Guest leaving early

Answered!
Stefan3313
Level 2
Bristol, United Kingdom

Guest leaving early

My current guest, booked a stay from 3rd September 2022 until 1st October 2022.

Everything has gone smoothly, with no concerns at all.

Today she has advised us that she will be leaving tomorrow (23rd September) and is going to Paris.

What do I have to do?

Do I have to give her a refund for the days she hasn't used (She hasn't asked for a refund yet) or do I just do nothing.

Also, will I be able to free up the dates in my calender, so I can take advantage of having the space free again unexpectedly.

 

Any help or advice would be welcomed. Thank you.

1 Best Answer
Helen744
Level 10
Victoria, Australia

@Stefan3313 It is up to you if you wish to shorten the guests stay and open for another booking . Go to your reservations and on the right hand side scroll down until you find edit and pop in the new dates and send them to your guests. Do no refunds, as it should be done automatically if not wait until all monies are paid and then refund or it will be done automatically H

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15 Replies 15
Helen744
Level 10
Victoria, Australia

@Stefan3313 It is up to you if you wish to shorten the guests stay and open for another booking . Go to your reservations and on the right hand side scroll down until you find edit and pop in the new dates and send them to your guests. Do no refunds, as it should be done automatically if not wait until all monies are paid and then refund or it will be done automatically H

Stefan3313
Level 2
Bristol, United Kingdom

@Helen744  The guest didn't ask for a refund when she left this morning, however she did present my wife with a lovely bunch of flowers. I checked out the reservations situation and changed the dates as you suggested, and low and behold, it would have meant the guest would have owed me money, as her shortened stay wouldn't have been eligible for the monthly discount I offer.

Do you offer a long stay discount?

Seems like a good trick to book for a month, get a discount, then only stay 3 weeks or so, meaning you end up paying less for the period you stay.

Anyway, thank you for your reply, this is the first time anything like this has happened to us, so wanted to make sure I did everything by the book.

Stef

Helen3
Level 10
Bristol, United Kingdom

If your guest wants to leave early then she needs to cancel the booking and her cancellation will be processed under the long term cancellation policy she booked under. 

it sounds like she wouldn't be eligible for a refund.

 

up to you whether you choose to refund her for any days you get rebooked . 

Stefan3313
Level 2
Bristol, United Kingdom

@Helen3 The guest didn't ask for a refund when she left this morning, however she did present my wife with a lovely bunch of flowers. I checked out the reservations situation as suggested by @Helen744 and changed the dates as she suggested, and low and behold, it would have meant the guest would have owed me money, as her shortened stay wouldn't have been eligible for the monthly discount I offer.

 

Do you offer a long stay discount?

 

Seems like a good trick to book for a month, get a discount, then only stay 3 weeks or so, meaning you end up paying less for the period you stay.

 

Anyway, thank you for your reply, this is the first time anything like this has happened to us, so wanted to make sure I did everything by the book.

 

Stef

Helen3
Level 10
Bristol, United Kingdom

Yes that's why you should never amend a booking when the guest wants to cancel I'm afraid the advice given by @Helen744  on this occasion is incorrect.

 

If the guest wants to cancel her stay she can do so. Do not accept a request from her to amend her booking to a shortened stay.

 

If she doesn't cancel you don't need to worry about opening up the days she won't stay as you're being paid for them anyway.

@Stefan3313 there is sometimes no 'by the book' , as you have seen sometimes a guest who stays a month and attracts a discount can then choose to only stay three weeks and therefore lose the discount and attract a higher per day stay and yes ,owe you more . Whose trick do you think it is? Every one has different discounts and prices per day. No one is forcing you or the guest . That is up to you and if a guest asks for a refund you can certainly point out to them that a variation would lose them the discount and not attract any refund in this case.Sometimes guests ask for extensions which add onto a monthly stay and in the process attract extra discounts ,so it is as well to be aware of this when calculating your bottom line and come down on the side of 'fairness ' and not consider a 'happy guest ' or a return guest as someone who wants to cheat you. H

Also Stefan apropos of nothing ,you are the one who offers the discount.H

@Stefan3313  There's no need to offer a refund just because the guest's plans changed. Just make sure she completes whatever checkout steps are necessary (e.g. returning keys) and wish her a great time in Paris. That's it. 

