Advice for a reasonable partial refund to a guest for a broken appliance?

[Melissa567]

Hi Friends,

I've been renting our mountain cabin for a few years through Air BnB, generally it has gone well.

Our fridge just broke this past weekend, and we have a renter coming up on Friday (it's Sunday.)

We aren't sure we can get it fixed or replaced by the time they arrive. I reached out to let her know she should bring a cooler for the weekend and to apologize. 

She has requested a partial refund.

I agree it is awful, but I didn't want to to cancel as I know the area is tough to find other housing.

Any advice on how to calculate the refund?

thank you!

[Melissa567]

Hi @Kristeen2 

If I am understanding correctly, you have now refunded this guest $300, a more-than-fair refund for her losses.

She cannot blame you for all of her woes, as she 1. didn't give you a chance to fix the issue, and 2. didn't keep track of the state of the food herself.

You cannot ignore her, as she may escalate the complaint, but you can get in touch with Air BnB and let them know the issue. If she continues to chase you you also have the right to escalate the complaint.

Others may have additional advice in case I am being too hard-lined about this. 🙂

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Kristeen2 whatever you do you may well still get a poor review. IF this happens think carefully as to how you should respond. Your response to a negative review, if done well, is critical to cancelling out the negative review. do come back to the forum for advice as there're some clever people here (I don't include myself). Also don't make the schoolboy error of responding to a private review as your response will be public!

By the way - If the guest only mentioned the fridge failure the night before she left then I think your $200 is more than reasonable.

[Melissa567]

Sage advice! 👏

[Kristeen2]

Very helpful. Will do. Thank you!

[Sarah977]

@Kristeen2  Pretty weird that she never mentioned that the fridge didn't seem cold for the entire 4 days she was there. If it had just gone on the blink the night before she left, there's no way the food would have gone bad that quickly, unless they left the fridge door open. 

And how does $300 worth of food go bad without any of the 8 people noticing before the last night? Even with 8 people, that's about $9/day per person in spoiled food. By the 4th night when she let you know, you'd think they would have already consumed most of the food they brought.