Change of reservation after booking

[Marlies24]

My guest just asked for a change of reservation - instead 7 - 22 Sept now only  13-20 Sept.

He had blocked the time for several weeks and the change is only 4 days before the actual start date.

There is no way  I can fill the gap but I am afraid that if I do not accept now, the guest might  give me a bad review after his stay.

And actually I do not even know whether I have the right to not accept.

Can someone advise in such case. Thanks a lot

Marlies

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Marlies24 

Accept. If you decline  your guest can cancel the entire stay and you will get nothing ( you have flexible cancellation policy)

If you accept at least you will have 7 nights booked.

Policies

https://www.airbnb.com/home/cancellation_policies#flexible

[Jeff158]

Oh @Marlies24  that's a hard decision, you do not have to accept a change request. Although he could then cancel the whole booking, get a refund and book elsewhere.

The problem is your flexible policy gives him a full refund 24hrs before check in.

I think you should accept the change and put it down to experience.

Personally I would change the cancellation policy to strict to stop it happening for future bookings.

[Letti0]

Yeap, @Jeff158 and @Branka-and-Silvia0  are right, your policy is what's hurting you. You really have no choice but to accept this alteration or risk losing the whole booking. Change your policy to Strict to avoid these issues in the future. They then have some skin in the game to avoid these requests. You will see fewer changes or alterations. Also be careful of requests to change a reservation out past 7 days in the future as they will only lose 50% instead of 100% if you allow the change and they then cancel. 

[Marlies24]

Thank you all so  much for your detailed Information. This was very helpful. In this case I will accept the change.  

Re changing the policy from flexible to strict, I am not sure whether or not I hurt myself even more. I am still at the start as a host and understand if I have strict policy my ad gets listed towards the end and people won’t see it at all. Am I right? Many thanks again. Marlies

[Solveig0]

Hi @Marlies24. I had strict policy for a while and I didn't find the bother was worth it. Either the guest had extenuating circumstances and could cancel through Airbnb, or they had reasons I sympathized with and wanted to allow them to cancel, but then Airbnb didn't allow them because the circumstances weren't serious enough... You only end up with angry and disappointed guests and lots of extra work.

But that's me. I don't depend on my Airbnb income, maybe that would have changed how I viewed things. But even then - customer relations are important and angry guests are never nice. 

[Marlies24]

Thanks a lot. I will reconsider. This was very helpful. Marlies