Suspected Party from a Local Late night booking and response from AirBnB

[Janine384]

Last Night I had an automatic booking at 8.45pm on Saturday from locals for a one night stay that night.

I strongly suspected that a party was about to take place in my quiet neighbourhood.

I rang AirBnB about my concerns and their response was that if I cancelled the booking I would need to pay 50% of the booking to them as a penalty.

This was followed by an email that said the following

"I understand your situation Janine but please let give your guest a benefit of the doubt as to why they book only for 1 night. If you can send us a document that there is a party going on or any house rule violated please report it to us immediately"

I think that this is very unfair 

It seems I cannot list my property available (which is close to the airport) for 1 night stays in case this happens.

What happened to their party banning policy that they had back in 2020

"In order to better protect our hosts from unauthorised parties, AirBnB recently implemented restrictions that prevent guests who have few or poor past reviews from making last-minute, local bookings of entire homes. We're not currently able to make exemptions for this"

I think I should be able to cancel with no penalty when the above conditions exist.

[Emiel1]

@Janine384 

If a party is going to take place and you experience trouble / damages , then Airbnb is fully responsible, as they are ignoring your concerns.

[Janine384]

Hi Emie @Emiel1 ,

Thank you for your reply.

The guests turned up, but did not stay as I had told them via a phone call No Parties.

My concern is that I'm going to have to pay a penalty of 50% of the booking to AirBnB.

The guest has also texted me asking for a refund.

I'm not sure what to do

[Louise0]

You don't need to give a refund nor do Airbnb have any grounds for imposing a penalty. 

You didn't cancel the booking, the guest simply decided not to stay.  Unless the guest has evidence that the property was substantively different to how it is depicted on Airbnb, they have no grounds to request a refund.

[Janine384]

I think there should be an option in your AirBnB settings to not accept automatic bookings for one night stays from people in your local area.

Then I could happily accept one night bookings for people just travelling thru.

[Sybe]

Hi @Janine384 ! I can imagine it's suspicious to see a booking like that. How was your guest's stay in the end?

There are several guidelines and policies in place regarding parties and cancelling bookings. I think the most relevant for you now are the Party and Events Policy and the Host Cancellation Policy. Another very useful one is the article explaining the reasons for cancelling a booking without penalties. It has a special mention about parties as well.

I can definitely see your suggestion to have different booking settings for Instant Booking and regular working! I'll be happy to forward this for you, and it'd be amazing if you could do so as well using the Feedback Form.

I hope this helps! 🙂

[Kia272]

@Janine384  You need to adjust your booking settings for some advance notice. You can still take one night bookings, and you can keep instant book on. What you need to do is require more advance notice. You can change that setting. 

Any responsible traveler (outside of delayed flights or other unexpected interruptions) can certainly plan enough to make their booking 2-3 days in advance. That will give you time to correspond with them and confirm who is coming and that they understand your house rules. 

Yes, AirBnB should have understood and addressed your concerns, but you do have more control over how guests book so you didn't have to end up in this situation in the first place. 

Good luck moving forward. Kia