What would you do?

[Lorrie40]

I accepted a reservation because i thought the "family" was coming to spend the weekend on the water. I asked for more details today to personalize their stay and found out it's 8 guys coming for a guys weekend. Asked about boat launch and firewood.  He has communicated well but now i'm concerned that a guys weekend is all that i know of my husbands "guys weekend" and i would not want them at my property!  I'm fairly new to this and realize i should have asked more questions before accepting the reservation. I also don't want to cancel and have that hurt my rating.  Any thoughts?

[Emiel1]

@Lorrie40 

If you cancel, there will be more penalties then only just hurting your rating:

What-penalties-apply-if-i-cancel-a-reservation-for-a-stay

Next time maybe do some more communication before accepting, for now the options are limited : Cancel or Continue.

Or if you fear a party will be held in your house: contact Airbnb (No-party policy) and ask for penalty free cancellation.

[Lorrie40]

Is it ok to provide a forewarning and a reminder about our no party policy?

[Pat271]

If the initial booking request said “family”, and it’s in the messages that now it is “8 guys”, you might be able to call Airbnb and have it cancelled because it is not consistent with the info you had when you accepted the reservation. In other words, had you known it was 8 unrelated guys, you wouldn’t have accepted it. Not a guarantee they will cancel it, but worth a try.

[Elaine701]

Forget it. The guest always wins any dispute that doesn't involve admitted terrorism on the part of the guest. 

Unfortunately, you'll just have to live with any consequences of this one. Even if they completely trash the house. It's Airbnb policy. Sorry. 

[Laura2592]

@Lorrie40 I would call ABB and ask that they cancel the reservation. They may. You get one freebie a year.  Explain that you were not advised of the actual makeup of the group and feel misled. 

If that doesn't work I would message the guest and say "Thanks for letting us know about the change in plans. Please send me copies of all guest IDs so that we can verify everyone on entry. Its a requirement for our insurance. Also, when you have a moment, take a spin around our house rules and note that we don't allow parties (nor does AirBNB). We have had some neighbors complain about vehicles and noise, so I like to warn guests before they arrive.  Let me know if you have any questions and we will arrange a time to have someone come by and check everyone in. Have a great day!"

We have done this with a few groups even though we have a key code. It really does freak people out if they are planning on having a party,  and they have withdrawn the reservation on their own. As you are a new host people really do look to mess with you and the first few guests can be terrible. They know how desperately you need those ratings. I might consider canceling myself in this case as you are not a superhost yet so it would not make a big difference. 

I would also advise lowering your guest count to 6. It looks like you have 3 beds? That should be your max capacity.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure I agree a hundred percent on your police work there, @Pat271  . 

For one thing, there's no reason that a group of men  - related by blood or not - can't consider themselves a "family." Believe me, it won't go down well in San Francisco to suggest otherwise. But more importantly, Airbnb's Nondiscrimination policy prohibits declining or cancelling a booking based on the guests' gender, age, or familial status. So if you're going to accept a booking for 8 people, you don't get to require that some of them be children, female, and/or related to each other.  That's a discrimination trifecta.

Any suspicion of discrimination can get a new listing shut down much faster than an established one like yours, so it would be very risky for this host to take your advice if she's invested in a future on Airbnb.

@Lorrie40  this is the steep incline of your learning curve. Of course you can remind the guests of your "no parties" rule, but it doesn't really mean anything because nobody knows what your idea of a party is. The best suggestion I can offer is that you apologetically tell your guests that, as a brand new host, you published your listing before your House Rules were ready for Prime Time, and then provide them with an updated version that goes into specifics. Policies on unregistered visitors, noise, checkout and trash removal, and safety requirements for your boating equipment would be appropriate here. Reminders that your home is CCTV monitored for security would also be appropriate. Reminders of your sleeping arrangements would also be fine. Stereotypical assumptions about what a "guys weekend" means based on your husband's misadventures would be extremely inappropriate, so just don't go there.

