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Post by High Priestess on Apr 17, 2016 10:28:30 GMT
What would you do?
I have a situation of a guest leaving early and am wondering how best to handle it. The guest booked for 3 months and is leaving a month early. Three days ago she sent me a message that she would be departing on April 23 instead of May 25. I thanked her for letting me know and assumed she would submit a notice to me of a reservation change, to change the end date. Due to being on a long term cancellation policy, she is required to give 30 days notice and so would be responsible for paying me for 30 days from the date she gave notice she was leaving early. So far she has not submitted a reservation change. In the case of a long term reservation, a guest can submit a reservation change with 30 days notice and change the reservation without host approval. Eg if she had submitted the change on April 14 she could have changed her reservation end date to April 23 and then would have had to pay to May 14. She did not do that. Each day that goes by is another days' rent in May that she would theoretically be obligated to pay.
The question for me is what to say to her...there is a potential problem, which is that even though she is obligated to give 30 days notice and pay for the space for 30 days from the point she gives notice she'll be leaving early, she COULD if she wanted to, arrange it so that Airbnb is unable to collect payment from her for the coming month's stay. Eg by closing that credit card on her account, or replacing the credit card on the account with a card that has insufficient funds. Airbnb does not collect "last month's rent" from guests, so there is no way to reimburse a host should the guest leave early and then refuse to pay for the 30 days from the date they gave notice they would be leaving.
So I am torn about communicating clearly to her what her obligations are -- if I do that, if she is told she'll have to pay for the next 30 days, that could provide her the warning she needs to ensure that Airbnb is unable to collect payment from her. Eg by changing the credit card on her account to one that is expired. I already had a problem with her for this month -- Airbnb wasn't able to collect the money for her reservation for this month of APril until she adjusted something in her account.
On the other hand, if I don't communicate what her obligations are, she is ending up having to potentially pay for more days in May because she has not yet amended her reservation to leave early. If she never does that, she will have to pay for the full period, through May 25th.
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Post by edith on Apr 17, 2016 19:03:06 GMT
Isn'it to Airbnb to collect the money? I am sure she knows the rules...Can you change the booking after speaking to her and so that she can pay Airbnb with her credit card ?
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Post by helgaparis on Apr 17, 2016 20:19:39 GMT
In such cases, if she changes the reservation and you book the days again, would you keep the full 30 days notice pay?
If not, you can ask her to change the booking quickly, so the chances are higher that she gets more miney back.
If she arranges a credit card failure, to avoid a contractual payment, it is fraud. Is that without consequences in the US?
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Post by High Priestess on Apr 17, 2016 22:56:43 GMT
I have not yet decided what I will do if she submits the reservation change and I rebook some or all of the dates. I am annoyed with this guest on several levels. THough she stated she had read my house rules, weeks before arriving she asked for some major exceptions to the house rules. Then after she had arrived, I had to speak to her numerous times about following the rules she said she had read. Before she booked, she kept changing around the dates she wanted. Now after she's here, she's changing around yet again. I feel jerked around, and as a result, I"m not in a mood to refund her. However, if she does as requested and submits the reservation change, and there are no problems with her payment, and she asks for a refund, I will refund her, but with a higher "administrative fee" than I charge to others who cancel and whose empty dates I rebook. For one thing, she is chopping off a much larger piece of her reservation than others have done --- more than a month of a 3 month booking.
I dont' want to mention about the speed of her doing a reservation change resulting in more money back, because I dont' want to put her on notice that she might not get all her money back. That could lead to arguments: such as "But I shouldnt' have to pay if I'm not staying there..." She is a host in China, and some of the difficulty working with her has unfortunately been, as we often see with guests who are also hosts, that she does things differently than I do as a host. And she tends to think that I should do things the way she does. (Eg, "I would refund someone who had to leave early so I don't see why you wouldn't....) She's also a completely different kind of "host" compared to me -- she's a tenant who is barely 23 years old, and I'm a homeowner who's 53 and owned property and had renters for over a decade.
Arranging credit card failure in order to avoid a contractual payment may be fraud, but fraud like many allegations has to be proven in court in order to have any consequences on the perpetrator.
I just want to avoid motivating her to try to arrange credit card failure.
If she delays in submitting the reservation change, I wont' hold it against her if she finally does submit it, and would be willing to refund her the same amount regardless, provided I rebook the dates, but she has to free the days up for me to be able to rebook. I wont' mention that she has a higher chance of getting a refund if she fills out the form sooner, but I will simply tell her , if the issue of a refund arises, that I will refund her in proportion to the days I can rebook.
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Post by carolyn on Apr 17, 2016 23:29:39 GMT
Hey Deborah,
It sounds like you have a good plan. Ask her to submit a reservation alteration. At that point, if she asks about a refund, just tell her that she will get refunded for more days by submitting the alteration sooner. If it gets too late in the process and she asks to be refunded for an entire month, tell her you will be happy to refund her for days, IF you can re-book them. I think you have the right idea.
Maybe Airbnb has some sort of automatic check on her finances, since she did once try to pay without sufficient funds.
