Hi everyone!
As we dive into the month of August and cele...
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Hi everyone!
As we dive into the month of August and celebrate Happiness month, it's a great time to reflect on our Hosts'...
Latest reply
Hola!
Hoy tenía los primeros clientes que entraban en la casa, pero debido a la carretera de acceso a la propiedad, han decidido no entrar. La carretera, que es un camino público, está mal conservada, pero yo siempre he accedido a la propiedad sin problemas con un coche bastante bajo, y no sé lo dije de antemano al cliente.
El cliente ahora me pide que cancele su reserva argumentando que solo se le reembolsa una pequeña parte de la reserva, que él no sabía sobre el estado de la carretera. Igual es fallo mío por no haberle aclarado eso de antemano.
Resultado: los que iban a ser mi primeros clientes ni siquiera han bajado del coche, han decidido irse, a pesar que se les ha invitado a descansar un poco después de su viaje de varias horas con el calor que hace en marruecos ahora mismo. Mi familia, que ha estado trabajando mucho estos últimos días para dejarlo todo listo para los clientes, están muy contrariados por la actitud de lo clientes.
No me importa el devolverles el dinero, pero considero que si no quieren entrar en la casa no soy yo el que tendría que cancelar la reserva.
Alguna sugerencia?
@Kepa3 You are correct- it is the guests who have to cancel, because it is the guests who decided not to stay. If you, as a host, had some situation where you couldn't host already booked guests, it would be your responsibility to cancel. But in this case, the guests need to. That you didn't make it super clear what the road was like is immaterial. As you say, you can drive that road without a problem- if they decided they didn't want to, that's their decision.
Just as @Sarah977 said, it is the guest's responsibility to cancel the reservation. Also, I think you should stick to your moderate cancellation policy, and not offer the refund the guest any additional money. It better to let them cancel instead of trying to convince them to stay, because they will likely be troublesome guests.
You have some very nice properties listed. One says it's in the countryside and the other says it's in the mountains. Only an inexperienced traveler would expect to find smooth roads to take to remote areas. I hope you have better luck in the future.
@Debra300 People can be so clueless. Almost all my guests arrive by air and then the bus from the airport. But my neighbor across the street gets lots of guests who drive to her place from other places in Mexico, usually Guadalajara or some other city. We live down a long, rocky dirt road and then another little even rockier dirt side road. These guests drive here in little low-rider city cars, scraping the bottom, and have zero idea how to drive in the rainy season. They get stuck, then step on the gas until they're up to the axles and have to be dug out.
They obviously can't conceive of what rural and remote entails.
The road to my guesthouse was similar to your road until we were able to get the government to pave a part of the road. They wouldn't do the whole thing, because home owners are responsible to pave road to their property. So, it looks good when you turn onto the road, and then about a block later it's the hodge-podge road that's been done by various individuals. We live on a hill, we recommend 4x4 vehicles or vehicles with a robust lower gear, but some people have/rent under powered or non-4x4 vehicles, and can't make it up the hill. Plus, the low cars do get scraped up the underside of the vehicle.
It's your choice to provide a full refund if the guest doesn't receive one from Airbnb. However, please note that you/your family will not be compensated for all of the time preparing the place for the guest's arrival, and you may have missed opportunities for bookings while the guest's reservation is blocking your calendar.
Thank you very much for your reply @Sarah977 and @Debra300 ! I appreciate it!
I see it as you say, they are urbanites with very little idea about what the countryside is like.
I really don't feel comfortable keeping any money form the client. Will be any way to refund the money once they have canceled?
Is Airbnb mediating in any way in this type of issue? Should I try to solve the issue by myself or should I wait? Any of the options are fine with me, I don't want to make a step that later I will regret just because being impatient about this.
@Kepa3 Wait to see what happens when the guest cancels. They may be able to convince Airbnb to give them a full refund, so you don't want to send them any money now. Plus you have nothing to refund at this point, unless you already got paid by Airbnb for this reservation.
You can send money to guests through the Resolution Centre " Send Money" option.
Be sure to make the road situation really clear in your listing, and re-iterate it in a message when guests first book or request to book so you hopefully don't get this happening again.
Hi @Kepa3,
Really glad to see you got some great advice both from @Sarah977 and @Debra300
I wanted to let you know there is also a Spanish speaking CC just in case you might find this handy in the future.
Thanks
Nick
Thanks providing the Spanish language CC link. @Sarah977 and I both speak Spanish (she is definitely more fluent than me), and it was a pleasure to help a new host.
@Debra300 I actually had to translate Kepa's post- my Spanish isn't all that fluent. I'm better conversing face-to-face than reading, because I learned my Spanish in Sayulita, which tends to be hillbilly Spanish 🙂
Hi @Nick
Thank you very much for the information. I thought that Sarah and Debra had used an auto-translate option (as in the chat with clients). I'm confident in English, so it wasn't a problem to switch the language.
Hi @Kepa3
Of course, not to worry. I saw your english skills are excellent, just wanted to share that information with you in case you didn't know or want to use both. 🙂
All the best
Nick