If the booking is still within the free cancellation grace period, you can advise the guests that if the amended rules aren't a good fit for their plans, they can still get out of the booking. Maybe they'll take the hint and reconsider. But I hope you also reconsider your occupancy rate - there's no reason you have to allow the absolute maximum number of people just because you can. I don't really see how the sleeping arrangements would work for 8 people, anyway - you describe it as "1 King, 1 Full, 1 Bunk with twin/full bed combo" - why would you host more than 6?

[Loni56]

Olá os meus primeiros hóspedes foram 6 rapazes

Não tive nem um problema confesso q fiquei. um pouco preocupada 

mais não falei nada 

Hospedei no Carnaval 2018

rapazes e moças cada apartamento com 6 pessoas

como eu tenho um apartamento no mesmo 

local eles nem se quer chegavam a passar dos limites

quando eu ouvia que algo estava fora do normal

eu chamava atenção pelo chat na plataforma 

simplesmente perguntava vocês estão com algum problema no ap

porque estou ouvindo uma batidos música alta!

no final foi bom n estragaram nada

deixaram tudo em ordem

Eu não chancelaria

Att Loni

[Pat271]

@Anonymous You’re right - I was suggesting the host could have the booking canceled not for discriminatory reasons, but solely based on the terms being different than what had been disclosed in the original booking request. But even if the accuracy of the original info can be argued, Airbnb policy is that the host isn’t allowed to discriminate based on familial status or gender, so it’s a moot point.

[Inna22]

@Anonymous  great observation about the beds. I am also surprised that the men booked it. I can see three girls willing to squeeze into a king size bed but this just does not sound like a comfortable set up

[Linda108]

I agree with @Anonymous  about how to approach this situation.  Your lovely family of five is probably what you imagined your guests to be.  That's a common assumption for new hosts and believe me there are a whole lot of people that are nothing like you who will stay at your very cute cottage.  If you cannot discourage these guests, can you or a trusted friend greet them and orient to your expectations?  Good luck and keep us posted as to how this turns out.

[Suze6]

I wouldn't worry too much, I have hosted a men's getaway before and the home was left in better condition than when I hosted some families.

[Alexandra316]

@Lorrie40 I can't add much that hasn't already been said, except in my experience, it's not the guys' weekends that are the problem: it's the women's weekends. Guys usually clean up after themselves and get themselves out on time. Women not so much. I also had a women's weekend who drove drunk across the neighbours' lawn. Police were involved. 

I think @Anonymous''s advice is spot on.

[Elaine701]

Basic stuff:

1) claiming to be a "family" and turning out to be a group of boys or men is suspiciously misleading. 

2) large groups of males have a long history of being "problematic" guests, particularly those under 30 years of age. 

Having said that, there's no reason to believe that >all< groups of males will be "problematic". But given the additional apparent misrepresentation, it sure sounds suspicious.

We had the very same thing - being misled I to accepting a group of young males who partied non stop and left the place in a disaster, and it cost us over 1000€ to repair and clean it up. And we had to do it before the next guest arrived, which was extremely stressful. 

Yes, Airbnb can claim "discrimination", but just remember, it's >you< who has to live with it, not Airbnb. 

And why do other platforms have age and other guest profile filters to help prevent such misfortunes? Isn't that "discriminatory"?  Or is it just Airbnb? 

[Anonymous]

@Elaine701  What other platforms are you talking about? As a guest, I've never had another platform collect any age or "profile" data on my group during a booking process other than distinguishing between adults and children. 

And while I can see the reasons behind your suspicions, it doesn't seem like a very effective strategy for hosts to profile large groups based on their age, gender, race, or whatever demographic details trigger them. Any booking for a large house can turn out to be a Trojan Horse, but a "non stop" party can only happen if the host has no measures in place to detect and stop it before it can escalate to that point.

Profiling and prevention are not the same thing.