Yesterday I cancelled a guest's reservation for the first time, but rather than accept this, the guest has just gone ahead and Instant Booked the room again!
There were numerous reasons why I cancelled, including that the guest only booked for two nights when he and his girlfriend wanted to stay for five. It took a lot of communication before I could get him to tell me how many nights they wanted to stay. By then, the room wasn't available for all five nights anymore, but I offered him another room. He asked for a discount. I said no. He took so long to book that by then, the other room wasn't availabe for all five nights either, so he had to make two reservations, splitting his stay between the two rooms, but then only booked the second room for one person.
On top of that, he is ignoring my check in times, even though I have repeatedly reminded him of them. The conversation went something like ME: "What is your estimated arrival time, bearing in mind my check in is from 3-9pm?" HIM: "6.30." ME: "Do you mean 6.30 in the morning, or in the evening?" HIM: no response. This went round and round until I finally got out of him that it was, as I suspected, 6.30 am. Reminded him again of the 3-9pm check in and he eventually replied, "We will check in at 2pm." Just one example of how difficult it has been to communicate with this guest.
He wanted to communicate via email, no doubt to try to avoid Airbnb fees. There were numerous other issues. Airbnb told me I had every reason to cancel, although it counts as two cancellations because he made two separate bookings.
I messaged the guest and explained very clearly why I had cancelled and why I was uncomfortable hosting him, but rather than asking if I would reconsider, he just went ahead and booked one of the rooms again!
I do not want to host these guests. I think they are going to be a nightmare. If I cancel again, that's the third cancellation (you get three 'no questions asked' cancellations a year and after that have to have the backing of Airbnb CS). Then, he could just keep booking again until someone else manages to get in there and book in the narrow window between me cancelling and him rebooking.
Has anyone else had this problem before? How do I make the guest understand without being rude?
