Confronting guests about unusual activities.

[Prashant12]

We had a young woman who made an immediate reservation through Airbnb. We dont normally allow unmarried couples to stay at our place, esp for a single night, for obvious reasons. When we enquired about their marital status, they said they were staying only for a day and that they were unmarried. So we politely refused. 

They cancelled their booking and got refunded. But AirBnB is requesting me to provide a review for them as well as penalized me for cancelling the booking.

I dont understand what I should be doing in these circumstances. We are  superhost's and we do everything we can to make our guest have a comfortable stay.

Looking for advice and resolution

[Helen3]

Do you have in your listing that you only accept married couples in your house rules? If not you need to add this or Airbnb will penalise you for cancelling bookings of unmarried couples. Also make it clear upfront in your listing, that your listing is only available for married couples (and single men and women if you accept them).

I am not sure what the obvious reason would be for not letting unmarried couples stay at your place unless it is for religious or cultural reasons, but many people in the West are not married, but in a couple so this will affect how many guests are likely to book your place.

[Prashant12]

We have never made a distinction when coiples have genuinly  have come here to visit the place, but when  people from the same city use the place for hookups, it's just wrong. 

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Prashant12

If your concern is local people using your place for "hookups" why not say "No Locals" instead of "No unmarried couples".

[Prashant12]

We welcome locals.... but not for scoping out  our place for amorous activities.  K sorry I asked the question, I seem to be too backward for this planet

[Helen3]

Not at all @Prashant12 we just didn't clearly understand the issue. Your first post said you didn't usually take unmarried couples. Hence us thinking you had a ban on all unmarried people.

I think something got lost in translation despite your great English.

What you wanted to say I think is you didn't want locals just using your place to have sex. 

Ok  - the best way to avoid locals coming for hook ups is to; 

1. Not take same day bookings

2. Have a minimun two night stay.

Hope that helps

This should sort out your problem 🙂

[Prashant12]

Great Idesa. I shall defenitely update my listing

[Noah62]

You aren’t the only one. 

[Ellen33]

No need to apologize. Its all about morals. 

[Marit-Anne0]

@Prashant12

Your best approach to avoid such situations would be not to accept last minute bookings and have a two night minimum stay.  Not foolproof, but it may help.  

If you are unconfortable with a guest doing Instant Book, you would need to contact airbnb to assist with the cancellation.  This way you may avoid any penalties in connection with host cancellation. Again, last minute bookigns would be difficult to handle as you need time for contacting airbnb.

[Michael956]

Never, ever cancel a booking without getting Airbnb's help first or you will be heavily penalized, including losing your Superhost status.  

[Prashant12]

Thanks, I dont recollect cancelling the booking, the guest did, but somehow it reports that I made the canvcellation. I am still trying to sort this out

[Marit-Anne0 · Accepted solution]

@Prashant12

You probably received a message that the guest is requesting to cancel - this counts as a host cancellation with all penalties that follow.  

When a guest is attempting to cancel from their end, there is a drop down menu - one of these is "my host needs to cancel" and there is a message sent to the host to accept or decline.  If you accept such request, it is regarded a host cancellation.  There are warnings before accepting, but it is very easy to fall into this trap.

[Prashant12]

I cannot recollect clearly... but this sounds like what would have happened as I may have just followed the prompts without actually reading through it.

Thanks a lot for your reply