I failed - now what?

[Anna282]

I'm new and it has now turned out that my third guest is severely allergic, didn't know I have a cat and can't stay. Honestly I have no idea how this happened because I am absolutely sure of having written this clearly in my house rules (I even remember exactly how I put it). I haven't deliberately removed such obviously important information but I still have no idea what will happen now or whose fault it is (and I find Airbnb to be very complicated, I can't even find the terms and conditions in the app). They have no time to find another place and are of course furious and since they're only my third guests ever I will probably only have super negative feedback after this (no other reviews yet and apparently the second guests were also surprised to smell cat when there was no such information in the listing).

What I'm wondering now is whether I will have to pay some other compensation than of course returning their money for the first night (again, spent an hour looking for the terms and conditions in the app without finding them)? If so, is there any possibility of claiming that I did give this information but that it has somehow been lost?

This feels terrible - not only because I worked very hard and spent a lot of time trying to be a great host and informing of anything important and still failed like this. I also lost an expected and much needed income and ruined somebody's holiday - owing money that I don't have for something that I did my very best to avoid would really be a disaster for me.

[Anna282]

To all f you who have responded - still traveling and have no more time to write lengthy texts to everyone on a phone - thank you for all of your comments, suggestions and encouraging comments (I really needed those)!

To sum it up: I understand that omitting cat information would all be my fault - the issue here is that I KNOW I spent a lot of time being clear about that and that I checked the proper boxes. I don't blame the guest at all, as I can see that some settings are indeed gone and there is no longer any pet information to be seen (among other things). All I need is to know is, in case of a problem with guest demanding more compensation than the refund that I will of course pay back, if I can tell Airbnb that their complicated system must have failed and that the information was there and clear from the beginning (there was also a larger system update shortly after I made the listing - can that be the explanation?).

As for the pictures: I know that they're not good and I have written in the description that they were taken in a hurry and show signs of everyday life. While I spent a lot of time on the settings, preparations etc (although that apparently didn't help), the pictures were needed to publish the listing so I had to choose between missing the chance of having guests during my travels and taking a couple of phone pictures just to have something. If I have guests like this again I intend to take better ones (although I have no idea how to make the bed smoother). That being said, all of your suggestions about the listing, improved house rules etc are very useful. (And I never meant that young guests would be allowed to play in my son's room, just that they can stay in the apartment if they have no interest in doing so and wouldn't feel unwelcome by having off-limits toys around, but it good to know that it sounds like that, as well as other unclear house rules)!

I hope I haven't sounded too defensive - I am very grateful for all the help and just wanted to be clear that this is about given information being gone in this complicated system, not me being a sloppy idiot. 🙂

[Andrea9]

@Anna282

I can imagine how frustrating this is for you - trusting a website to work properly and then finding yourself in a position where you have to refund money because it wasn't.

Of course you can contact Airbnb and explain it all, though after reading community posts of how many situations weren't settled to the host's advantage and settings but according to a guest's exagerated and false version, doesn't give me much hope they'll have your back. Yet one never knows. 

If you are planning on continuing to rent, make sure you throw an eyeball every now and then over your listing as it is on the site to make sure it's all okay. For example, I've been seeing a lot of complaints recently about blocked dates on the calendar opening up as if by magic, which of course is terrible for those who use Instant Booking.

Seems the Airbnb software has become a construction patched up and held together by little bandages.

The problem with so many guests is really that they don't read. If somebody doesn't address certain things in their inquiry or request I always additionally make sure to ask them whether they had noticed this and that before accepting. That way their confirmation is on the message thread as proof and I feel better knowing they know. Thankfully, it's now possible to use saved standard messages directly on the message page and not somewhere else on the computer like it used to be.

Good luck further!