Airbnb canceled a reservation and then her roommate re-booked, seems off

[Stephanie1817]

Hello there!

I had a reservation and airbnb sent me an email that they canceled it for some reason. 10 minutes later her roommate rebooked the house and said that his roommate was flagged but they didn't want to lose the house so he booked it while she was trying to get her account sorted. 

Airbnb was not able to tell me why they canceled her reservation and therefore I don't know if I should trust her roommate? 

In over 4 years of being a host, I've never had this happen. My gut tells me something is fishy. (I've heard of houses being rented out for "brothels" and this is definitely a nice house. It's brand new.)  

Any advise is greatly appreciated. 

Stephanie 

[Colleen253]

@Stephanie1817  This is a no brainer. Red flags all over the place.  I would not let these people stay. Since it was instant booked, you should be able to cancel without penalty. 

[Stephanie1817]

Thanks for the confirmation! Airbnb did say that I could cancel but it goes against my "3 for the year". I would think that since they flagged the first girl and he clearly stated that he was her roommate that they would cancel on my behalf.  

[Colleen253 · Accepted solution]

@Stephanie1817 

If you spoke to someone at Airbnb, they do have the ability to look at your account and see what happened with the first booking, and then connect that with the message stream with the guest's room mate, and then could have simply cancelled the second one for you, no fuss. The problem with Airbnb CS is they are outsourced untrained call center workers who often don't even know policy, and usually have a hard time grasping the finer nuances of a situation. The important thing right now is just to cancel that second booking. You can try again with another rep, and see if you get lucky with one who 'gets' the situation, or just go ahead and cancel it yourself. 

[Stephanie1817]

Great, thank you! I called back and was able to get ahold of someone that was able to read through the messages of the roommate and then immediately canceled the reservation for me! What a relief. I appreciate your help!