Cancellation Refund Advice

[Jennifer1919]

Need a bit of advice — On our listing I allowed the option of choosing a moderate cancellation or the non refundable option (which gives customer a 5% discount). I now have a guest who booked our place for a week and chose the non-refundable option. After booking they re-read the description of our listing and decided it was not a good fit and want to cancel and receive a refund. The booking is still a month out, but I kind of feel like that was the risk they took by choosing the non-refundable option and not thoroughly reading the description. Am I being unreasonable??

Thanks,

Jen

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

No, you're not being unreasonable. Tell them to cancel and they will get any refund due according to their payment method and refund policy! Thats why you have it. If the guest changes their mind then thats their problem.

[Kath9]

@Jennifer1919, I agree with @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0, you are not being unreasonable. If guests don't read the listing and choose the non-refundable option to get the discount, then it's entirely their responsibility if they cancel.

[Jennifer1919]

@Kath9 & @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  thank you! That is helpful. We are new to this and I am so worried about bad reviews. But at this point, I think I will kindly just say that refunds are not an option with non-refundable reservations... I lose 10% and they lose the flexibility of cancelling. 

[Gordon0]

Don't get too tied up with explanations, @Jennifer1919, simply refer them to Airbnb. If nothing else, this will provide an important lesson to them. Oh, and don't crumble when Airbnb 'reach out' asking for you to take pity on the would-be guests, and be very careful about the links Airbnb send to you (don't cancel it yourself!).

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Jennifer1919 I would agree with @Gordon0 about not being too tied up or verbal in your reply to your guest. 

Before booking that discount your guests would have considered the implications before choosing that cheeper option and plumbed for the savings. Now if they had booked the higher cost option they would have been able to cancel entirely at your expense and would not have hesitated.

The wording from Airbnb in their refund message to hosts is deliberately confusing. They ask something like.. "Do you accept your guests refund request..." You obviously do accept their claim, but you do not accept to refund them or be responsible for it. The answer would be 'No' You do not accept the refund request. If some other host here has the specific wording for this, it might help to clarify how the wording is confusing (?)

[Sarah977]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 @Jennifer1919   I've never gotten one of these seemingly trick messages, but as I recall from other hosts' posts, the wording is something like "The guest wishes to cancel" and then there is a button to accept or decline. Confusing for sure, and I suspect deliberately so.

[Khadija15]

When a guest cancels I usually tell them that IF I can fill the spot I will refund minus the Airbnb fees.