Are some Cancellation Announcements from Customer Service too generic and therefore misleading?

[Rowena29]

Hello everyone,

I dont' need help, I just wondered how other people thought about this.

I had a guest book some time ago - 9 guests  - for the Australia Day weekend.  She booked when my listing was very new, and got a real bargain price.

 I was in conversations with her recenlty, and amongst other things she mentioned she was receiving messages re airbnb payment and asked me what was going on as she had paid in full. I explained I was not able to help her with this and that she needed to contact Customer Service.  

About a week later, just inside the free cancellation window, I received the email message from Cusotmer Support, "We're sorry to let you know that XXXXX has cancelled her reservation." etc

I was rather surprised and also miffed that she hadn't included a message to me, but philosophsical - them's the breaks. I certainnly wasn't going to contact her to ask her why she cancelled.

 I  got another booking about 12 hours later for  the same dates.

The next afternoon, I recieved a frantic phone call from the  original guest who had "cancelled" wanting to know why I had cancelled her booking. She had no idea what was going on, she HADN'T cancelled the booking,  couldn't she still come - she had friends arriving from interstate, could I please cancel the other booking and still let her stay becasue she had booked first and it wasn't fair etc.

She was furious with me when I said I couldnt' cancel the new booking. ( She will not be able to get a similar booking for 9 guests at this late stage withouth paying over $1000 more).  I advised her to ring Customer Support.

I then get a call from CS explaining THEY had cancelled the guests' booking because of funds issues. What could I do to support the guest as she was very upset? ( what a stupid question  - but that's another issue). CS confirmed I could not cancel the new guest booking - obviously.

The original guest hung up on CS. She hung up on me when I rang to say I might be able to provide a solution.  I suspect will not use airbnb again as well as tell everyone she can think of how awful airbnb is. A very unpleasanst expeirence for all concerned.

I realise  the fault is hers - she had insufficent funds, did not follow up with advisory emails, did not follow up with CS when advised.    

HOWEVER I do think it might have been a different outcome. I think  the cancellation email I got from CS was  unnecessarily misleading.  The guest had not knowingly cancelled the booking.

  In light of what actually happened I would have preferred  a pro forma email  along the lines of

"We're sorry to say that we have had to cancel xxxxx's booking"    

In this instance I would have guessed what was going on, contacted the guest, held onto the dates until she could sort things out with CS. 

A much happier,  and more time efficient outcome for all, and less damaging to the brand. 

What do other people think?

[Kelly149]

You’re right of course, right up until you get to the part of expecting CS to make sense. 

At least you get a better reservation out of the deal. Congrats on that

[Rowena29]

Wll actually I DIDNT' get a better reservation - quite a lot less money because there were fewer guests.

And as it turned out HE cancelled in a huff when I explained that "pets allowed" did not automatically  mean pets were allowed in on the house and on the furniture. and referred him to my description and house rules which states dogs welcome in the back yard.. ... He assured me he would report me to airbnb for being misleading. 

it was a real  doozy of a day I can tell you...

[Kelly149]

Oh good, then you can go back to the first guest. 

Unfortunately the reading comprehension of guests can’t be mandated. 

Good luck

[Lisa723]

Oh my gosh, that is a bad day. I once had a guest cancellation with no message, and I messaged her saying I'd refund if we could rebook-- and she was astonished, having not cancelled at all. Now I don't trust any cancellation without a guest message.

[Susan151]

@Rowena29. I am going to venture a guess.... the reason AirBNB doesn't tell you that the guest is having trouble with payment is to allay any privacy concerns. It would quite American to think that a guest would be embarassed for their host to KNOW that they were having some money issues. I would guess that many hosts would not have become so invested in a specific guest, so the corporate stance is to automate the whole transaction and use generic language.

Doesn't sound like a great day to me at all.