Could not check in until 4pm"
Sure they couldn't, it's a house rule with which they agreed on reservation.
Contacted Airbnb support, as this is totally unfair. They say that they can't do anything about it. This is like renting an apartment in London and then giving it a bad review because it is not in Paris. Totally nonsense and Airbnb protects the "dishonest" part.
I know this is not so bad for my score as it only downgraded it a bit (I had all 5 star reviews so far), but as this is not a genuine issue it is totally unfair and unacceptable.
It is also clear that their review is a penalization only because of the check-in time. They did not complain about anything else and besides the check-in time issue they were totally happy.
As a side note, check-out time is 12h00 and I offered them a late check-out until any hour they wished, so they chose to check-out at 18h30 (6h30m after the expected check-out time). Besides that I got them at the airport when they arrived and took them to the airport when they left, without charging any cost, for what they saved about 75 euros that they would have to spend in a taxi or transfer. I also managed to get their luggage in the apartment as soon as they arrived, until check-in time, so that they could go have lunch without all the bags.
So, complaining about the check-in time with all this would be a bit hard to understand but, if for any reason I could not respect the check-in time, I would accept the score they gave it. But it was respected. Not only they had a free late check-out, free transfer from an to the airport, they also had a check-in on time.
As they had the 16h00 check-in information since before they decided to reserve, it is nonsense and I can't accept that Airbnb protects the "dishonest" part. When I say dishonest I don't mean that they did it on purpose, maybe they did not pay attention to the check-in time when they did the reservation, but that is their problem, not mine, so it's probably not dishonesty the correct word.
Would be very easy to remove the review and send a message to the guest: "We're sorry for removing your review but it is based on a critic of a situation that you were already aware of in the moment of the reservation". Or something like that.
The guest has to understand and accept it if you put in on these terms, and both the host and Airbnb will benefit from this action.
As a consequence, I already blocked all the dates at Airbnb and I'm going back to other platforms. In June 2019 I decided to give Airbnb a try. From the 13th of June till the 3rd of October, I had 8.116,00€ in reservations at Airbnb. 100% 5 star rated. Airbnb collected a nice amount of money in service taxes. And now they protect a recently registered guest that penalizes hosts in this unfair way. Like this, they will probably repeat it. Maybe next time they rent a studio and they complaint that it was not a 5 bedroom house with a pool... Or simply penalize other guests for the check-in time, even though it was respected.
Any idea? Can I do anything about this?
Airbnb doesn't even let me change my rate to these guests. I would like to leave a genuine review that warns other hosts that they might get them a penalization rate for checking in at the promised time.
I already decided that I'm leaving Airbnb for 4 months. After 4 months, if the review is removed, I will come back. If it is not removed, I will probably keep with other holiday rental platforms.
I have no problems in getting unfavorable reviews as long as they are based on subjective premises. But not on objective ones. They could be unhappy with anything, whatever it was, mentioning or not mentioning it. But this is objective, the check-in is at 16h00 and they knew it. And I know I did not downgrade too much my overall score, just a bit, but it's a matter of principle. It's better to be robbed in 5 euros than in 5000 euros, but the ethics about it are the same: dishonesty.
Airbnb assistant did everything he could, which was nothing, but not his fault. He says that I shouldn't worry because the text they sent about the check-in time is private and I'm the only person who can read it. But that's even worse. I would prefer to have it public so that I could leave an answer and so that other upcoming guests could know the reason why this person gave me an unfavorable score.
Very disappointed. Any help or suggestion would be appreciated.
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