Guest left without paying reservation revision for Pet Fee!

[Charles539]

This past weeked we hosted 5 guests in our upstairs apartment. I went over to check on our downstairs aparment Saturday (we live in the adjacent property) and heard barking from upstairs. This was strange as the guest gave no notification that they had a Pet. The guests were not home for me to speak with them, so I messaged them politely saying I would send him a reservation revision for +$100 for having a dog (clearly written within our pet policy) https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/29534799?preview_for_ml=true&guests=1&adults=1 . The primary guest then called me and left a long/nice voicemail apologizing and saying he didn't realize he needed to confirm and will absolutely pay the pet fee. I saved the voicemail for ABNB......

ISSUE: The guest left on Sunday without accepting the +$100 revision I sent him and has so far been ignoring my Abnb message to complete the revision and my text message..... At this point I think I'm best reporting him to ABNB tomorrow, but will ABNB force him to pay or will I lose the $100? He said countless times that he loved the place, I'm worried he will ruin our 100% 5 star rating because of this.... Any advice? 

[Charles539]

Anyone??

[Emiel1]

@Charles539,

Airbnb will ask proove they brought a dog. As that confirmation is not in the message system, i don't know they will accept the voicemail as proof. And yes, the action could lead to bad review and/or rating. As the reservation has ended (and probably the change run out of time-limit), you can not change it again by adding the dog. You wll have to use the resolution centre to ask for the money. Maybe give that a try first and see what happens. It's all about keeping the relation with the guest good, but getting the money !

And then there is offcourse also your review waiting to be written about the guest....

Good luck,

Emiel

[Charles539]

Wow, I really thought the voicemail from his number confirming his name/reservation within and confirming he would pay would be enough. It's why I didn't push him to confirm the revision right away.....I'm so disappointed in this as I was trying to do the right thing.

[Alexandra316]

@Charles539In this situation, you really have to deal with the revision before the guest checks out. Airbnb almost certainly won't make them pay the extra charge. Did the guest acknowledge the charge via Airbnb messenger? In future,  I would keep communication to the Airbnb messaging system. 

[Charles539]

He acknoledges everything in the voicemail (name, reservation, having the pet, and agreeing to pay the fee), in addition to how much he loved the place.

[Alexandra316]

@Charles539Airbnb isn't going to bother with a voicemail. You have to stay on the Airbnb messaging system. 

[Ben551]

@Charles539 yes, in future I would keep all discussions about changes in price on Airbnb communicator. In this case, you could have followed up (on communicator) while the guest was still there to remind them to accept the variation. You can do it in a light way too, you get good at doing this after a while.

But now they have left, I think you need to balance up how important that $100 is to you vs. the review. You only have 11 reviews as far as I can tell, so your rating is sensitive to low scores. If that’s the case then I’d personally let it go and call it the price you are prepared to pay to reduce the risk of a bad review.  

[Charles539]

So the guest can leave a bad review even if I have proof that they had a good experience? Abnb wouldn't see this as the guest acting in spite?..... WOW, Abnb is terrible!

[Robin4]

@Charles539

Charles, guests are always great and say wonderful things until you antagonise them.

If they had any intention of honouring the pet fee charge they would have accepted it as soon as you put it too them. You have an extensive section covering pet charges and conditions in your house rules, so the guests would have been aware of it!

I am not saying they are right Charles, but from their point of view any lovely aspects of the stay have been trumped by this demand for additional money. 

You can rest assured a poor review will come your way because they will see this as their way of getting back at you for having the 'terrible nerve' of asking for what you rightfully deserve!

Airbnb have content guidelines and they do not get involved with a guests perception. They will not remove a guest review simply because you don't like it! They will only remove it if it is slanderous or demonstrably untrue.

There are times when you need to look at the bigger picture Charles, what is going to be best for your hosting. You have mentioned this to the guest and they have chosen to ignore it, so that tells you where you stand in this situation. 

Their review of you now is going to be, at best, very defensive, they will not say the unfettered complimentary things about you they would have before this dog charge thing came up.

So, the ball is in your court now.

If this was me I would keep my review of this guest very short and generic. I would say..... "Communication was acceptable and we hope they enjoyed their stay, although a bit more adherance to our house rules would have been appreciated. I would accept them as guests again but would ask them to be a bit more considerate next time"!

That way Charles you are not going to have to backtrack on anything you have said when the guest review comes. Also they will not be able to have something like that removed because you have not accused them of being anything other than...inconsiderate.

Remember Charles, people will judge you be the way you handle yourself in the review process.....what is said will say as much about you as it says about the guest.....At all times be diplomatic, and if you have anything of a slighly caustic nature keep it in the message stream or in the private feedback where it won't be seen by the public in general. 

Cheers.....Rob

[Yomari0]

We just recently had this happen to us although our guest was aware of pet fees and  agreed to pay for the two dogs via Airbnb Messages, but  when I sent her the payment resolution  then her card declined and we have yet to receive payment and she has checked out .  I never once got in contact with her by phone or in person we handled everything through Airbnb messages  and due to this  and other unfortunate issues, unfortunately she gave us a bad review  which is totally unfair.  We are still dealing with AirBnb.  Try to keep everything through the Airbnb messages they will require pictures and videos or Airbnb messages.