Airbnb refusing to let me cancel a booking!

David6
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Airbnb refusing to let me cancel a booking!

Hosted for several years. Over 600+ Airbnb reviews. But across all the various platforms I list on, hosted over 2000 guests.  Been super-host, lost it & got it back. Made no difference  to bottom line profit. 

 

I have had 3  of my apartments trashed . All involved the police. So I feel I really do know when I see obvious ‘red flags’. 

 

We mostly host amazing Asian & oversees guests. We seem to have good reviews which are prominent when they book from their country.  Or business people. 

 

I know the signs of the ‘party types’

* From UK. Even worse if they are from London

* Have vague or no reviews

* book for 1 or 2 nights

* always give some bulls£it reason why they are in london. 

 

Anyway -  received instant book tonight. The profile photos  is the guest  sticking her tongue out in ‘rude girl’ style . She instantly demanded 5 hrs early check in and late checkout from our listed 11am  until 2pm. She also called me 3 times. Another huge red flag. 

 

I don’t  want to host her...  I  phoned Airbnb as this guest is making me uncomfortable with her demands, and I know she’ll party and wreck my flat. She one of the snowflake generation who feels rules don’t apply to them. No thanks 

 

But Airbnb refuse the request to cancel - all because this guest has different skin colour to me! My boyfriend is a black guy. This is nothing to do with race or discrimination! It’s to do with ‘party types,’ and my gut instinct that is telling me this guest will be trouble. She has no reviews and I have several hundred from an all huge global mix of nations! 

 

 

So now my case is being ‘investigated’ and they will reach a decision tomorrow. 

 

And yes, I could turn off IB, but out of 2000 bookings I’ve only had 3 major issues! All the lovely newbies with no reviews. They have all been great!

 

I’ve spent the past 2 weeks migrating my listings to other platforms, and already I’m getting bookings at higher rates. Airbnb I’m so over the monster you’ve become . 

74 Replies 74
Sean433
Level 10
Toronto, Canada

@David6 

At the end of the day, its your property and airbnb will not take responsibility if they trash it and therefore has no say in the matter except for hitting you with a cancellation penalty but that to me is much better then risking my property

 

They care more about optics and being accused of discrimination then protecting hosts properties. I once asked them to cancel a booking I felt was very off. They pushed back but I insisted. What I did was found something inconsistent in their profile and used that as the reason. In this case, their phone number did not match where they said they were from. That was enough for them to cancel penalty free.

 

In another case, someone instant booked and said in their message "I am not from Toronto". lol. We host in Toronto btw. That made me instantly want to look him up and sure enough, he was from Toronto and we do not host locals because they are infamous for trashing peoples houses. Catching him in that lie was enough to get him cancelled.

 

So think creatively and see what you can find that is inconsistent in their profile.

David6
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Sean433 

I totally agree and I think airbnb try to intimidate hosts with threats & penalties. But I will never allow these kinds of guests to book. I learnt my lesson in early days. Airbnb can threaten as much as they want. And if you escalate to a more senior CS rep, you can usually get a favourable response. 

@David6 

Just curious, before calling airbnb to cancel it, did you try telling the guest that you cannot host them and to ask them to cancel it on their end? I usually try that first.

 

And you mentioned in your original post that they do not allow you to cancel because she has a different skin colour then you. Did they actually say that to you? If so, wow.

 

The problem is the word discrimination is being throw around lightly these days. One can make the argument that not being comfortable with someone just because they have their tongue sticking out in a photo is discrimination? Perhaps a better word would be "screening and good judgement"

David6
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

The guest was rude and demanding. She immediately started phoning me. I told her on phone I would cancel. I cancel a lot. Already this year about 20 bookings. Because we have lots of short stays (& this is across several listings. ) 

 

CS are normally cool because I always give legitimate reasons. They cancel penalty free as they can see I don’t discriminate as we hosts every nationality and allow everyone to IB.

