Unfair bookings

[Alex1685]

I have a question for hosts out there, maybe it's happened to you also,

I currently have a guest who has made 3 separate bookings (5 days each), all check-ins start the same days as checkout. 

When I asked why they made 3 separate booking they said that they were worried because of covid they may need to quarantine upon arrival. But would cancel the bookings if that requirement wasn't in place at the time.

I'm annoyed that someone has booked the apartment with the intention of cancelling it.

Has anyone come across this and can I cancel the booking.

Alex

[David192]

That is outrageous. I hope your conversation was done on-platform so you can show it to AirBNB. There are so many dodgy guests coming out of the woodwork lately and AirBNB's Guests-can-do-no-wrong policies don't help protect us.

[Mark116]

@Alex1685  I would explain to the guest that this is, in effect, holding your listing hostage and it will be impossible for you to book those dates if he waits until the last minute to cancel.  Ask him to withdraw the request or commit to keeping the reservation whether he uses it or not.  Give him a dayish to respond.  Then, I would contact Airbnb if he still won't cancel and get them to do a neutral cancellation.  I'm sure you know that you shouldn't cancel yourself as the host.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Alex1685 If it were Instant Booked then you can cancel the reservations. Up to 3 per year penalty free

[Fred13]

^^^ I was about to say that. @Alex1685  IF you take it up with Airbnb, if you so desire and do get a hold of them, you may get them to cancel all 3 reservations because - it is an obvious abuse of the intent of Instant Booking. On that basis they will cancel them.

[Huma0]

@Fred13 

I always call Airbnb to cancel an IB. However, I was told by one rep that it would still count towards my three cancellations a year, so it's super annoying to have to use all of these up for one set of guests. What happens if you then need to cancel someone else in the same year?

My situation was that I cancelled a guest I was uncomfortable with and who was not responding to any questions after months of messaging. I also messaged him to explain why. Guess what? He just went ahead and rebooked. So, I had to cancel again. He rebooked. I finally persuaded him to cancel and thought he had got it. No, his girlfriend then rebooked pretending it was a new booking. Sigh. When I called her out on it, she pretended she had no idea her boyfriend had booked the same place. Really??? She booked it within 10 minutes of him cancelling! She then did not want to cancel.

That was my three penalty free cancellations gone on one stupid couple.

[Debra300]

@Huma0,

Did customer service give you a reason why they wouldn't consider it to be just one cancellation since it was the same set of guests repeatedly booking despite previous cancellations?  Also, I'd think that Airbnb would have a feature that would enable the reps to block certain guests from booking if a host provides a legitimate reason for the request.

[Huma0]

@Debra300 

Not really. I questioned it of course, but the rep just insisted it still counted as separate cancellations despite being the same guests for the same listing for the same dates. She said it didn't matter, because even if my three cancellations were used up, I could always call Airbnb and they would do everything to help.

Well, we all know that entirely depends on the rep you get through to, if you can get through at all these days, so that's not much reassurance.

Luckily I did not need to make another cancellation for a while. The next time was for a third party booking. The guest refused to cancel, even when I explained it was against Airbnb policy. He just insisted that the friends he was booking for were 'really nice' and that it was very difficult to book Airbnb from China (nonsense of course. I've hosted tonnes of Chinese guests). Perhaps his friends had an account but cr*ppy reviews. Who knows?

Anyway, that time, the rep was really odd. She just didn't seem to understand the problem and didn't want to cancel the booking. I told her it was against Airbnb policy and that I wouldn't be covered by Airbnb for a third party booking. Although she admitted this was true, she said that it was still  'my choice' whether I wanted to follow the policy or accept the booking, i.e. the policy didn't matter. Eh??

I ended up having to tell her I was going to hang up, redial and speak to someone else, which is what I did and got someone sensible on the line. Like I said, it totally depends on the rep you get.

[Huma0]

PS, the girlfriend said I should overlook it and let them stay because her boyfriend was 'an idiot' and that couldn't be helped 🙂

[Ute42]

.

@Alex1685   

If a guest places 3 back to back reservations they can leave You 3 seperate reviews for what in reality is one stay. If these are the wrong people they can tank Your listing and good bye Superhost.

[Fred13]

Good point @Ute42. That move has trouble written all over it.

[Linda108]

I thought there was supposed to be a day in between bookings.  Is that not true any more?

[Emilia42]

@Linda108 Completely optional. 

[Inna22]

@Alex1685 it sounds like you need to change your cancellation policy. While I would have been personally super annoyed if a guest did this to me, they are just taking advantage of an option you made available to them. It is actually pretty clever. I do not see how this is different from anyone booking any other flexible cancellation property if they are not sure of their plans. I assume your policy is flexible- somehow I could not see it on your listing page, it kept turning up blank.  I have a strict policy precisely because I can not deal with something like this. 

[Helen3]

I agree with  @Inna22 , @Alex1685  while it’s really annoying the guest has done this. 

The guest was only able to do this as you chose to offer your guests a flexible cancellation policy

If you don’t want to attract guests like this, I would change to a stricter cancellation policy.

Bet the guest doesn’t realise they will lose Airbnb service fee for each cancellation. .