More guests booking wrong dates

[Emilia42]

I don’t know what is in the air but I have had two guest in the past 10 days book the wrong dates. This has never happened in my 2 years of hosting. Guest #1 called me 30 minutes out in a panic at their mistake. Luckily, I was able to scramble around and accommodate them since the apartment was open that night. Guest #2 shows up a day early and tries to bust in on the current guests. They couldn’t actually get in because the door lock wasn’t yet programed with their code but they continued to aggressively knock until the current guests explained and called me. Thanks goodness for individual door codes.

I suppose now instead of saying “important info for your arrival this Sunday,” I will need to say “important info for your arrival on Sunday afternoon, March 25 which is the date that you confirmed via Airbnb.” But who knows if they will even acknowledge that.

Is this happening to anyone else?

[Noel102]

I've had that happen before, but not actually show up and beat on the door.  What happens sometimes is a guest will inquire about completely different dates just so the app will allow them to message the host.  The times I've had this happen, I had approved the dates they requested in the app.  This is completely on the guest, and the guest is responsible if they request dates that get approved by the host.  What you are doing is a good way to cover yourself if there is ever a question, but not everyone actually pays attention to that stuff.  For me, I only communicate through the app, and I do not send check-in instructions until the day before they check in.  They tend to find out their mistake when they message me asking for check-in info and I tell them I will send it the day before, whcih is not the day they think it is.  Sometimjes they lose money, but if the situation goes smoothly with their mistake, I offer to credit the lost funds toward a future stay.

[Terri38]

The "Our flight lands at midnight on 24th" is the usual source of that chaos.  Now I message the guests to ask "Is that midnight when 23rd becomes 24th or is it when 24th becomes 25th?"  About half will need to change their booking!  If that is not possible, they end up finding somewhere else to stay that first night or else they have several hours to spend composing review for the Sleeping At The Airport website!

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Emilia42 

I get a lot of international guests so about half of the guests I've hosted got their check-in/out date wrong 🙂 including my current guest. 

Nowadays I usually ask guests 'If possible, please send a screenshot of the flight itinerary - just to make sure we get accurate dates, times, and flight info. Due to the time difference, we've had a few mix-ups in the past 🙂 ' Most of my guests seemed to understand and were happy to oblige~

But when I think about it.......I've had plenty of friends call me (since they know I travel a lot for work) to ask which dates they need to put in for a hotel reservation per their flight plans if they were arriving at the airport at 4am or if they wanted to 'check-out' at midnight to catch a 2am flight. 

[Cheryl-and-John0]

This happened to us, also.  Our guest booked for the 22nd of August thinking that he could check in just after midnight on the 22nd.  He was not clear as to which midnight he meant and the miscommunication was on him.  Fortunately, we did not have guests in the room.  Now we are asking the guest for an extra "night" because he arrived before the previous night's checkout time.  We are attempting to resolve this with Airbnb.