Demanding guests wanting host to give them a ride

[Rhonda45]

1. First this is for a friend who is also a host.  She’s not very good on navigating the forums.  She is a Superhost, has an amazing treehouse 6 miles down a dirt road, on a creek and to get her beautiful place, there are 3 low water crossings and one that goes over the creek that borders her property.  She advertises it’s location and the dirt road, it’s seclusion, and water crossings.

The other day, her guests asked her to video the creek crossings as they were coming on motorcycles which she did and they arrived, spent the night.  They loved the property.  

This evening she got a message that they were staying at the lodging in nearby state park and asked her, actually told her, to come and get them at 8:00 the next morning and bring them back to the treehouse so they could get their belongings - they didn’t want her bringing them and the. they wanted her to bring them back to where their motorcycles were at the state park.  They said they would buy her breakfast!  There is no breakfast served except for a buffet for guests only and no money offered for her trouble.  That’s 4 trips one way and it’s 25 minutes to the state park from her treehouse, one way.  

I advised her to not do it as they made the choice to stay at the state park.  I advised her to at least call the Superhost number to get their input.  She decided to pack their stuff and take it to them.  The place was also a mess.  She is concerned about a bad review and we k ow what one bad review does to a rating.  

What would you do?  Input welcome.  

[Rhonda45]

I wanted to add that the guests were leaving their motorcycles at the state park because they didn’t want to drive the distance on the dirt road I think.  

[Kate867]

@Rhonda45   The guests were being extremely’ cheeky’ in my opinion.  They chose the location and were made well aware of any potential issues with regards to access.  Your friend also was extremely helpful by sending them a video as well.  However, and here is the potential problem, your friend accessed the property during an active reservation without permission as the guests had told her not to bring their belongings to them.  This will leave her wide open to a complaint by the guests based on a ‘privacy’ violation and could leave her with a suspension pending investigation.

In your friends position,  I would have probably advised the guests that due to a busy schedule I would not have the time to help out and suggested that they make alternative arrangements such as Uber, taxi,  vehicle hire etc  or grant me permission to access the property, pack their belongings and deliver them at a mutually convenient time later that day.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

..... and deliver them at a mutually convenient time later that day.... and THIS FAVOUR will cost them XX$ (my work, my time + gas)

[Laura2592]

@Rhonda45 only once did we have a guest who wanted us to ferry them about in our car. This is not something we ever offered and politely explained that we were not available to do so, but there were various car services they could hire. They drove, so I didn't understand what the issue was.  

The guests were insistent we meet them so we arranged a spot in a cute town in our region. It was around the holidays with lots of crowds. Turns out they were wanna be ABB hosts who were trying to pick our brains for their own listing they were trying to buy which would also be in competition with ours. Insult to injury, they left 4 stars on the overall experience AND we had to chase the second half of their payout for months due to an ABB glitch. By rights, they should have been canceled.

I would just politely decline, saying something like "Unfortunately we can't offer transportation services. Lyft and Uber are plentiful in this area (if true). I can walk you through how to download the app to call one. Let me know if you need help."

[Huma0]

@Laura2592 

That's really cheeky. So they expected you to drive them around because they wanted to spend time with you picking your brains, like you don't have better things to do then help out the competition?

None of my guests bring vehicles nor need to drive while they are here. However, you do occasionally get guests who expect too much. I remember one young guy who was arriving quite late (around 11pm if I remember correctly). I agreed to a late check in and sent him directions from the tube station. He insisted I wait for him outside the station to walk him to the house because he was worried about getting lost. The house is a five minute walk down the same street, no twists or turns. It really couldn't be more straightforward, but I sent him a map with the route highlighted. 

Nope, not good enough, he insisted I wait for him at the station, even though he couldn't be specific about his arrival time. He was told firmly no, that a solo female host should not be expected to wait outside the station late at night because he couldn't figure out how to walk in a straight line (okay, I didn't use those exact words for the last part, but really stressed how easy it was).

So, instead, he shows up with a female friend. He had somehow managed to rope her in to coming over to wait for him outside the tube and walk him to my house. She lived on the other side of London so it wasn't a short journey for her, plus it's not like she knew the way to my house any more than he did. After checking in, he got her to take him to a local takeaway to get some food and then she had to travel back to the other side of London at what was now close to midnight. I hope she didn't miss the last tube!

I lost all respect for this guest at that moment. It's not like he was afraid of walking alone at night. He just thought that it was someone else's responsibility to escort him here (and who knows, maybe carry his bags for him). 

You have to draw the line. I absolutely would not have agreed to pick up these guests nor drive their stuff over to them. As much as I try to be helpful and hospitable to my guests, I'm not going to be treated like a skivvy either.

[Laura2592]

@Huma0 we said from day one in our listing that it was necessary for guests to have a car and in about 200 stays we only ever had one request to play taxi. It definitely had ulterior motives attached to it. We had HUGE issues collecting their full payment and I think it scared them off becoming hosts.  I was in contact with them for months as I repeatedly raised the issue to ABB...it seems their card expired between payment one and 2 and no one caught it. They were cooperative but saw first hand how hard it could be to get your money with a glitch. To this day the property they showed us is not listed with Airbnb. I think they just decided to rent it long term.  Silver lining I guess.  

[Huma0]

@Laura2592 

Oh dear. Well it sounds like these people were probably ill suited to hosting anyway and probably wouldn't have provided too much competition if they had opened up close to you. Even if the payment issue wasn't their fault, they sound a bit clueless.