In Progress: Guest 2 hours late, not communicating and I'm feeling weird

[Alina5]

A guest who booked some weeks ago for one night for himself and his son is more than two hours late for their check-in. I'm a single female and am starting to feel a little weird, as they have not communicated with an update on their much later than requested arrival.

The pair are from Russia and I am not about to call a foreign phone number. I've contacted Airbnb and they said they would try to contact them.

Unfortunately, my brain is racing toward negative thoughts mostly that they'll arive at 2am and will be total creeps, and I'll feel uncomforatble sleeping in my own home.

Hopefully, Airbnb will be able to contact them and give me an update. In teh meantime, anyone have any thoughts, experience or words of wisdom?

Thanks

[Janice1]

@Alina5

If I were home alone I would be creeped out checking in two males at 2am.  

It's likely that the hold up resulted from circumstances outside of your guests control eg delayed flights or traffic jams.  But that doesn't change the fact that it's likely to be the middle of the night when they arrive.

I only accept late checkins when I have my husband at home with me.  Do you have a support person who could help you.  Or even ask Airbnb to find alternate accommodation for these guests??  Go with your gut!

I'm interested to know how you handled the situation and how Airbnb supported you through this tricky situation.

Regards

Janice

[Alina5]

Thanks all for your responses. I'm relieved to say that it all worked out and that my head started to spin when I felt I had no options and the clock kept ticking forward.

For what it's worth, the guests were not flying in, as I do usually ask for that information. I did call the number in Russia, to no avail.

Lessons learned:

1.  For peace of mind, don't accept guests with no reviews

2. Expand on, and clarify, House Rules when it comes to guests communicating with any delays in check-in time

The only really bad thing that happened, unfortuantely, was an extremely rude Airbnb Customer Service person whom I reached at the SF office. She actually hung up on me as I tried to acertain if Abnb has a guiding policy on extremely late arrivals. All she kept offering was that I could cancel the reservation. Not ony was that an option contrary to my best interest, but, also not in teh guests beset interest either -- I just wanted guidance. A second call to Abnb was much more pleasant and reassuring. That person actually offered to call the foriegn number as well to see if they could get any updated information from the late guests.

Anyway, hope this helps someone down the line.

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

I would offer a different perspective and I dont mean this to sound harsh, but....

1. Did you ask for their flight number and have you checked online if it was delayed? We always say give us your flight details and then you wont have to worry about tyring to phone us if your flight is late or you are rushing to make a connection at an air
2. You have a phone number for the guest, and just because you don;t want to call them to see if there is a problem - have they broken down - have they got lost. - is up to you, but I would'nt suddenly get creeped out about a situation you should have managed better from the start.

Learn from it and either never accept arrivals after a certain time in the evening, or just follow the simple steps above.