Guest books late, then wants to cancel a few hours later

[Christopher187]

I had a guest making a booking inquiry today at 5:06pm.  The booking was for 2 people, one night and his message was simply "Just looking for nice place to sleep for a night."  He has two good reviews and one not so great mentioning he brought more guests than the reservation was made for.

I responded at 5:10pm explaining that I could accept but I needed time to clean the space.  I asked if what time check-in would be ok, and who would be accompanying him.  No reply.  

At 5:28pm I told him that I could have the space ready in a few hours.  No reply.

At this point I hadn't actually accepted the booking, because I wanted answers to my questions.  By 8pm I'd already convinced one of my cleaning people to go over there and turn the space.  It is Sunday evening so she's grumpy and charging me time and a half and I'm annoyed that I'm dealing with a guest who can't communicate.  I go ahead and accept the booking at 8:12pm and tell the guest to get in touch with me about the check-in time and procedure.

Then at 8:23 the guest magically acquires the ability to respond to messages, tells me he is already at another bnb, didn't have internet until just now, and thought the booking wouldn't go through until he accepted it.  He's asking for a cancellation.

So, what should I do?  I have a strict cancellation policy.  I definitely don't want to give all the money back since my time was wasted, my calendar blocked, and I incurred costs.  I also don't want a bad review.  Should I tell him to cancel then I refund a portion?

Thanks for your help,

Christopher

[Christopher187]

If he needed the room at the very moment of making the booking request then he should have indicated so.  I have a flexible check-in and check-out time, which means the guest needs to be involved in coordinating with me.  It takes two to coordinate.  It's pretty common for guests to check-in at 10pm or later, even if they've made the booking well in advance.  He did in fact say that he was "just looking for nice place to sleep for a night.", which told me he probably didn't care too much about checking in at 6pm or 8pm.  I was ready to have him check-in 3 hours after he made his booking request, which I think is pretty fast for airbnb.

I did have the room prepared.  It is the guest's fault for not communicating or showing up.  Everything was ready.

[Christopher187]

Oh, and concerning the cleaning/setup costs, it is not as simple as 50% premium.  We may use the space for other things when not occupied, so it may still need to be recleaned before the next guest.  Also the room and bedding lose that fresh clean feeling after a few days.