I am about to host my 2nd stay through Airbnb. The reservation was made within a couple hours of my listing going live and the "smart pricing" setting was on. Because I was so new, I didn't realize it until after I accepted it. I was just so darn excited about getting a reservation. My normal rates to rent my entire home (6 bedrooms, 4500 sq ft) is $200 more a night than they reserved it for. I chaulked it up to a costly learning opportunity and proceeded to send them a communication that Airbnb does not calculate or collect taxes and that I would send them the total for that prior to their stay. This is also clearly stated on my listing as per the requirements of Airbnb.
A week later, they contact me to say they wanted to change their reservation to a different weekend but didn't understand why it was over $400 more for a different date. We communicated on a phone call where I explained that the rates when they booked were not accurate and that if they wanted to move the dates I would be happy to meet them in the middle. The new date request was sent and the pricing included the additional $102.50 a night rate, but inadvertantly I forgot to add in the cleaning fee. Costly learning opportunity #2. Moving on...
This last week I sent them the email stating the taxes to be collected upon their arrival. They are now saying my additional fees and effort to suddenly add taxes is "asinine" and that they won't pay them.
1) They are getting one heck-of-a-deal!
2) I didn't have to give any discount for the date switch.
3) They aren't paying a cleaning fee.
4) I won't make any money after I pay the cleaning staff the cleaning fees and will lose money if I have to pay the taxes for them.
4) After her attitude and not nice email, I'm afraid her reviews are going to be more detrimental to me in the long run than a penalty I may incur to cancel the reservation a couple days before their arrival.
Anybody have any suggestions?
Thanks!
Gina