Glitch allowed guest to book without paying a cleaning fee - airbnb support is no help

[Darin57]

The system did not charge a cleaning fee on our last booking.  The customer service agent seems clueless about how the system works, as she has suggested multiple options that would not address the issue:

1. Contact the guest directly and ask them to pay a cleaning fee.  This is an absurd suggestion for obvious reasons. The guest would think it's a scam and no doubt give us a bad review.

2. Check the box on our listing to reduce the cleaning fee for shorter stays.  Again - doesn't address the issue.

3. Use the Resolution Center to contact the guest and explain the situation.  You CAN'T use the Resolution Center for a guest who hasn't check in yet.  Why are the customer service folks so lame? 

It's very disheartening to have such a simple issue that airbnb will not take ownership of and fix.  Now it looks like we have to cancel the reservation and hope that it works properly when the guest re-books. And we would pay a $50 fine for canceling the booking. 

[Emiel1 · Accepted solution]

@Darin57 

If you cancel, guest can not rebook same dates via Airbnb, as they remain blocked.

Option 4:

Inform guest and change reservation ("change" option) and amend the booking price with the cleaning fee.

Option 5 (the best one):

Continue with the reservation without cleaning fee.