Guest Cancellation on Arrival

[Mark-and-Julie1]

Hi all.. 

What an evening !

I had a guest book 2 days ago..  From his email he seemed ok. I sent our welcome email including a few questions and also the code for the keysafe. Didn't get a reply.. 

Anyway today he arrived.. we didn't know what time he was due as he hadn't replied to email. Unfortunately we had 3 missed calls from him. (We are on holiday and phone signal isn't very good so we missed the calls by about 30 mins )  so he left voice mails complaining he had no key code, telling us we were very unprofessional, that he would leave us a bad review and get us delisted.. Very very upsetting.. I tried ringing him, nothing so I then text explaining about the email. He then replied saying miscommunication, the email had gone to his spam. Sorry that he'd said all those things, they'd head over to the apartment and have a pleasant eve. Great we thought. So I replied and asked him to let me know when they checked in.. 

Next we know Airbnb has got in touch because the guest had reached out to them. That they were going to a hotel and wanted to cancel the reservation..  So what can we do ? I've explained the situation  to Airbnb but I'm  beginning to realise it doesn't get you anywhere.. 

I did message the guest to ask If they could confirm this but typically they and Airbnb  have been quiet the last few hours whilst myself and my husband  have been sat not knowing what to do... 

Thanks for letting me ramble. 

Julie

[Sandra856]

@Moira21

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Host-Circle/The-Airbnb-system-is-flawed-and-its-hurting-hosts-an...

[Moira21]

@Mark-and-Julie1 @Sandra856   Just received email from Airbnb asking me to leave a review on the guest who cancelled. They didn't wait until Monday which would have been check-out day.

[Sandra856]

@Moira21 I have had guests cancel on the day of check-in and during check-in and also a guest that didn't cancel at all and never showed up. You will get the notification after when they cancel. It's strange you haven't heard a thing from your guests? Let's hope they just had a change of plans or something like that 🙂 

[Moira21]

@Sandra856 I've an idea why they cancelled which has nothing to do with the accommodation, but then I could be wrong. Haven't heard anything from them since the cancellation. Email notification of payment was also sent to me today.

[Mark-and-Julie1]

@Moira21 . Have you heard anymore from your guest ?

We havnt heard a thing. Airbnb message every night to tell me the guest isn't responding, do I know why ? Of course I don't  ! 

[Mark116]

@Moira21   Yes, they can leave a review.  It has been a controversy for some time that airbnb allows guests to leave a review if they cancel on the day of check in, even if they cancel remotely, and never set eyes on the property, never went inside, and therefore have zero idea on whether it's clean, a good value, or the location.  At one point, it looked like they were going to change this policy, but they didn't.

[Mike-And-Helen0]

@Mark-and-Julie1 really don't refund. What would you be refunding for?

If you get a bad review, just respond to it calmly stating what actually happened and how you and airbnb tried to get in touch with the guests.

You can review them, and the common advice is wait until the 14 days is nearly up so they don't have time to review you if they haven't already.

In your review you can calmly state what has happened.

It might be they have just accepted they've lost the money and moved on.

eta any evidence you have that he ignored your communication, the email went to spam et.c pass on to airbnb.

Most guests aren't like this, honestly!