Guest Review Contains Specific Dollar Amount of Refund

Guest Review Contains Specific Dollar Amount of Refund

Hi there, 

Prior to a guest's arrival, our water pipes froze, due to some extreme temperatures. We gave them the option to cancel with a full refund; or take the risk that the pipes would thaw early in their stay, and then compensate them for the lost time with a refund. They mentioned the these two specific options and the specific dollar/percentage amount in their review. I feel like this is information which violates the Airbnb Review Policy i.e. irrelevant information referring to circumstances outside of our control (frozen pipes due to extreme temps), and to specific discounts offered to the individual (not relevant to future guests). Does this actually qualify?

1 Reply 1

@Emilee-and-Chris0  While I understand that you don't want future guests thinking you give out refunds or discounts like water (or ice, in this case), it is a really positive review and I wouldn't be concerned about it. They made you out to be a responsible, caring host, said they loved the place and would book there again. 

 

And while you had no control over the weather, it is in fact a host's responsibility to make sure guests have water- that your pipes freeze in extremely cold temperatures is relevant to your listing because they are your water pipes. Many hosts have listings where winter temps are extreme and find ways to bury or insulate the pipes so that doesn't happen - not sure if that's possuble where you are, but maybe that's something you can come up with a solution for in the future. 

 

Irrelevancy is mentioning something that has nothing to do with the property itself, like saying the neighborhood seemed sketchy, that it was too far to the grocery store,  or that they wished it hadn't rained the whole weekend.

 

You are actually lucky that these guests were adaptable and left you a sweet review. You could easily have had guests who made a huge stink about it, stayed anyway, then demanded a full refund and left a nasty review.

 

If you really want that good review removed, a user can request that their own review be removed, so since these appear to be great guests who obviously intended and assumed they were giving you a good review,  it would be a lot easier to send the guest a message, thanking her for the good review, but telling her that mentioning how much of a discount she got is actually harmful to you, as you don't want future guests to assume you hand out discounts for anything  that might go wrong. She could ask Airbnb to remove the remove, rather than you banging you head against the wall trying to convince a CS rep that it violates policy.

 

But honestly, I think you should forget all about it. It's a good review.