Strict cancellation

[Piayaya0]

My guest booked 6 nights thru airbnb, she mistakenly made short booking of 1 night so we both agreed that she will deposit the one night payment to my bank account including the pool fee. I set up a strict cancellation policy on my account, come arrival date apr 8, she called to cancel the booking because the son is sick, and would want to rebook, called back again wanted to forfeit the dates apr 8,9,10,11 would use apr 12 up to 15 (check out) and was requesting to go back on the 17th to 18th?!!! I declined. Anyway she did not pursue the booking, did not cancel online booking expecting to have an internal agreement with regards to refund. I explained the strict cancellation policy i explained lost of leasing opportunity. I informed that money is still in transit that i am new to airbnb and would want this to get resolved the soonest. We exchanged text, her insisting a refund which i declined politely, reiterate the policy and offered 50percent of 1 night plus full refund of pool fee, hesistant she is but gave in to my offer, requested me to deposit by apr 13, with no excuses., i did not explained further about how long would it take for me to be able to get the payout to resolve the issue immediately and move on, in fact i do not have the money yet. I just offered a portion of refund. 

Here she comes making it big on airbnb, wanting to manipulate me to override my policy, making me feel that she did me a favor by not cancelling online for me to receive the full payout. She even berated me by saying that i have poor communication skills and grammar to prove that we have miscommunication. I did not stoop down to her level, i know where she is coming from, not being able to utilize what she paid for, sad, but who's to blame? Her son's sickness hamper her to push the booking, it's both beyond our control, so she has to pay for her decision not to push thru booking, why would she expect me to have empathy ( she is venting out that i did not express a single drop of empathy bec her son is sick) i do not know her personally and i do not want to invest emotion. 

Anyway, even if she berated me of not having a good communication skills and a cold person i did not disrespect her over the phone or thru text. I just answered her accusations on resolution center to avoid further arguments. 

I am so stressed with this manipulative guest who thinks she's too smart to rule out the policy.

will you guide me on situations like this? Thanks in advance.

[Nancy2]

I would say her son's illness is what Travel Insurance is for. 

But I would never take a reservation or money directly from a guest for a stay.  Always stay in the Airbnb system for your own protection.  If a guest needs an extra day or any reservation adjustment you or the guest can modify the reservation via the Airbnb site.  Once either party modifies the reservation the other party has to approve before the changes are official.

Hopefully since you are new Airbnb will understand why you accepted one of the days outside of the Airbnb system and won't penalize you in any way.

I've only had one cancellation within my policy due to a family illness.  I told them to contact Airbnb to handle the cancellation.  Airbnb will determine if it warrants any refund to the guest due to the circumstances (you would still be paid) and that way you are never in the middle. 

Airbnb might contact you to see if you would waive your policy (just as a step in the process, you don't have to).  But if you feel you could rent the space to someone else then it's up to you. 

The whole thing got complicated with you taking that reservation for the one day out of the Airbnb system which required you to talk to her about it - so don't do that! 🙂 🙂 

My advice - Let Airbnb resolve the customer's reservation request for different days etc.  So have her contact Airbnb directly and you stay out of it from this point on... 

[Eileen4]

Someone did something similar with me and she's escalated the process to get a refund. She's sent me three messages that are borderline unpleasant--insisting that I have enough time to find other bookings, she's a single mother, etc., but the fact is that even with opening it up and dropping the price, no one has booked those days yet. 

I'm expecting her to wheedle away about getting her money back, but in her case it was documentation (which she mishandled) and so I don't think her insurance is going to refund her.

I'm not responding to her in the resolution centre because she's become so blaming toward me, but I do wonder if Air is going to side with her eventually, once the days pass. I guess I'll see. I'm set to strict when it comes to cancellation.