Guest’s Payment Failed

[Lauren629]

I have a guest currently in my Airbnb who has a 5 star review.  I thought there would be no problems.  She contacted me after her first night asking if she could extend her stay by a night or two.  I agreed and she made the change to her reservation to add one night.  After two more days, I noticed I never received my payout from Airbnb so I contacted them.  They told me her payment failed, and they have been working with her to collect payment.  They have been giving me the run around for 3 days now, and keep holding my money saying the payment keeps failing from the guest.  I was just told that if the guest cannot pay that they are going to forward me to the next level of support.  What???  So I can get more run around???  This is so frustrating.

[Mike1034]

@Lauren629 Did you message your guest? Airbnb support contacts the guest when there is a payment issue.

I encountered the guest payment issue at least handful times. Eventually they were all resolved after Airbnb support contacted the guest. There is little you can do but make sure that the guest knows the issue and cooperate with Airbnb support to have the issue resolved.

[Lauren629]

I’m hesitant only because I don’t want to upset the guest.  How did you phrase/approach this with your guests?

[Mike1034]

@Lauren629 I saw that your review started in April. Ptobabyly you are still a new host. Most of guests are respectful, grateful, and reasonable. Therefore, don’t feel weird to ask questions about payment issue. I directly contact the guest from Airbnb message app with a sentence like “Hi xxx, I received a notification from Airbnb customer service. It seems that there is an issue in your payment colllected from your Airbnb account. Would you please contact Airbnb and work with them to have this issue resolved? Thank you for your attention and help!”

On the other note, sooner or later we may have a bad guest. As long as you do everything right, don’t be afraid to ask a guest to respect house rules. If you are afraid of upsetting a guest and allow a bad guest to break rules, you will still get a potential bad review no matter how much you have accommodated.

[Lauren629]

I am afraid of bad reviews because I did have one of my first guests host a get together at my property and when I reminded her of the house rules she dinged me for my communication.  Said I bothered her during her stay and gave me a 3.  Totally sucked!  I’m still a newbie at this so I appreciate the support from more experienced hosts.  

[Lauren629]

So I notified the guest and used your verbiage.  She told me it is an Airbnb issue.  Airbnb seems to be yanking me around and not responding to my messages regarding this matter.  I still have yet to see a dime of my money.  I find it odd that they are holding my money from me yet keep telling me I will get it.  Why hold my money then?  It makes no sense.

[Sally221]

Hi Lauren (cute baby!) it actually does benefit Airbnb to keep money for as long as possible before releasing it- all that interest adds up! This is a frequent issue on these forums- hosts struggling to get their payments back & being told it's a problem with their set up- virtually all Australian hosts had their monies held up last year, many for weeks at a time. I hope you get satisfaction soon.. Sorry you had a bad guest experience already, may your summer be filled with lovely & appreciative guests, Sally