Guest left early, did not cancel

[Jeanette-and-Kalid0]

Hey y'all! I've searched through some of the similar posts and I've only seen responses by other members that are really just opinions and don't help to clear up the confusion. I'm hoping someone on here has had a similar experience, and can tell me how ABB manages these situations. 

About 2 weeks ago, I received an instant book on one of my listings. It was for a solo traveler, who booked 7 nights (Monday-Monday). He arrived 2 days ago, on Monday evening. We had a great night hanging out with him, and discussing his trip. During our conversation, he implied that he wasn't sure whether he would be staying the entire week or not, because he's never been to Monterrey, or anywhere in Mexico for that matter, and wasn't sure if he would have much to do. Later on, he finally told us that the reason for his visit was because he had met a young woman, (he's in his 50s), and she lived nearby so he wanted to visit her. Yesterday morning, (Tuesday), he left around 10am and rented a car to go see her. Around 9pm, he sent me a text to let me know that he had gotten a flat on his rental and would be coming home late. I got the feeling that he would be cutting his trip short, and sure enough, this morning (Wednesday), he advised us that he would be leaving. He left at 8:30am today. His reason for leaving was that he wasn't emotionally able to stay here anymore, (the girl did not want to see him), and that he thought it was best to relax in Cancun instead. He had already booked a flight for noon to leave to Cancun, and was headed to the airport. 

We never discussed any cancellation, or refund. To my knowledge, he has not cancelled the remainder of his days with us. I'm not sure if I would even get a notification of his cancellation. ABB has already issued me the payment for his stay, but I have not yet received the deposit. I'm not particularly concerned about freeing up the rest of the days that he's rented, since I have other listings available. My question is, what is the process if he decides to contact ABB to request a refund for the remaining days? I have a strict cancellation policy. 

[Bob43]

1. You will receive a notification if your guest has cancelled through Airbnb.

2. You will not receive any deposit unless you claim it within 2 days after the guest has left/after the guest's reservation.

3. You will only be able to free up the rest of the days if you do the cancellation (which of course is not recommended at all).

4. If your guest is eligible for a refund, the refund amount will depend on your cancellation policy. A strict cancellation policy means no refund after the guest has checked in.

Your guest might want to use the resolution center and request a partial refund. If you don't come to an agreement within 72 hours, you can get Airbnb involved. https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1419/how-do-i-request-a-refund-from-my-host-for-a-problem-i-enco...

About Airbnb's extenuating circumstances policy: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1320/what-is-airbnb-s-extenuating-circumstances-policy?topic=259. It seems that your guest needs to make up some good story to be eligible for this.

[Robin4]

@Bob43 Gee whiz Bob...you really do need to brush up on the rules. As @Gerry-And-Rashid0 said there is no deposit to be paid, there is just the hosting amount less service fees! Security deposit, which you possibly mean, is not paid by the guest on booking it simply provides Airbnb with a guaranteed availablity of funds should a claim arise.

And to tell a host to cancel a reservation!!!!....Goodness me, that would be about the worst bit of advice I have ever seen on the forum! Although you did put a 'not recommended' comment on it, you did suggest that this course of action would free up the booking calendar! Bob as @Andrea9 said it would have exactly the opposite effect, and it would also stain the hosts review page with a host cancellation notice and rob them of any chance of Superhost status for one year.

Hosts can get caught out in subtle ways with Airbnb's cancellation proceedure without jumping into one of the blindingly obvious ways!!!

I make mistakes with advice I give at times just as others do, but Bob I would hope that your statement was just a poor choice of words on your part and not an emphatic statement....cheers.....Rob

[Bob43]

Thanks for sharing your opinion Rob.

My comment on the deposit (is there any other deposit other than security deposit?) was a response to Jeanette's remark; "ABB has already issued me the payment for his stay, but I have not yet received the deposit." So I really don't see the mistake here. Always willing to learn however.

I do for sure agree on you comment on the cancellation that doesn't automatically free up the dates. I should have added that one simple phonecall to Airbnb in which Jeanette explains the situation, will do "magic" for freeing up those dates as well as for the automatically posted review. However, since I would not recommend to make any cancellation at all (you quoted quite selectively I have to say), I would not consider this a practical option. I assumed that would be clear from the context of the message. I am sorry I have over estimated you.

[Robin4]

@Bob43.....Bob, I am so sorry I sounded off like that, you deserve better than that. Some of your posts have had such excellent advice, but when I saw you advising a host to cancel a confirmed booking......my reaction was 'No,No,No' this is not good!

I said that there are 'subtle' ways to get caught where cancellations are concerned! This is an email (with no reply email address) that Airbnb will send to you when a guest wishes to cancel a confirmed booking that 'they' requested.......

John requests that you cancel

Nov 21 - Nov 25 · *********************************************

"You have 48 hours to respond

To make sure that John has time to find a new listing, the reservation will be cancelled on your behalf if we don’t hear back"

Now Bob, that is below the belt because, it looks like Airbnb are being the good guys and trying to iron out the wrinkles that may have happened with the booking because the guest had a change of heart, or travel plans, or 'the cat got run over'....or anything other than actually going through with the request THEY made, which you confirmed!!!

In practice Bob you must respond to this message in the strongest way stressing to Airbnb that you, as the host, were prepared to proceed with the booking, but it was the guest who wished to cancel so, as far as you are concerned the booking is committed and Airbnb must accept the guests cancellation, not yours!! The whole crux of the above statement are the words "Reservation will be cancelled on your behalf"!!! If you accept that or do nothing, as Airbnb suggest, you WILL be penalised!!