@AnonymousThe guest didn't ask for a refund when she left this morning, however she did present my wife with a lovely bunch of flowers. I checked out the reservations situation as suggested by @Helen744 and changed the dates as she suggested, and low and behold, it would have meant the guest would have owed me money, as her shortened stay wouldn't have been eligible for the monthly discount I offer.

 

Do you offer a long stay discount?

 

Seems like a good trick to book for a month, get a discount, then only stay 3 weeks or so, meaning you end up paying less for the period you stay.

 

Anyway, thank you for your reply, this is the first time anything like this has happened to us, so wanted to make sure I did everything by the book.

 

All keys etc have been returned, and I did wish her well, so all's well on that front.

 

Stef

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Stefan3313 

 

I would do as @Anonymous suggests. It's not your responsibility to refund the guest because her plans changed and you don't need to do anything. Just sit back and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet, or use the time to do any updates to the room that you haven't had a chance to. No need to open up the dates as you are already getting paid for them and it wouldn't be honest, in my opinion, to charge for them twice.

 

If, however, the guest asks for a refund, then you could tell her that you can refund any nights that get rebooked (minus the airbnb fees, which you do not get) but that she needs to cancel in order to open up the dates. I would stress that there is no guarantee that the dates will get rebooked this last minute, but the sooner she cancels, the more chance there is, and also that, as you won't get paid until after the next guests check in, you'll only be able to issue that refund once you receive the payment.

Stefan3313
Level 2
Bristol, United Kingdom

@Huma0  The guest didn't ask for a refund when she left this morning, however she did present my wife with a lovely bunch of flowers. I checked out the reservations situation as suggested by @Helen744 and changed the dates as she suggested, and low and behold, it would have meant the guest would have owed me money, as her shortened stay wouldn't have been eligible for the monthly discount I offer.

 

Do you offer a long stay discount?

 

Seems like a good trick to book for a month, get a discount, then only stay 3 weeks or so, meaning you end up paying less for the period you stay.

 

I think I will take your advice and just sit back and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet.

 

Anyway, thank you for your reply, this is the first time anything like this has happened to us, so wanted to make sure I did everything by the book.

 

Stef

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Stefan3313 

 

Yes, I do offer a monthly discount of 15%, so it can sometimes work out more expensive to do a shorter stay, but the discount it is not so much that it would be cheaper to stay four weeks than three.

 


@Stefan3313 wrote:

 

 

Seems like a good trick to book for a month, get a discount, then only stay 3 weeks or so, meaning you end up paying less for the period you stay.

 

 


I have seen other hosts posting about this. However, when you alter the dates of a reservation, the system is supposed to recalculate the total amount and should automatically remove discounts that no longer apply. The system can be glitchy though so, when doing a booking alteration, whether that is dates or number of people, it's important to  do your own calculation to make sure the amount is correct.

@Stefan3313   Your guest sounds awesome! And I do think she might have booked the full month for the discount while always intending to stay for a shorter time. If 30 nights cost less than 25, it makes perfect sense. No cancellation is necessary here; it's basically as if the guest ordered a prix fixe at a restaurant but skipped the last course.

 

As for whether to offer long stay discounts - I always chose not to, because I only wanted short stays. This consideration is especially important to you as a homestay host, who will be sharing living space with the guest. Long stays mean less work for you in changeovers, and more chances to form meaningful bonds with the guests, but short stays are more bang for the buck and tend to make much lighter use of the household and utilities. Your fees determine which of the two you incentivize. Whichever you choose, make sure your maximum stay is set to no more than the longest amount of time your family can imagine living with a guest who annoys the crap out of you. 

 

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Stefan3313 

 

I almost only host long term stays and it's not uncommon for guests to leave a bit early because their plans change. 

 

My last guest left two days earlier than planned. A current guest is leaving one day early because the flight was much cheaper that day. Another guest, who is here for her second stay, came one month after her booking was due to start due to delays in her visa application! Apart from the last one, where I did accept an initial date change (nine days), no refunds were asked for nor offered. 

 

I have found that date changes became much more common since the pandemic, because people's plans are often more up in the air. Last year, I had quite a few guests leave significantly early (a week or more) for various reasons. For those, I offered to refund rebooked nights. 

 

At the end of the day, if the early departure has nothing to do with the listing and it's just the guest's plans that have changed, you are under no obligation to refund outside of the cancellation policy. I've only had one guest challenge this so far, but she was particularly odd and clueless and just didn't understand at all that there was such a thing as a cancellation policy. I agreed to refund her the remaining nights because I was happy to see her leave!