Let's compare cancellation stories

[Kelly149]

So, ABB has put out new terms of service that are greatly curtailing the Extenuating Circumstances reasons - hooray!!!

In celebration, let's talk about our strangest cancellations, recent or otherwise:

This has been a month of cancellations here... 1. People from halfway across the country booked 6 weeks in advance to come here for "a memorial service", then cancelled after the free cancellation window closed, because they were concerned about "the covid situation" which is exactly the same then as it was when they booked. Weird, ok, I got some money.

2. A guest who was prevented by ABB from IBing for some reason, went thru a whole long convo with me, did indeed read my whole house rules, said all was well. And then a week later came back and said the rules were too strict & they needed to be at a place where they were free to host extra guests.  So they cancelled, and didn't ask for any extra back. Weird, ok, I got some money.

3. A guest says, week of the stay, that one member of their group has Covid so of course none of them can come, will I refund them? When I say, no, the cancellation policy will stand, she says "but how could I possibly know that one of us would get sick?" Umm, I don't know, have you seen the news on any given day in the last 6 months? They didn't cancel, didn't come and ok, weird, I got all the money.

@Inna22

[Inna22]

@Kelly149 love this!

Guest booked a family get together at a time when we still have pretty strict locked down but well into the pandemic. A few weeks later the rules were much relaxed yet she cancelled because of "all the new restrictions in Chicago". I frantically searched the web and Mayoral facebook page thinking she knew something I didn't. Very strange and yes, I was happy to get paid.

A few years ago guest cancelled a reservation for a team trip to a yacht competition 6 months away and claimed his mother's death to get a full refund. I easily discovered that the death certificate was fake. Would a whole team cancel a participation in international competition because one member was grieving for over six months? I think the team expected to qualify for the competition, booked prematurely but ended up not qualifying.

I feel like I should be tagging the next person now. I bet @Ann72 has some fun stories

[Ann72]

@Inna22 @Kelly149  I was wondering when word of the new policy would filter through!  I read it this morning and honestly thought it was a bigger bombshell than the Host Advisory Group thingie.

Your stories would make me despair for the American public if we didn't have an overabundance of reasons already this year.  🤣

After getting through all the Covid cancellations, then rebooking the dates and having a strong season, I had a nice couple check out of the cabin one morning in October and tell me there was no water.  I was pretty sure I knew what it was - a filter had to be cleaned - and got the plumber over.  It wasn't the filter.  Turns out the well had run completely dry.  This had never happened and I stupidly said, "But it poured rain all day yesterday!"  Plumber tells me the well is 500 feet below the surface and it's gonna take the water a little time to find it.  (A drought in July combined with the unusual number of longer stays had brought us to this.)

The cabin only has two more weeks before shutting down for winter, but I can't face the six remaining sets of guests and figuring out how to cancel everyone, so I first talk to @Emilia42, then message CS on Twitter.  Within half an hour a young lady gets back to me and we form a plan:  I'll write to everyone and promise them all full refunds, she'll get it handled.  (She asked for a picture, but when I told her I couldn't photograph the absence of water 500 feet underground, she accepted an email from my plumber instead.)  I then called a local innkeeper (all the other Airbnbs around were booked) who had rooms and let her know she'd be hearing from my guests and why.  All the guests wrote back incredibly sweet notes and all called my innkeeper friend, Airbnb handled all the cancellations at no penalty to me (unless you count six bookings that went sayonara lol), it was all done and dusted in a matter of hours.  I was so relieved for so many reasons I almost forgot about all the money I had just waved goodbye to.  But that peace of mind was worth every penny.  

@Emilia42 you're it!

[Kelly149]

@Ann72 I’m so sorry!! That stinks. I’m glad to hear that abb was good about it. My reading of the ToS EC change was that things like this wouldn’t qualify & you’d be stuck paying cancellation fees which is absurd since you can’t possibly host without water. 
what things did you see that you thought were good/bad in the new terms??

enjoy your break!!

[Ann72]

@Kelly149  I need to read more but I liked that they're stricter.  In this case I didn't want six automated messages on my profile saying "The host cancelled this reservation."  That's the main reason I was relieved that CS stepped in so capably. 

