Guest wants to cancel 16 hours before checkin. Mistaken private room as entire suite. Bad Review?

Guest wants to cancel 16 hours before checkin. Mistaken private room as entire suite. Bad Review?

I'm fairly new to hosting, and all my experiences have been great so far. I've been doing my best to give my guests great hospitality, but this one incident is the first one that has made me a little worried. 

 

So one of my private bedroom listings received a booking about a month ago for checkin 8/26 and checkout 8/29. I sent her checkin instructions 3 days before, and she just messaged me today asking me for more details about the place such as whether the other rooms have guests. She also admits that she thought she booked an entire suite which has gotten my extremely concerned. I don't want her to give me a bad review because of a mistake she made. She's also asking if she can cancel now, 16 hours before her check in, and if she can get a refund. Of course, I don't want to give the refund because I know in this little of a time, I won't be able to fill the room as she had it booked for the last month. Is there anything that is protecting me from a potential bad review? Just want to make sure I have an actionable plan to prepare for a scenario like this. Thanks!

10 Replies 10
Branka-and-Silvia0
Level 10
Zagreb, Croatia

@Henley0  Just tell her she can cancell and will be refunded according to your cancellation policy.

Thanks @Branka-and-Silvia0. I just told her that. She's unhappy about the fact that she can't get a refund if she were to cancel and is now complaining that I put up pictures of the front of the house which shows a single family home. I'm trying to explain that the house is also part of the listing and that there are common areas shared.

 

My main concern is a bad review if she does choose to stay. Obviously she's not happy about the booking, and there isn't much I can do. I just want to make sure I get a justified review.

@Henley0I looked at your listing and first thing I noticed is PRIVATE ROOM - 1 BED.

So it is her fault she didn't read . It is very common, people are superficial .

To show her your good will you can offer to refund her if you will be able to rebook. You can also offer her to refund cleaning fee if she doesn't check in .

If she cancels and doesn't check in then she can't leave you a review.

Thank you. Your response is really helpful. I'll offer to refund her the cleaning fee.

Branka-and-Silvia0
Level 10
Zagreb, Croatia

to prevent the same thing happen again edit your image captures. You can write something like YOUR BEDROOM  / SHARED KITCHEN / SHARED BATHROOM...

Thanks @Branka-and-Silvia0. Appreciate the advice. 

As for a quick update of this situation, it looks like the guest decided to cancel after contacting AirBNB. AirBNB support reached out to me to reassure me that I did not do anything wrong, and asked if I wanted to provide a full refund. I respectfully declined. The guest, however, was refunded for the 2nd and 3rd night, and I received payout for the first night(or 90% of it.. for some reason AIrBNB changed my payout to 55 per night instead of 60 per night).

Andreas-and-Anna0
Level 10
West Vancouver, Canada

Could read: COZY PRIVATE ROOM IN GREAT HOUSE....CLEAN PRIVATE ROOM IN BIG HOUSE

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Henley0  I suggest you remove the photo of the front of the house. Not just because it confused this guest (who obviously only looks at pictures, but doesn't bother to read) but it is a security issue for you. People can do drive-bys before check-in, then cancel if they don't like what they see, and thieves can case the place.

Sarah1958
Level 2
Brighton, United Kingdom

I’ve had a similar problem recently. I rent out the two rooms at the top of my house (a double and a single). My family occupies the first floor. I have photos of the common areas in the house (bathroom, living room, kitchen / diner) and spell out explicitly in the description what guests’ access is. I let them use the kitchen in the mornings where I provide breakfast, but don’t allow them to cook and just say the rest is shared, with the caviat that I often use the living room in the evenings as we are a family home. I tell them to come down and make tea etc if they would like. Most people take a key and head out to explore the city. They treat it like ‘bed and breakfast.’ I’ve had a rash of complaints recently though and bad reviews with people saying they thought they were getting the entire place, that I’ve misled them etc etc. They obviously haven’t read any of my description. I even changed the title to ‘rooms in central Victorian townhouse.’ Yesterday I had a guest who was due to arrive in two hours call up saying she’s not prepared to stay unless she can have the whole place. I rang Airbnb to sort it but essentially I lost out financially because she cancelled on the same day she made the booking. Anyone else have this problem?