But too late now. No harm no foul as they say in UK. If you do leave a review make sure you include in the box “Anything you want AirBnB to know?” the details of her no show. Just in case she claims the money back later.
I’m almost out of time to review the guest in question, so a quick followup:
The things one is asked to rate guests on are
Cleanliness, Communication and Observance of House Rules
But how does one rate on cleanliness or observance of house rules for someone who didn’t actually arrive? And is it possible to post a review while not giving a rating to one or more of these items? If nobody knows, I’ll just have to give it a try.
Also, should I explicitly mention that the guest didn’t cancel, or should I leave that as implied?
I’ll leave the others to reveal how they use the star rating under those circumstances but as for me, I never rate by the stars. I just write my little blurb narrative about the guests and figure it encapsulates all I want to say. I skip over (ignore) the stars and consider it a redundant exercise.
But I think the Airbnb system doesn’t consider the star ratings redundant. So, imo it’s best to give them. I normally default to all 5 stars. In fact, I rarely deviate from that. Though of course, this isn’t a normal case, because the guest didn’t actually stay.
@faheem, apologies for not responding to this before now. What did you do in the end? To be honest, I didn’t even know that you could skip the star ratings. It never occurred to me that it was possible! I must be far more obedient than I like to think… !
You mean you never have to give less than 5 stars for anything? I give people 4 stars (or less) on a semi-regular basis in various categories. Maybe I’m too picky?
I faced this question with a guest who canceled At Christmas and cost me a boatload of money. In the end I decided not to review her. Just the kinder thing to do.
I thought we were supposed to be honest. I’m sorry but when I open the oven door and find dirty frying pans you’re not getting 5 stars for cleanliness.
Absolutely fair enough. I was not entirely serious in my comment - was thinking of all the hundreds of outraged complaints from hosts about guests who leave low ratings.
No problem. I eventually gave the guest a 5 star for communication, but left the other two (Cleanliness, Observance of House Rules) blank. Since IMO it didn’t seem to me that those other two criteria made sense for someone who didn’t actually stay.
It also looks (from her profile) that I gave her a thumbs up (recommended her), though I don’t remember whether I did so or not.
She didn’t leave me a review, but then I’d hardly expect her to. And here is the review I left her. I didn’t explicitly mention that she didn’t cancel - I’m still not sure whether that would have been a good idea or not, and nobody expressed an opinion about it here. Though of course, anyone familiar with how Airbnb works would realise that I couldn’t have left a review if she had cancelled.
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Review date: 2nd February 2018 Rashmi was not able to visit due to health issues. She notified me on this on the morning of the day she was supposed to arrive. Communication with Rashi was very good, and I would be glad to have an opportunity to host her in the future. Communication 5/5
I very rarely give less than 5 stars for anything. In fact, I may have only given less than 5 stars in one case. But I reserve downgrading ratings for major issues, and I have rarely had those. The kinds of issues I have are things like guests not turning things off (lights, hot water heater, A/C) - those are by far the most common problems. And those are quite common, and I don’t think those kinds of issues are serious enough to downgrade a star rating. Of course, opinions vary.
When I have relatively minor issues with people, I don’t leave a review. A check of my account shows I didn’t leave reviews for 8 guests so far, for a variety of reasons. They tend to be things I couldn’t readily explain in a review, but which left me feeling I didn’t want to leave a overall positive review.
That was a very kind and gracious review about your near-guest (and I’m not even going to mention your two different spellings of her name because I promised I wouldn’t do that on this forum anymore).
