Long Term Guest Wants To Cancel with Full Refund: Need Advice

[Carrie351]

Hi Community,

I'm having a bit of a moral dilemma. A guest booked in February to stay with us for 42 nights for his medical rotation. The hospital, with about a month to go, cancelled his rotation. He is asking for a full refund. So here is my dilemma: I feel for him. I really do. But I've already lost so much money due to COVID-19. But I don't want to profit off of his misfortune. Here's a solution I'm proposing. 

We refund the guest 50% of his total booking (what we would have made) and then if we rebook the dates, we refund what we get back. 

Has anyone done this? Or does anyone have an alternative solution?

Thank you so much!

[Vanessa1239]

Well my guest has cancelled at the last minute (less than 24 hours) due to covid and I'm trying to get at least my fees back  that I paid to prepare for the visit. airbnb seem to only care about the guests needs. Been trying for 2 days to get some sort of reimbursement  or even communication on how guests are protected from these costs. But it seems airbnb are slowly becoming the type of business tou can not trust anymore. Good luck at least you got so.e money back unlike me I'm down £500 GBP

[Gordon0]

I think that's a fair option, @Carrie351, but I'd act quick to keep Airbnb out of the equation as it's highly likely they'll refund the lot. 

[Nanxing0]

I think that's a very very fair solution to me. I've had a few long stay guests cancelled reservation before and I refunded most of the money basically due to the fact that my listings get rebooked pretty easily and frankly series of short stays make more money for me than those long stays due to the discount.

My approach was slightly different than yours that I usually offer them two options. First option is that we'd go with the cancellation policy first and then whatever we recover from the rebook of those nights will be refunded. The other option is to charge them a cancellation fee (usually 10-20% of the total) and make it a done deal. They agreed on the long term cancellation policy so I wouldn't let them quit for free, but it's also emotionally insane to hold thousands although it's perfectly legit based on the contract. One thing to note is that I usually judge the solution based on the fact that how many days ahead they tried to cancel. If it's one month, or at least two weeks, ahead I would be nice to them. However I don't like to bear last minute cancellations so if they cancel last minute, 3-7 days from the time of the cancellation would be non-refundable for sure.

[Helen3]

Why don't you just say you are sorry to hear this and that although you don't need to do this under the terms he has booked under, if you are able to secure any bookings to replace the one he is cancelling you will consider refunding time for any days that are rebooked.

In that way you are showing the guest you are being reasonable but not losing out financially  @Carrie351 

Personally I don't see why you would refund him the 50% you retain for guest cancellations UNLESS you get a replacement booking.