But - my true feeling?  I should have known the capacity of my well.  I know the capacity of my other well.  But I didn't build this house or drill this well, nor have I ever lived in the house over different seasons and lengths of stays.  So I was caught flat-footed and that's not fair to people who trustingly book.  I'm glad this incident slid under the wire of the old TOS.  But I think hosts should be penalized for not having everything in running order.  This certainly taught me a lesson and I've arranged for the 24-hour cushion between bookings for next season.  In practice we'll keep those in place between longer bookings and remove them between shorter ones.

I'm here, working but enjoying the freedom to go in and out and see friends out and about, until Christmas.  It's pretty great.

[Debra300]

@Ann72,

I was thinking along the similar vein as you.  Ultimately, it's the host's responsibility to know the capacity of the well, and the impact of weather on the water supply.  I think we talked about water reserves in another thread.  It's absolutely necessary for places in remote areas or locations with a fragile water service.  At my guesthouse we water tanks hooked up to a pump that automatically starts when the water service goes out (a frequent occurrence in St. Lucia).  

Enjoy your time in Maine.

[Kelly149]

@Ann72 I’m not sure how well it would transition to a well but here, when a place runs on rainwater tanks, there are services that deliver large refill volumes of water. Expensive but possibly less so than cancellations 

[Ann72]

@Kelly149  Here, they dig another well if they need the water urgently.  Mine will fill up over the six months the cabin will be closed down.  I'll just have to think like a farmer next summer and if it looks like there will be a summer drought, I'll keep days blocked between guests to allow the well to recover.

[Kelly149]

@Ann72  Do you tell guests that they need to be mindful of water usage? Or have any way of knowing if they aren’t?

[Ann72]

@Kelly149  No, I don't tell them, because there's never been the slightest indication that any of my wells would run dry.  It's never happened on this hill in the 25 years people have been building houses here.  But this summer had some exceptional circumstances.  I had never had people stay for more than about 5 days before this year.  The pandemic brought people here for a week or two at a time, working from home, doing laundry, eating in instead of eating out, running the water a lot more.  My plumber is putting a meter on the well.  We should know by March at the latest if the travel patterns will repeat themselves next summer and then we'll be able to refine our plans accordingly.

[Emilia42]

@Ann72 I'm glad you were able to reroute some business to the local inn owner! I have a moderate cancelation policy so usually when a guest cancels they are entailed to their refund. So I don't have too many stories. Expected for one woman who canceled a day before arrival and I felt bad so I refunded her. Not a thank you or a single word. I won't ever do that again.

[Kelly149]

@Emilia42  With moderate do you get many cancellations? And would you typically resell dates with that 5 day notice? Or they’d just go empty?

[Emilia42]

@Kelly149 I really haven't had too many cancelations right on the cusp. For me anyway, guests typically cancel weeks in advance which gives me plenty of time to re-rent. In season, I always rebook (many times for a better rate/more favorable guest,) off-season it's a gamble. 

What I hate the most is when a guest books for 5 nights, months in advance, and then requests to shortens their stay to 2 nights a few days before they arrive. This makes things difficult.  I know I can decline the request but that puts me in an award position since the guest still plans on staying.

[Kelly149]

@Emilia42 yes! that request to adjust is tricky. The #3, we have covid, guest first asked to just move her reservation forward by 3 weeks, but we were mere days from her reservation starting so that weekend would have been a total loss, so I told her there would be a $100 fee to make a late adjustment. She thought that was steep and elected to just lose her whole payment and not come at all. Makes you wonder if they really wanted to adjust the dates or just wanted to move out of the cancellation window

[Debra300]

@Kelly149,

Last December, a guest IB and said that he was booking for couple who were his friends.  I informed him that it's against my house rules and Airbnb's ToS to book for someone else.  I called CS, and had them cancel.  The guest responded, "This is rediculous."  I wanted to tell him to check his spelling when trying to insult someone, but didn't respond to him.  

The next day, the same guest made a reservation on my website for the same space.  Unlike Airbnb, I collect a damages deposit at check-in, and it's listed on the checkout page.  The guest wanted me to waive this requirement, "I've stayed at several Airbnbs, and never paid a deposit. "  I explained that he agreed to the terms when he booked, and reminded him that third party reservations weren't allowed.  He didn't show up.  Fine, I got paid.