Don't know if I replied well to this request

[Lucilla14]

Hi everybody!

It's been more or less a year hosting now, and I am overall satisfied. I learned how to manage difficult situations and how to say no, things I couldn't do when I first started. Nonetheless, today I wanna talk about how uneasy I still feel with some requests and how I am always wondering what can I reply and if when I reply I write the right things.

This girl sent me this request for one of my listings, she's coming with her boyfriend and her dog, she's one of the few people who read my house rules so she asked me if she could check in at 8 p.m., because I have written in the house rules I have a crazy schedule so we need to agree on a check in time before I accept the reservation. So far everything's fine. 

The check out time is 11 a.m., cause I start accepting reservations from 1 p.m, so I have plenty of time to clean the place for the other guests. 

She writes: "we would like to check in at 8 p.m. and check out at 4.30 p.m.. Is that ok?"

I replied that I had no guests arriving on the following day, but that if somebody would book the room I would need them to leave it, since the check out time is at 11 a.m.. I also specified that if nobody was going to book, it would be totally ok for them to stay as long as they needed, I was thinking they wanted to wait in the house for their next flight or train or whatever.

She wrote me this:

I didn't like this message one bit. She didn't ask me if there was any way we can agree on a solution, she didn't ask me if she could pay the fee for delayed check out (I didn't suggest it because I didn't know she needed to work), she just imply that since they are gonna be less than 24h in the house I am in some way obligated to her?.... That I am not "flexible" enough?... It's like I am the bad guy because she didn't read the check out time on the listing! I assumed she was new to the site but she has a lot of reviews (they are all good). So I replied basically explaining to her what a delayed check out fee is, if she wanted to pay it, so she can have the room for as long as she wants, otherwise the check out is at 11, and if nobody's gonna book the room for the following day I have no problem with letting them stay, but if I have a check in the next day before she's finished we can find another solution, she could stay in the kitchen or even in my room, I don't mind, and it is not the first time I have done these kind of favours to the guests. I also wrote to her that she could have asked me for a solution we could both agree on instead of implying some sort of duty on my part (All the more when I already told her she could stay if I wasn't gonna have other guests).

My point is.. isn't it annoying when guests act like this? Like we owe them things they didn't pay for? Did I reply well? And even if you think this is not a big deal, is it only me that gets this stressed out in this kind of situations? Thank you for your attention!

p.s. oh another thing.. I didn't accept the request of a woman because she wouldn't reply to my messages so I didn't know when she would arrive or if she was ok with some things I replied to her about some questions she asked me. She never replied and now I am afraid that she might think she has a reservation with me, but she doesn't because it expired. what would you do? 

[Lisa1831]

@Lucilla14 

As a guest if there was a extra fee to check out later and I need to check out later I would just pay the fee. I wish more people had this option to pay to check out later.

You said that she is one of the few people that actually read the rules. So just remind her there is a fee for X amount of time.

However, with all that said -  Trust your gut. You do not want to accept and then have to cancel later.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Lucilla14 

we have set our check-in/out time 1 hour earlier/later then we can accommodate without problems. If someone asks to arrive earlier or leave later we can allow up to 1-hour delay and look caring and gracious 😄 and it doesn't create problems for our cleaning schedule.

I don't like the way she wrote her message... as you owe her something because she will arrive later.  In fact, I like when our guests arrive at the beginning of our check-in time window when we are still at the location and just finished cleaning. When they arrive later then we have to go home and then in the city again to meet them (or eat and spend few hours in the city) so later arrivals are not convenient for us at all, it's a waste of our time.

[Sarah977]

@Lucilla14  I agree with some others that I don't think sjhe is being particularly rude, but attempting to negotiate. I'd stick to your check-out times or charge a fee, and depending on whether such a thing is available near you- " I understand why you'd like to stay until 4:30, but as I'm sure you can also understand, I can't forego another possible night's booking to accomodate. There's an nice internet cafe 2 blocks down the road where you could finish your online work."

[Mike1034]

@Lucilla14 From the screenshot showing her message, she had not booked yet which was just an inquiry. In this case, I would just say No to her request for late checkout in the response. A guest asking this late checkout definitely does not consider a host needing time for preparing the room and cleaning. If she had sent an official booking request, you might be penalized for rejecting requests in some way.

According to my experience a guest asking this type of questions normally would not book. And even if she/he books, you may receive a potential bad review.