A few days ago I had a request come in at about 4pm for a same-day booking. That was fine and I accepted. For whatever reason the guest encountered a payment error, and because she was having issues with the app she couldn’t enter another payment method. The guest wanted to cancel the booking so she could try the booking again, but neither she nor I could see a place to cancel the booking because since I accepted it, she was confirmed (except the payment hadn’t gone through).
After 3 hours she ended up doing a whole other booking somewhere nearby because I couldn’t clear the dates for her to book again. So I lost a 2-night booking because of the error.
That’s not the part that I consider to be a glitch though.
After the guest told me she had gone ahead and booked elsewhere (as it was almost 8pm at that point), I still couldn’t clear my calendar for those nights because her reservation with me was technically active. When I called Airbnb the agent was going to charge me the $100 fee for cancelling on the guest (?!). I told the agent that this was insane because it technically wasn’t a booking as no payment had been rendered and the check-in time was already well past, not to mention that the guest told me she had booked elsewhere. The agent told me that in order to cancel the reservation at no charge to me, she would have to call the guest and confirm that they indeed didn’t want the booking anymore. So this was another hour that my room was blocked for no reason (a huge deal on the same day). The big glitch behind this whole situation lies in one fact: Guests have 24 hours to confirm their payment in the case of a payment error, EVEN FOR SAME-DAY BOOKINGS. This is an absolute flaw, as someone’s entire calendar could technically be tied up one day at a time by payment errors for guests who end up never paying and never staying. When I tried to explain this to the agent she had no idea why I thought this was an issue, and when I asked to speak to someone else she assured me that she would communicate my concern to the right people. I have no idea how she’s going to communicate an issue she doesn’t even understand though…
Has anyone else been through this? How do I communicate this glitch to Airbnb? Same-day bookings (and I would argue even same-week bookings) should never have 24-hours to complete payment. It should be 1-hour (max), as time is of the essence at that point and we can’t have our calendars tied up for bookings that may never end up being confirmed.
Thanks for any advice.
Jen