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Post by High Priestess on Apr 19, 2016 3:59:47 GMT
Here's an update to this situation:
I asked her to send me a reservation alteration. She did. When I got the email, I clicked on the link in the email to respond to the alteration. The host is given an option, when accepting the alteration, of WAIVING the cancellation fee (meaning, the guest could cancel without giving 30 days notice -- eg, she is supposed to leave May 25, decides to leave April 23, and so I allow her to leave April 23 and pay only to April 23), or to ENFORCE the cancellation fee (meaning, that as the long term policy itself states, the guest must give 30 days notice when leaving early) .
The DEFAULT setting on these forms is that the host WAIVES the fee, and in fact there is a little message there from Airbnb basically asking hosts to be polite and do as "most" hosts do and waive the fee. I guess they think it doesn't hurt to ask, but I find that offensive. IT's like saying, "most hosts don't follow their rules and our policy, so we ask that you don't follow your policy...or our cancellation policy...".
I checked the box to ENFORCE the fee and clicked "ACCEPT" and then the whole thing went to do-do land. Somehow the accept didn't go thru the system, but the reservation alteration was nevertheless rendered invalid, and I was unable to try again. SO I had to call Customer service, who had to contact my guest and ask them to submit the form again.
The customer service person also told me that it's better not to access the alteration form via email,but to go to it direct from the dashboard. He says it is glitchy when you try going to it from email. Hmm,,I noticed.
So the guest sent me the form again, and this time I called up CX and had them sit on the phone with me while I filled it out and clicked accept. THis time it went thru and the end date was changed.
I was glad to see that only a few hours after I had accepted the reservation change, I got paid the balance of the reservation. NOrmally, as a long term reservation, I was getting paid the 29th of each month. BUt when a guest cuts short their reservation, if the new end date falls before the next payment date, I guess they do it this way -- they pay you right away. Makes sense, otherwise, it would be strange for Airbnb to be collecting payment from this guest after she had already checked out and left my house.
Due to the extra time I had to spend on communications regarding the reservation alteration, I would add to my standard administrative fee , if the guest requested a refund.
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Post by lambada on Apr 19, 2016 19:08:27 GMT
Thanks so much for posting this, Deborah. I haven't had this kind of experience yet, but who knows in the future as I do take monthly reservations as well. So it's good to know how it works.
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Post by lambada on Apr 19, 2016 19:31:54 GMT
Thanks so much for posting this, Deborah. I haven't had this kind of experience yet, but who knows in the future as I do take monthly reservations as well. So it's good to know how it works.
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Post by CC on Apr 19, 2016 21:57:42 GMT
That little suggestion of please do what most hosts would do--is crazymaking! Why don't I just let my 15-year-old grandson run Airbnb? Sounds like something he would write.
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Post by Maria Lurdes (Milu) on Apr 20, 2016 11:09:10 GMT
I can't imagine that as a host herself that this guest wouldn't realize the downside of leaving early, or know she needed to research the consequences of early departure. You were very patient with the process. I also can't wrap my head around a guest who is a host intentionally cancelling or manipulating their credit card in order to render payment impossible. That just seems so underhanded.
I'm glad that it's resolved.
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Post by High Priestess on Apr 20, 2016 15:12:21 GMT
I hope I didn't mis-speak -- this guest didn't actually intentionally cancel or manipulate her credit card to get off the hook for payment...but I was worried that might happen, since it is possible.
Since as we all know, guests dont' like to be held to the cancellation policy they agreed to in advance, if it ever means that they won't get a 100% refund if they cancel at the last minute, and since we have heard many stories about how guests try to use dishonest means to manipulate the system to work for them --- I always look for the ways a guest might be able to get around the system vis a vis getting a larger refund than they deserve. I always think everything through with this possibility in mind. I always think of how I need to protect my own income from reservations, and what threats to that exist.
As Dave and Deb pointed out to me, there was another host who had a similar situation with a guest recently, and in her case, the guest DID try to use dishonest tactics to get out of the terms of the cancellation policy. See the post here:
community.airbnb.com/t5/General-Hosting/Guest-cancellation/m-p/71122/highlight/true#M19412
In that case, the guest also wanted to leave a month early on a long term reservation, and once she realized she would be bound to having to give 30 days notice, and pay for 30 days after the date she gave notice she'd be leaving early, she began to make all kinds of complaints about the listing, in a scam effort to get a refund that way.
So that just goes to show -- as we all know anyway from our experience -- guests often just don't want to be held to the contract they signed. They will often try to weasel their way out of it.
In my case, I would be willing to offer a partial refund if I was able to rebook the dates (and I ended up being able to rebook most of them already) but I have a very clear policy that I NEVER offer a guest a refund if the guest does not request a refund. ANd sometimes even if they do ask for a refund I may refuse to provide one. At the very least, if I do provide one, I will do as Helga suggested now, and not issue the refund until AFTER the departure of the replacement guest.
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Post by helgaparis on Apr 20, 2016 21:24:16 GMT
Glad it worked for you Deborah - it is easier if you get paid the rest of the new duration and then can decide on refund or no refund.
The propositions "Be nice and cut your leg off for the guest even if you are not obliged to" are shortsighted and undignified for the role as honest broker between hosts and guests.
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