guests cheat the hosts !

[Alexandros87]

Good evening ! The guest yesterday requested a changes in the booking, a request to postpone the booking date, I made concessions to the guest and confirmed the changes! The guest canceled the reservation today without penalty. It turns out that the guest deceived me, knowing that when he will cancel the reservation before the day, he will not receive a refund, he went to the trick and deceived the owner by requesting a change in the booking date for a whole month so that when canceling, he will receive the full cancellation amount!
I think this is wrong, the owner can be deceived in any booking by moving the booking date! It turns out that the cancellation policy for guests has a chance to cheat the host and the Airbnb platform. Most likely, I would go to a meeting with a guest and return the money, as I have done more than once.
But the fact that there is such a possibility of deception depressing me!
In similar cases, when guests ask to change the booking in the dates of arrival, I will already be guided by this case, and I simply will not make concessions to the guest, the precedent created and the existence of this loophole through deception of the host casts doubt on the cancellation policy.
It seems to me that a separate case should be brought up by the Airbnb team as a potentially dangerous loophole for hosts when canceling a reservation. And the cancellation rules should be expanded.
If the guest requests and the host confirms the transfer of the reservation a day before the arrival for a month, and when canceling the reservation, he cannot be guided by the cancellation rules without the consent of the host, if the guest wishes to cancel the reservation, he must pay penalties in any case!

[Mary996]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 

Following advice from Members on here I changed to Strict cancellation, however post covid there was a reset and my Listings reverted to Flexible!! Perhaps that happened to you and you'll want to manually reset according to your preference?  

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Mary996

tnx for the advice, I will check. But I didn't look at my listing, I pretended to book Alexandros place. What I want to say is that there is nowhere to be seen which cancelation policy he has (like flexible or moderate or strict...) like it used to be. I had to enter the exact dates to see until what date I can cancel and be refunded.

[Mary996]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 I agree the reference to which cancellation policy we Hosts have is less visible. Yes its changed! The new arrangement might possibly be better for us? What do you think?

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Mary996yes, I think it is better this way. "Strict policy" sounds very harsh... while in fact, a full refund is given until 14 days before check-in and half refund until 7 days, so ...

[Mary996]

Yes I agree @Branka-and-Silvia0 ... almost as if someone is going to come around with a birch switch and beat the Guest for their audacity. Haha...!! And 'strict' is pretty lax really as you say they get 14 days. Mostly people are only booking a couple of days in advance. Although I've been delighted to have had some bookings for the year ahead and flattered. Mine is a Homeshare (although they have the top floor to themselves) so modest accommodation. Your places look amazing. I am clearly going to have to put Zagreb on my list of places to visit!! Its a pleasure to be talking to you. My daughter and I are joint Hosts, like yourselves, but we've done things differently. We might do it as you are however and are considering that because currently with separate Listings  its not possible to link them to avoid double bookings.  xx

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Mary996  you are welcome 🙂 we would be glad to host you in Zagreb.

We didn't have any guests since last February ( we closed our calendars bc of Covid) so I am not sure how things work with Airbnb at the moment, but a year ago it was possible to link one listing with another one (or more) to avoid double bookings. Did something change since then?

[Mary996]

I don't think there's been a change in the 'Linked Listings' arrangement. I think its really good we used it for an adjusted sub-listing that we experimented with. But our situation at the moment is that we're separate Hosts with separate Listings, and presently the two can't be linked. So for this reason we may follow your example and become joint Hosts of both Listings. This way we can avoid double bookings but also still get payments into separate Bank Accounts apparently. I think the only downside is that my daughter will lose her unique account and all her lovely Reviews.....boo!! So that will be a bit sad. x  

[Mary996]

Zagreb, at some future date, here we come(!!) @Branka-and-Silvia0 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Mary996  oh, ok, I understand. We have 2 apartments (next to each other ) and they can be used separately or together like 1 big apartment. So we have 3 listings for all combinations. That's why they have to be linked.

[Lee386]

@Alexandros87 thank you Alexandros for bringing this to the forum.  I for one will be thinking very carefully at date alterations that could lead to a penalty free cancellation. 

[Lee3594]

I am so tired of the constant whining and scamming to get their money back, finally moved to the Strict policing and not giving refunds or modifications for non-refundable bookings for any reason. Airbnb isn't on our side for sure on this stuff.