Guest tricked us for a free night --- Again AIRBNB's FAULT ON PAYMENT COLLECTION

Nanxing0
Level 10
Haverford, PA

Guest tricked us for a free night --- Again AIRBNB's FAULT ON PAYMENT COLLECTION

We have a guest who stayed with us a few times before. Literally EVERY TIME he books with us after we confirm booking it shows "awaiting payment". Sounds like he had to deposit money into his bank to make the payment. There was one time he made a same day reservation but never completed the payment so our calendar remained blocked for that day. 

 

He requested to book for one night (night of 11th) on the same day. Given his record of this issue we were a little hesitant so I asked him if he had his payment ready and he said yes. I accepted the request and payment was clear so I let him in. The next day (12th) he asked me if he could extend it and I granted it but that ran into the awaiting payment. He made several promise to me that he was going to pay it but it never happened. He literally stayed a free night and checked out late today (13th). 

 

I found it ironic that Airbnb does not collect payment ahead even for same day booking requests, and allows the payment window to even run until after the check out time? The system needs to be revised IMMEDIATELY!

20 Replies 20
Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Nanxing0 One of the definitions of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome.

Surely you should have learnt by now just to reject this guest.

@Mike-And-Jane0 Of course I'm not going to accommodate for this guest any more, but he's not the only person who made a same day reservation and never finished the payment. In fact I have had several incidents before that a guest makes a same day reservation and never finish payment. The only difference is that other guests never checked in due to non-payment.

 

What I'm sad about is that Airbnb leaves this big loophole there for at least a year or so and never really paid any attention to it, despite I believe many hosts have been annoyed by similar incidents.

Emilia42
Level 10
Orono, ME

@Nanxing0 Where do you see this "awaiting payment." I have never seen this and have never known whether a guest has paid or not until I get the notification of the payment transfer about 24 hours after check-in.

Debra300
Level 10
Gros Islet, Saint Lucia

@Emilia42,

I've seen the "awaiting payment" comment on my dashboard where it displays reservations.  In my case, I called Airbnb to have them cancel, and said that a booking confirmation should never been sent out before the payment has been collected.  I think sent the guest a message stating that the reservation was cancelled, because the payment couldn't be processed, and said they need to rebook with another form of payment.  The next reservation from the guest was all good.

If you open any conversation with a guest/potential guest, just above the guest's name on the top right corner there should be status, which can be any of the following: Inquiry, Request to book, Confirmed, Awaiting payment, Request Declined, etc.

 

Originally Airbnb mandates all guest to pay before making a booking request, but apparently they changed this policy somewhere around 2018 or so (based on my memory) just to increase their revenue, giving a BS reason to give guests more flexibility on payment. That's why sometimes when you accept a booking request instead of changing to "Confirmed" status it changes to "Awaiting payment" and allows guest 24 hours to finish the payment. It might not be an issue if the guest is booking at least a few days ahead, but certainly an issue if he/she's booking for same day/next day.

 

Frankly I'm not oppsing the policy itself it actually makes a lot of sense that I have had many guests who made the reservation while their stored credit card is expired or replaced and this policy actually gave those guests a lot of convenience. But apparently for same day/next day bookings it's a completely different story and should be treated different. However Airbnb is not willing to amend this loophole at all.

@Emilia42  I've seen that "awaiting payment" a couple of times.  It's pretty annoying when a guest doesn't have payment buttoned up before completing a reservation - and that Airbnb allows them to book without confirming payment.  It's usually resolved within an hour if not minutes, but I definitely don't like seeing it!

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Nanxing0  As you are well-aware, Airbnb fails to protect hosts in many ways. Being open to last minute bookings is one of the riskiest for hosts, both because of payment issues, and because Airbnb has confirmed bookings and then, after the guest has checked in, informed the host that the guests have been deemed unsafe or unsuitable in some way (but of course won't share the particulars with hosts), and told the host that the remainder of the booking has been cancelled. But the host is left to try to evict those guests themselves.

 

I'd suggest you don't accept last minute bookings or last minute booking extensions.

@Sarah977 I totally agree and am now rejecting most of the last minute bookings/extensions if the guest doesn't have a good record or no record. However it's difficult to do so in this specific scenario that this guest has booked with us a few times before and he has more than 10 reviews on profile all good, you know.

@Nanxing0  Well you said there have been awaiting payment issues with this guest before, so the reviews are immaterial to this situation.

 

But I do understand not wanting to lose a repeat guest unless you know for sure that the issue is the guest's fault and not some Airbnb issue.

 

I have never had any bookings awaiting payment, so I assume the guests had all their payment info and funds in place before booking.

@Sarah977I have had many awaiting payments before but most of them get resolved, ended up being the guest's credit card on profile expired and most guests get it updated almost immediately they realize the issue. Frankly like I said it's a valid policy that provide convenience to guests but has some loopholes that need to be fixed.

@Nanxing0  I guess my attitude is that responsible people make sure they don't have expired credit cards on file or not enough money or credit limit for a payment to easily go through. A host shouldn't have to wait with blocked dates because a guest doesn't have their financial affairs in order.

@Sarah977 I personally had my wallet lost twice in the past 10 years and I had to replace all my credit cards. Also fraudulent charges happened a couple times on the credit card I use primarily and lead to replacement as well. I have stored the credit card on probably 20 different shopping websites (including amazon, walmart, etc) but I don't have a complete record on all of them. I had to basically update them the next time I make purchase on those websites so I see these incidents as sort of common although should not happen on a frequent basis.

Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

@Nanxing0 

 

The "awaiting payment" is not new, as guests have the opportunity to complete payment within 24 hours. It is for people using a payment method which takes more time to handle/verify . I am used to those message, as in my country we have a payment method called "Ideal": after making a reservation Airbnb sends the guest a message with a payment link (which often is not sent at all or notification ends up in SPAM....). The guest must use the link to transfer money from his/her bank account to Airbnb. This process takes more time compared to Credit Card transactions and is also more vulnerable to errors. Guests have reported frequently (especially when extending a current reservation) Airbnb never sents the payment link and they need to contact Airbnb CS (reponse time...!) to ask for it.

But yes, calender is blocked for 24 hours and as a host you have no option to interfere with the reservation during 24 hours, only then to wait for the payment confirmation or the message  "sorry, no payment received".

 

IMO for reservations starting within 24 hours after booking the payment time period should be very limited.

@Emiel1 Totally understand. I started hosting from 2016 and I don't really remember having any of those "awaiting payment" situations in the first 2 years of hosting, maybe at most a few. Starting from some time around 2018 I suddently noticed a drastic increase of this, apparently due to Airbnb changed policy without even thinking about it.