Guest wants to leave early

[Francesca18]

I have moderate cancellation terms. So its 50 percent of the booking fee for the last 2 nights from the cancellation time Friday night at 5.30pm. she was booked till Monday am. the cost is £19 a night so I have decided to refund her £20. cash. Done. 

I now want to open my calender up so someone else can book ....how to do this? 

I also have a guest who booked about 2 months ahead at the time I told him I usually take bookings one week ahead and that i might need to cancel if i did not get any more air bookings which i did not. Meanwhiel things hotted up on spare room and I hope I can fill with a long term person..but air want to block the dates on my calender (I ve blocked them off anyway for now but might want to open them up nearer the time. why would they do this..is it like a punishment as a superhost it seems petty on their part to punish their hosts like htis. 

[Gillian19]

@Francesca18 Are you saying that you think it's petty that hosts are punished for cancelling a reservation? I think the penalties should be higher. If I have booked accommodation to fit in with travel plans and the host then cancels that can really cause me issues. Why should the guest suffer because the host wants to try and make as much money as possible and back out of an agreement? If you don't know you can take a booking, block your calendar. I'm actually quite shocked that as a "Superhost" you think like this.

[Francesca18]

OH well plans change sometimes for one reason or another...its not a perfect world. I think a  week blocked would be fair but two weeks seems too much to me esp as I told the guest right the moment I got the enquiry that i probably would need to cancel. 

[Stephanie365]

My understanding is the guest has to cancel or alter the trip to open the calendar; if you do it, AirBNB won't open your calendar. Basically to discourage hosts from cancelling on guests who might think they could rebook at a higher rate.  This is why, if a reservation needs to be altered, you need to have the guest do it on their end. That way you aren't penalized.

Why would you cancel a booking simply because you didn't get "more" bookings? That makes no sense. 

Either way, once you commit to a booking by accepting it, as a host, you should be penalized for breaking it for anything less than an emergency.

[Matthew285]

@Francesca18 I am confused.

You are unhappy with a guest because they booked far in advance? 

(They booked 2 months ahead when you usually book one week ahead.)

And now you want to cancel their confirmed reservation... because you did not get more reservations?

I also do not understand what "things hotted up on spare room and I hope I can fill with a long term person" means.

Anyway, if you cancel a guest's confirmed reservation, AirBnB will not allow you to re-book on those dates through AirBnB. It is not petty; AirBnB is trying to prevent guests from having their vacation plans disrupted by having their confirmed reservation cancelled at the last minute.

[Francesca18]

I did tell the guest I on the day they booked that I was likely to need to cancel it on the 14.3 two weeks ahead I was hoping I would not have to,  but I rely on having the room booked to survive. Yes I got it and I know how complicated it is to book an airbnb place and how much time it takes too having been a guest too so I wanted to be very clear with the guest from the word go. I guess it wont make any difference long term about the calender as I will be using another company to fill the room more long term. Generally a bit of a mess up but they do happen from time to time and It would be a lie to say that they never happen. 

[Fred13]

Btw, a host can also execute an 'Alteration', the guest must agree to it in order to become valid.

Also, if use cash to 'reimburse' a guest, there is no way for Airbnb to know what took place, thus the days will still show as 'blocked' on the calendar, understandably.

@Francesca18  it may serve you well to read a bit more on Airbnb, to better understand the rationale of their system. Or spend more time here. 😉

[David126]

To obtain and maintain Superhost status you can not cancel.

[Francesca18]

Right I knew that thanks David and Fred I suppose  But actually they do allow 2 cancellations in a period penalty free,  and this one has gone by without affecting my status.

I kind of know that even if I told the guest at the point of sale eg on the day he booked that I was likely to cancel on a date,  that they will hold the dates as "off calender" though in the past they have been kind and freed the dates up for me anyway.

This time I guess not, and never mind as I will go for the long term rental situation.

99 percent of my bookings are for the next weekend rather than booked months ahead btw. so this was unexpected this has been consistently the case for about 7 years.