Guest leaves without staying

[Karin123]

My guest arrived and within an hour left saying there was no lock on her bedroom door and she felt unsafe.  The private room is within our family home and so I dont have locks on the bedroom doors (maybe this is something I should do?!) 

But my question is should I give her a full refund her as she is asking.  The room is as advertised and so I dont feel as if I should refund her?

I am just about to go into "Superhost" status as I have had so many positive reviews up until now

Thougts

[Jann3]

Personally, if she didn't ask for a lock prior to the booking or the stay, then I wouldn't give the refund. Superhost status is nice to have - so say many Superhosts - but it is not worth losing money over for silly reasons like this when you can back up your *common* situation to AirBnB. AirBnB doesn't have that as an option in the listings... many hosts don't have locks on bedroom doors... This person evidently isn't a good fit for home sharing.

[Karin123]

Thank you so much Jann - thats really helpful

[Zacharias0]

Last I checked having a lock on the bedroom door was a feature that the host can check off. But, if you dont it's not as if it'll say on your profile "host does not offer a locked door". I offer keyed entry on all my bedroom doors because I don't want to deal with people going into the wrong rooms and things going missing. You can get a keyed lock set for about $10 per door.

Would I refund her? No! You didn't materially misrepresent your property. If she didn't ask the question ahead of time then it clearly didn't much matter when she booked. A guest can't arrive and expect things that weren't offered in the listing.

In regards to your Superhost status, if it matters that much, you would have to prompt the guest to call AirBnB and they would cancel it so she isn't able to leave feedback. At that point you can work on a reasonable partial refund. The key to getting this to work is telling the guest she'll get a partial refund, but don't tell them how much because they'll draw out the cancellation process with haggling and such. If they don't contact AirBnB to cancel the reservation and the guest is able to leave feedback you can bet it'll be a negative review.

Best of luck.

[Vanessa-and-Kurt0]

@Karin123

Locks arent a bad idea if you can do it with little cost or reconstruction. I would not discuss refund with the guest since its not like you misrepresented your place, let her take it up with AirBnB customer service. You can determine if you want to refund her if they call you. 

[Annette76]

I thought I saw that option somewhere but maybe I'm mixing up different sites.

Personally I would be nervous if there was no way to lock a bedroom door. Not a fancy key lock knob, but I would at least think there would be a simple turn lock. 

My rental space is a separate guest apartment over a detached garage. The main door has a keypad lock, then the guest goes upstairs to the door into the loft apartment. I'm putting a chain latch on that door so the occupant can do the chain or not, whichever they are comfortable with. 

[Chris232]

@Annette76

I had a couple of guests whom voiced concerns about being unable to lock their door.

Found a very easy solution as shown below;

"Security hasp Red bronze Door Latch Hook without chains"

They are about £3 on ebay and very easy to fit

[Karin123]

I am so grateful to my airbnb community for your help on this.  I have only been hosting a couple of months and just to know there is support out there is so so helpful.  So the outcome was the guest cancelled and I agreed a partial reimbursement.  She was happy, I was happy and it didnt affect my rating. 

However it was all of your advice and support that took me in that direction.

Thank you airbnb family !

Karin