 

the party crowd, I always know. And I always cancel. 

 

The CS agent was so judgemental, told me there would need to be an investigation. Because to her - all she could see was I was declining a guest based on guest appearance - this is NOT the reason. The rep was not experienced enough to realise this. Next day, the senior rep was totally supportive and allowed a penalty free cancellation. 

@David6 

Trying to protect our listings (and our livelihoods!) from the party crowd - the absolute bane of hosts' lives these days, who accommodate four or more guests... especially in hedonistic cities like ours. Gets more and more challenging to keep a lid on them... 

David6
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Absolute nightmare especially for hosts like you @Susan17 

 

we had a penthouse listing few years ago. It was perfect for parties. Even a glass dining table for ‘snorting’ haha. Huge roof terrace. Most weekends small parties. Then a £12,000 trashing. They stole everything. Smashed windows. Threw furniture from roof terrace to 4 floors below. Could killed someone.  The police involved, the press got wind of story.

 

I contacted Chip Conley as CS we’re ignoring me. Within 5 minutes one of his senior team from San Francisco office was phoning me. ‘We’ve got this covered, how can I help.’ 

 

But now, this new waste of space heading up ‘hosts’ she is useless and ignores you!!! Just like a robot, quoting the official party line! 

Lol! Yeah, it's all gone Pete Tong, @David6! Even the bloody families have turned into party animals lately! Three times in the last couple of months, I've had to knock in, in the early hours of the morning to tell carousing families - including grannies and grandads (and great grandad in one case!) to tone down the ear-splitting ballad singing and the drunken river-dancing, or I'd be calling cabs straight away for them and their luggage ("Getting in touch with your roots" is a perfect excuse for riotous, rowdy shenanigans these days, apparently! 😉

 

And don't get me started on the real revellers - they're trying it on now, even though I warn them on check in not to take the p*ss, and they know full well that there's only a single dividing wall between me and them! Doesn't matter a dam* to them. Like seriously, do they think I'm just going to lie in bed and ignore them squealing and roaring and cranking up the volume, every window in the house open, when they've all rolled back from the club at 4am?

 

Invariably, the latter are the new breed of guest, who are now referring to my home as "the Airbnb". That's a unique development for 2019 (at least for me!) - just two little words, but they perfectly encapsulate the seismic shift in guest perception/attitude/behaviour, that has become so blatantly apparent in recent times. 

 

And Chip... yes. The Elder Statesman. Sorely missed. The only man in the company with any real hospitality experience, and the only man who ever got anything done for the host community. Any small regard Airbnb ever did  have for genuine, authentic hospitality - or for the small hosts who offer it, for that matter - walked out the door with Mr Conley, the day he left the building. 

 

Don't be too hard on Laura though - it's not she who created this mess, or bred the culture of hosts routinely being  ignored, cheated and mistreated. That preceded Laura's arrival by a long way. She was handed a poisoned chalice. I don't envy her the task she's been given. 

@Susan17  Yes, the response my friend got when she talked to riotous guests who had been drunkenly partying in the pool until 3AM, complete with blasting techo music, at the house next door to her, was "It's an Airbnb rental!" 

David6
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Susan17 @Sarah977 

I had to ask some guests to leave after reports of partying until 7am. The neighbours had been messaging me all night complaining.

 

I knocked and walked straight in at 9am. Yes, I know, but it’s MY property and I’ll go in if issues.

 

there were 10 of them sleeping all over apartment and it had max capacity of 5. They said ‘but where are we going to go?’

 

Hell  - for all I care, I gave them 30 mins to pack up and leave. First thing they did -  all went back to bed for 20 mins. Haha. Then a mad scramble to leave, swearing and threatening me as they went. #HappyHosting

David6
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

And sorry, but please don’t get me started on ‘head of hosts’ who to get a handle & understanding of frontline hosting, spend days travelling the world, staying with sycophantic superhosts in cozy, niche little set ups. Telling her how marvellous everything is. As if ANY of them dare speak honestly and openly. It was all so contrived, fuzzy & warm - just like the official - ‘one big happy community’ party line.

