Dear All,
I've been using Airbnb for the past years but only as a guest, and recently, I've decided to go for it, and to start experiencing hosting as well. In fact I will be hosting my vert first guests in a week's time, and I must say that I'm so very excited about it all 🙂
Now I just had my second booking where I had my guests immediately confirming their booking; after of course agreeing with my house rules, etc. The thing is, that these guests (for my second reservation as a host), yesterday sent me a private message here on airbnb, and are now asking me if they can check in very late during the night; precisely at 1am between Sunday & Monday. Please note that in my house rules, I clearly explained that the latest check-in should be by not later than 9pm. I mean I do have another job and I explained to my guests this thing, and considering their check-in will be during the week, I definitely cannot allow such a late check-in, during the night, and considering especially that a couple of hours later I have to wake up for work (5.30am). Not to mention also, that I have to travel with my car to go to the Airbnb place. Thus I replied that I cannot allow such a late check-in and I also communicated to my guests, that they should have informed me beforehand of their very late check-in, before they confirmed the booking and before committing tehmselves, and not now.
At the same time I'm not feeling comfortable with these guests; becasue in some way or another, I feel that these guests are trying to break my house rules, almost 3 months before they are going to check-in. Moreover, knowing a family with kids, will be arriving at midnight and will be somehow 'stranded', is making me feel more uncomfortable with the situation.
At the same time, I've read that if I had to cancel this reservation myself (was only thinking about it as the last resort), I'll have to face Airbnb penalties; including a bad permanent mark on my listing in case I cancel. I honestly think this would be very unfair on me, considering how things are happening.
In view of all this and considering I didn't even started experiencing hosting yet, I will appreciate if somebody from Airbnb's community, can kindly help me by telling me, what is the best thing that I can do in this situation.
Any kind of input and feedback, will be greatly appreciated.
Kind regards,
Kay