Question regarding cancellation/alteration of booking

[Barbara83]

I received a booking yesterday (Sunday evening) with the arrival date of 15 October. However, this morning the guest changed the arrival date to 16 October, and so her stay will be one day less than the original booking. I have moderate cancellation policy. When she requested the alteration in reservation I saw that Airbnb would give her a full refund for the 15 October. But how can that be? There is only 4 days until the 15 October.. Shouldn't I have received 50% for the first night that she cancelled?

I contacted Airbnb support and they keep telling me that the guest's alteration was within 5 days, if it was this morning (11 Oct. 11am)... but it wasn't... Counting 5 days back from 15 October gives 10 October. Then Airbnb also says that the alteration of reservation is different from cancellation... But how? No matter how I look at it, the guest cancels one night, by arriving one day later...

Can anyone help me to understand how this works?

Thanks in advance...

PS. I have not had any discussion about this with the guest, I just accepted the change in reservation. I just want to know if I have understood the Airbnb rules correctly...

[Lisa723]

@Barbara83 you are assuming that Airbnb treats (or should treat) a host-accepted date alteration that eliminates a night as if that night were "canceled" by the guest. I don't believe that it does (or should). I understand where you are coming from, but there's a fundamental difference between a date change that the host is free to accept or not, and a unilateral cancellation by the guest.

The change in your payout would have been presented to you with the option to accept or decline the alteration. If you did not want to refund the guest for that night you could have declined the alteration.

[Barbara83]

@Lisa723 If the host doesn't accept the change, it puts the host in a bad light... So actually it's not "free" to decline a change in reservation... but anyways, now I understand the difference between cancellation and alteration of reservation...

[Pat271]

A good rule of thumb is that if you are asked via Airbnb to accept a change of any kind, carefully research the ramifications, because chances are that your consent is probably a concession of some kind; ie you are probably donating funds “voluntarily”, unbeknownst to you.

I remember once in my early days agreeing to a discount and sending the guest a Special Offer, which looked pretty innocent - something like $3000 instead of $3200, which I thought represented the discounted nightly rate times the number of nights. Well, it turns out that when you do that, whatever figure you put represents the total amount before taxes. So, if you have any maid fee, extra guest fee, etc., you just lost it.

Also, although I haven’t had this situation arise, if you “accept” a cancellation request that comes through, you are in essence cancelling as the host, even if the guest requested it, and will suffer the associated penalties, blocked calendar, and the friendly little “Host has cancelled a reservation” automated review comment on your profile.  Talk about unexpected consequences!

[Barbara83]

This sounds weird to me that if guest cancels it looks like the host cancelled… are you sure about this? Fortunately I haven’t had this problem when a guest cancelled…

[Pat271]

@Barbara83  Specifically, if you get the following “guest request” in your email:

Don’t accept!

[Barbara83]

Oh that makes sense! I have not seen this before... only guests who cancelled themselves.

[Fred13]

To avoid changing reservations I rather use the 'Send or Request Money' option with guests to 'fix' one.  

[Barbara83]

Okay but how is that better than letting the system do the work?

[Amanda1873]

This is really interesting, thank you for this discussion!

I have guests due in a weeks time and well inside the one month cancellation period. One is an actor and auditioning for something and his partner let me know a month ago that if successful they won’t be able to come. I suggested then that they change dates but they said it was a significant date for them.

I said i would be happy for them to cancel and have a refund if it was only 2 days inside the one month timeframe. I heard nothing assuming his auditions were unsuccessful but he messaged yesterday 9 days before check in to say he had a final audition today and if successful would like to rearrange dates so they don’t lose their holiday or money (what about me?!!).

I said I would consider a rearranged booking but to let me know by today which he hasn’t yet. I didn’t want to be negative as you have already picked up in this chat that if he then should come there might be bad feeling.

So from what everyone here has said, it sounds as though if they decide they want to cancel and rearrange tomorrow with just 7 days to go, I should get them to cancel themselves and not get a refund, however that I am happy to block out some other dates and if I’m successful in fully rebooking these cancelled dates I will put their money towards the new booking in the form of a discount.

This would stop them cancelling the new dates and getting a full refund…