A friend of mine has asked me to manage his AirbnB listing as I live in the resort where his property and mine are located. We have just had our first rental.
In theory I just hosted a party of six.
Before they arrived the asked to add another bed. My friend said occupancy is stricly limited to 6. I offered them another accomodation not far from my friend's apartment. They said they would only be 6 now.
I wrote them an email and asked them to inform me of their travel plans. They never got back to me. Crossed wires - I beleive I phoned her to follow up. She swears I did not (currently waitng for my phone bill to see whether I made a mistake and confused her with another booking). I thought they would arrive around 7-8 pm as they were driving. As they did not ring I started panicking, thinking they might have had an accident... (We are talking about high Alpine roads in a snowstorm). A very rude voice informed me that asking for travel arrangements did not mean sking for time of arrival and that they had the right to arrive whenever they wanted as there was no indication on teh AirBnB page regarding arrival times. Personally arriving anywhere at 11:30 whitou having warned your host is pretty risky, not to say brave in a ski village above 1,800 meters. I am surprised they actually made the village and did not have to be rescued!
We have revieved our welcome letter since and stated no arrivals after 8pm please - if not possible due to flights please warn us!!! and we will accomodate.
The village is car free. We hav electric buggies. Our driver had to wait up for this party for 4 hours. I asked her to pay him extra as I felt this was not an acceptable arrival time only to be verbally abused as an incompetent person and a lousy host.
When I checked the flat out there seemed to be seven beddings. Somebody had also slept on the sofa. My friend to owner just said to let it go. I did make a mistake I asked them for the cleaning money only to find out that my friend had decided against changing his policy and included in the price of the rental. I apologised profusely. We have since worked on procedures for cleaning.
I am at a loss what to write in the reference as the people were very very rude and totally unreasonable by my standards. Assuming your host drops the ball and does not ask you for an arrival time - which is clearly not the case, as travel arrangements include ETA, then you as the guest ought to communicate.
A friend who was staying with me believes the fuss they are making over timings is to deflect from their breach of contract regarding numbers.
Here finally the point - what do I say in the reference?
Here is my draft:
Whilst X and her friends left the apartment reasonably clean and tidy there were some communication issues. We learnt a lot from X’s visit:
1. We assumed that asking guests for their travel plans would solicit a response including arrival time and means of transport. We now have learnt to ask more specifically, if that is possible.
2. Hosting X has made us more sensitive to cultural differences for which thank her. Arriving in the Alps at 11:30pm without informing your host is brave by our standards. X and her party felt this was normal. Perhaps X was not aware of where she was travelling to and that arriving at 11:30 pm in Saas Fee, which (as we indicated to X) is a car free village, requires pre-planning. Thankfully the driver of the electro buggy was willing to stay on duty for another 4 hours to wait for her party and transfer her luggage at no expense to her (but to us).
I wan to be fair.
Help me please
Thanks Justine
3. Our experience with Sarah shows us how to streamline our procedures to better cater for inexperienced travellers.
Best Justine
On the
