Guest leaving early - how can I relist?

[Robert427]

Hi y'all,

Guests want to leave early because they rented an apartment long term (moving to the city). No worries, all is good... they don't want a refund but I want to relist the apartment and if somebody picks up their dates, I would refund them.

How can I do this?

Thanks,

Rob

[Cynthia-and-Chris1]

You need to propose a reservation modification and the guest needs to accept to free up the dates. 

[Alice-and-Jeff0 · Accepted solution]

You cannot relist unless you alter the current reservation.   So you can make a reservation change to reflect when they've actually vacated.  Without knowing which cancellation policy you are under with this reservation, will depend on how much notice they needed to give you  and if there will be a payback with the alteration change.  You have already been paid for at least part of their reservation.  

[Rene17]

I had a guest leave 2 nights early and I had another guest, arriving right after the other, want to add 2 nights onto their stay. But, the calendar was already booked for the previous guest who left early. So are you saying the only way I could free up those dates so they could add them to their stay is by having the one who left early go in and remove those 2 days? Then if they did that, would Airbnb automatically refund their money for those 2 days or not? And if they wouldn't go in and remove those 2 days, how could I let the other guest add those days onto their stay? They ended up not adding those 2 days but I really need to know how to do this. 

I have the strict cancellation policy. They left early because they did not like the rain. My place is on the Riviera Maya in Mexico and they just had a tropical storm go through. Even though it was their choice to leave, without them being threatend in any way, I did refund them half of those 2 days....because I'm just so nice :-).........haha but I won't do that again. Even after agreeing to the refund I gave him, he kept on me about how I should have given him a refund for both days!!! I ended up telling him the weather is not my fault and I actually didn't have to refund him anything! The weather is not under my control and I have since added in my description that it is the jungle and, unless they are threatened by the weather, I will not give refunds just because it's raining, windy, too hot, too humid or any other weather conditions. 

Thanks to all in advance for the information! 

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

@Rene17 -  When the first guests wanted to leave, they needed to cancel the remainder of their reservation or submit a reservation change and be held to your cancellation policy.  Do not do this on their behalf!

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/169/how-do-i-cancel-my-reservation

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1504/my-guest-wants-to-change-their-reservation

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/913/can-i-change-a-reservation-as-a-guest

In this case because you have a Strict policy, they would not be refunded for the remaining days. 

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

Then those days would open up and you could rebooked them.  

As a reminder, since you were not able to do this, in the future, you are not protected by Airbnb's policies if you take guests that are not on your calendar.  Meaning, if you had let your second guests check in early but they also did not alter their reservation, Airbnb would not cover you in case of a problem.  

[Rene17]

Alice & Jeff,

Thank you for your reply. OK.....I now know I should ask them to change their reservation now and I shouldn't refund them anything under circumstances like this. BUT....what if they won't go in and change their reservation to open those dates they decided not to stay? How do I get them opened up for others to book those dates? 

I also understand about Airbnb not covering me if I don't go through them and something goes wrong. 

Thank you again!