Bob, many hosts are being caught with this very unfair tactic and I think I have worked out why. If the guest cancels they lose their service fees, if the host cancels they do not! And I personally have spoken to a guest where the Airbnb helpdesk (on a previous occasion) have told the guest the only way to get all their money back was to get the host to cancel the booking!!!

We Bob, are being shafted as it is, without giving Airbnb the easy way out with cancellations.

Bob keep doing what you are doing mate, but try and learn a bit more.....and you will be an assett to the forum...cheers....Rob

[Bob43]

I need to offer my apologies as well Rob. And I have taken your point very well (as you might have read in newer posts I made on the same sort of topic :)). So thanks for the heads up, I should have stated much, much stronger that a host is not to accept a cancellation request in any case. We still don't agree about what I actually wrote however, but that might indeed be a result of the fact that I am not a native speaker and have made the assumption that the actual message was clear (which apperently was not).

I fully agree however on your position on this Airbnb rule of accepting without answering. I will definitely let them know that this is an unacceptable rule, specifically for new hosts as they haven't been able to gain the experience of working with this system yet.

[Robert78]

@ Bob No offence, but that is terrible advice 😞

[Bob43]

Care to explain? As stated above, I am always willing to learn.

[Anand-And-Chef-Mason-Gre0]

if you have strict cancellation posted. you keep the money. guest cannot get it back unless you did something gravely wrong.

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

What deposit are you talking about? You do not receive the security deposit.

If you have been paid for the reservation then you have received what you charged, minus the AirBnB fee.

[Andrea9]

@Jeanette-and-Kalid0

Whatever you do, do not cancel as host! the days Will NOT be freed up as suggested, on the contrary, they will be blocked.

Plus the other host penalties to consider.

Some guests leave early, don't cancel and are okay with not getting a refund. If he didn't ask for one,  I'd say enjoy the quiet and the money. He was the one who reneged on his reservation after blocking your calender for more days, leaving you in the situation of probably not being able to re-book.

[Jeanette-and-Kalid0]

Hey, y'all!!

Thank you for all of your comments. I should clear up my question, as I understand that there was some confusion when I stated that I had not yet received the deposit. I was referring to the direct deposit in my bank account for the booking. After the first 24 hours, ABB sent me an email stating that they had released the funds for the reservation and that it should be arriving within 7 days or so. That's the deposit I was talking about. As of yesterday afternoon, I received an email from my bank stating that the funds were already in my account. In short, ABB charged him for the 7 days, and I have already received the money. 

I have not cancelled the reservation, because I read through a bunch of other posts about how this is very bad, so no worries there. Also, I am definitely well aware of the communication issues with ABB, especially with being a host outside of the US. Honestly, they could really do so much better. This is why I have not contacted them. 

One of y'all pointed out that he might not even request a refund, and so there should be no issue there. This is also the feeling that I'm getting. I was only asking, because I wanted to be prepared in the event that he requested one. 

Just to make sure that I'm understanding correctly; I have received the funds in full, and have a STRICT cancellation policy, so even if he does cancel before Monday, he would not be getting any money back. If he decides to formally request a refund through the site, he and I would have to come to an agreement within 72 hours or ABB steps in. If we need to get ABB involved, then they would really only give him a refund, and dock my future pay if there were extenuating circumstances that called for a refund. Since he was just a flaky guest, as evidenced by his random trip to Cancun on the 3rd day, I'm guessing there's no chance for a refund to him. 

Am I understanding correctly?

Thanks again for all of the replies!

[Jeanette-and-Kalid0]

Also, I had no idea that anyone was even commenting on this thread, because I only received a notification about 10 mins ago, even though I checked the little box that says, "Email me when someone replies". Then, when I logged into my account on my laptop, I had no notifications about this post. I had to search for my own post in the community help threads. ABB makes using their site and app so ridiculously difficult. If this wasn't such a great way for me to earn extra cash, I would have already stopped using it. Anyway, if anyone can tell me how to get notifications each time someone responds, that'd be great!

[Robin4]

@Jeanette-and-Kalid0  @Bob43.....Hi Jeanette, you are well on top of the situation and by the sound of it you have handled the whole think correctly!

'Flaky' guest indeed...Have you stopped to think what might have gone on in your place if the 'hook-up' had been successful....UGH!!

I saw that in Pitaya in Thailand with all these paunchy balding old men with their little dolly bird 'Grand daughters' hand in hand everywhere. That is the only time I have ever felt ashamed of my gender!!

Jeanette, this 'guy' has probably shot off back where he came from with his tale between his legs and it is probable that he won't want to go through the embarrassment of raking over the coals of this in order to get a few hundred dollars back but, if he does take it to the Resolution Centre, just state exactly what you have on this forum and I am certain Airbnb will side with you! This is a part of hosting that I am sure Airbnb would not want to be involved with.

Now as far as your notifications are concerned, Airbnb are making changes to the platform all the time and alterations to one part of it can have consequences in other parts. What you are experiencing is a really common scenario and we see many post about this.

Before getting onto Airbnb log onto your listing and go to your Dashboard! Scroll across to the last item 'Account' and the first item in the drop down box will be push notifications followed by SMS notifications and then Email notifications. Airbnb suggest you un-check what is ticked and re set the boxes you wish to use. I do that reasonably frequently and it keeps sms notifications coming through to me! If this does not work you will have to contact Airbnb either on their Facebook page, but remember you can't ask a private question on this public forum. Better still if you have a Twitter account you can send them a DM and you will get a swift response......Or if all else fails give them a call on.......Mexico / Méjico: +52 55 41 70 43 33

Good luck Jeanette.....geeez you are going to have some colourful stories one day!!!

Cheers.....Rob