 

Honestly please! Give me strength. I actually messaged her and suggested she mans the CS phones and actually deals with real hosts and the problems we face - seen in post after post after post on this community platform. And this is a minuscule % as most never ever post about their issues. She posted the other day some bull about ‘what nice notes guests left for you?’ Really!!! 

 

Ignoring all the heartbreaking  posts below her post, screaming for support and literally crying with ‘host frustration’. She can do a lot better! It’s her job, surely? I’m sure there is someone heading up ‘guests’ to counter balance everything? 

@David6  You say you cancel a lot of bookings. (I realize you also get a ton of bookings). But I've not read other London hosts here on the forums saying they have to cancel so many inappropriate bookings or else they end up with thousands of dollars worth of damages.

I also know you've said there is a ton of competition and you've had to lower your prices to stay in the game. It seems to me like you aren't putting a value on your time and aggravation in having to cancel all these bookings and explain to Airbnb why. Wouldn't it be better to up your price, get less bookings, yet more per booking and not have all these partier types attracted to book your place? Am I missing something? What do you think is attracting so many of these types of guests to your listing? Or is this happening to all London hosts with similar listings and we're just not hearing reports of it here?

Julia346
Level 2
Asheville, NC

In my case they did offer to cancel penalty free and I decided to give her a chance since I was staying next door. I made that fact very clear to “Beyoncé” but it didn’t stop them from inviting what appeared to be their entire high school. That night, after I evicted the 60+ people from my property, she deleted all of the info from her profile including her profile picture, and she even changed her name. Nothing was broken or stolen but I think most people would agree that having 60 instead of 6 and smoking copious amounts of marijuana inside is a good reason to keep the security deposit. I still love Airbnb and am happy this type of situation is extremely rare. In the end it makes for a good story and a lesson learned : ) 

@Julia346 

That's ok Julia, we have all made this mistake and we learn from it. I think if you have a self imposed rule to screen guests and stick to it, it will do you good. The general rule I follow is if 1 or more of these criteria seem off with the guest, I say no

 

1) Bad or mixed reviews- Sometimes you will see hosts write kind things about them but their average rating is only 3.5 or 4. There is always a reason for this. Likely they were dirty or didn't follow house rules but hosts were too nice to write anything negative. Also some hosts use code when they are not happy like  "everything was ok" or "thank you for your stay".

 

2) Fake names like Beyonce lol

 

3) Profile pictures that are inappropriate and trashy looking

 

4) If they are trouble guests who wrote bad reviews for many of their past hosts - this may take time to verify but if you are really unsure about someone, I take 5 minutes to look into this.

 

5) Local Guests- I almost always decline local guests unless its for the purposes of needing a place because they are doing a minor renovation.

 

6) Overly pushy- making too many requests like early check in, discounts, special accommodations.

Annies0
Level 3
South Shields, United Kingdom

Glad this worked out for you @David6.

Situations like this are what put me off turning IB on.

IB cancellation rules state we can cancel penalty free if we are "uncomfortable with the reservation or the guest has broken my House Rules” not if we are uncomfortable with the reservation or the guest has broken my House Rules and AirBnB CS agree with us. 😕

Patrick1361
Level 2
England, United Kingdom

Absolutely @Annies0 

 

I agree 100%. I’m afraid Airbnb are so PC now they are ‘blind’ to actual reality. Everyone is bracketed to a check list!

 

‘Yep, he’s a WHITE host; OMG!!! The guest is NOT!! Double, NO! Quadruple OMG! He’s a racist & OMG x 1000 he’s DISCRIMINATING!!!

 

lets INVESTIGATE him (a loyal host with 600+ reviews ) AND not allow him a say who stays in his home!

 

#HappyHosting