Advice please: Guest wants a full refund after staying for 8 days due to cleanliness issue

Advice please: Guest wants a full refund after staying for 8 days due to cleanliness issue

Hi All, I have a guest who just checked out today after 8 days of stay. I am surprised when I got a request from him today (after he has checked out) asking for a full refund due to minor cleanliness issues. 
If he had contacted me during his stay, I would definitely have sent my cleaners again to clean the place or fix any issues that he was facing. Before replying to his request, I would like to ask for advice on how to deal with this situation. Will Airbnb force me to provide a full refund?

33 Replies 33

That’s a good point! This guest must have seen this and thought he could do the same! I am going to remove that now (hopefully I still can).

Nopes, no luck of editing it now. Let me know if there’s a way 

@TheMelbourneHome0 Other people have said Airbnb will remove YOUR OWN comments, if you ask them to...... Assuming you can get hold of them!

yes AirBnB removed a response to a review that I had made, but that was the day after I made them.

wow, after all the good advice you still went ahead and refunded him for the entire 8 day stay & mentioned it in a public comment?! That really wasn't smart. ANyone that reads that will see you as an easy target for a free stay now. 

Hi Donald,  I’m afraid you may have misunderstood the situation. The refund that I mentioned in my public comment was for a previous different guest who genuinely had issues during his stay. That guest contacted me on his first day of his stay so I was willing to make a refund. This guest only contacted me after he has checked out and based on the advice given here, I have declined his request for a refund. 

 

@TheMelbourneHome0 Yep! I understood what you meant regarding latest stay & previous situation! ONCE AGAIN @Donald28  has made a sanctimonious comment based on a fundamental misinterpretation! He does it all the time, bless him!

Russell49
Level 10
Katoomba, Australia

Sounds like the guest just wants extra money in these trying times. Let them get it elsewhere.

Russell49
Level 10
Katoomba, Australia

Expect to see more nasty guests try to take advantage of refund policies since money is going to be something for most people to save these days.

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

These are real complaints received by Thomas Cook Holidays by dissatisfied customers:

 

1. “On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food.”

2. “They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax.”

3. “We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish.”

4. “We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price.”

5. “The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room.”

6. “We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow.”

7. “It’s lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallartato close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during ‘siesta’ time — this should be banned.”

8. “No-one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared.”

9. “Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers.”

10. “I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts.”

11. “The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun.”

12. “It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair.”

13. “I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends’ three-bedroom and ours was significantly smaller.”

14. “The brochure stated: ‘No hairdressers at the resort.’ We’re trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service.”

15. “When we were in Spain, there were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners.”

16. “We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning.”

17. “It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel.”

18. “I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes.”

19. “My fiancée and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked.”

LOL too funny!

Although, I did get number 9 once. 
The guest called us late at night and requested for a Chinese rice cooker. 

@Sarah977 , love the complaints, especially #19!  We once had a guest complain that there were no streetlights or ubers.  Mind you, were in upstate NY, in the boonies and our business is called Bearpath Lodging,  who would have thunk it????  John

@Melodie-And-John0  #2 is my personal fave.

Laura2484
Level 10
Ohope, New Zealand

Some great feedback I hope you can find useful and helpful @TheMelbourneHome0 . 

 

@Sarah977  Oh what a list , certainly one has to laugh or cry at this utter cluelessness!

A lot of 1 star reviews for Thomas Cook Holidays no doubt.

A very easy response to all these complaints 

"'For your own safety & satisfaction , please stay home! "

@Laura2484  Yeah, these "travelers" should just stick to perusing travel brochures from the comfort of their armchairs. I'm sure they didn't just send a complaint and leave a bad review, either. They probably drove their tour guides, hosts, hotel staff, cab drivers, and restaurant staff up the wall every step of the way.