Problem with guests asking me to cancel, not them

[Sebastiaan2]

Hello all!

I need some advice. We had some people instant book last friday night (round 11:30pm) for a 3 night stay starting tonight. In their message they said they wanted to cook all meals here. We are usally ok with that, but not this week as we have a lot of events happening on the farm and I will need my kitchen to myself all weekend. I told them this in my initial message to them on sunday morning. The guests didn't check their email till last night, 4 days later. They said that not being able to use the kitchen was a deal breaker and if I could cancel the reservation. This is not an option for us as Airbnb is  a big part of our business and loosing superhost stautus is not worth it. They dont want to do the cancelling because at this point they will be charged. We have a flexible cancellation policy so if they had checked their email, or not done instant book, we woudn't have this issue. At this point they need to cancel, I dont feel comfotable with them as guests. What would you advize? Thanks!!

Sebastiaan 

[Dawn33]

Stand firm and tell them that if they need to cancel, they should in order to receive as much refund as possible.

Mos def do not cancel yourself.

[Andrew90]

First DONT cancel. If the guests refuse contact AirBNB perhaps they will allow the booking fee to be waived. If not see if you can somehow cover the booking fee just to get rid of them. 

See the contact Airbnb post in the Community Help Guides - https://community.airbnb.com/t5/Community-Help/Community-Help-Guides/m-p/23100#M311

Skip down to the phone numbers and call them!!

Andy

[Steve103]

In this situation you need to decide on if you want to refund and what amount to refund: 

-If you want to refund them in whole or in part but do not what to be the one to cancel:

Solution: you tell them to cancel and you can refund them after the stay through the airbnb system.  However, all site fees are out of your control and they can contact Airbnb to see if they can get those back. They will be able to if they book another Airbnb listing those dates but if not it might go either way depending on the rep. 

-If you do not want to refund them anything 

Solution:  Explain you can not cancel on the host end because the site treats that as if you refused the guest stay.  However, the guest can contact Airbnb to cancel on their end and try to get site fees back. 

Personal notes: Given the limited information to review, it appears as if they are entitled to a refund in full because a property was confirmed before it was known they would not have access to a vital part of it. There was no meeting of the minds on the issue so there was no valid agreement. The ruling would be a discounted stay where both agree or a cancellation on their end with full refund.  

You'll be fine on cancallation though, never ever do it from your end. It's easily resolved with speaking with guests or a phone call. 

[Lisa14]

Because you have a flexible cancellation policy, you tend to lose.. DO NOT CANCEL, because it reflects badly on you..
Let your guest cancel, if that's what they want to do. Have them call customer service and they will take over from there..
If you are in the wrong, it's your responsibility to do right by your guest, but if it's your guest, they need to be responsible...

[James1]

Question for @Sebastiaan2. When this guest made the "instant book" was the kitchen listed as an amenity? If the answer is 'no' then they should have asked more questions before they made the 'instant book'. Let them cancel. On the other hand if the kitchen, at the time they booked, was a listed amenity, then I think it's your responsibility to cancel and take the hit. In either case, turn off 'Instant Book'!

Airbnb thinks 'instant book' (IB) is the solution to all their problems but what it's doing is changing the nature of the original airbnb guest/host relationship. I've been doing this for five years and I've tried IB. The only difficult guests I have ever had were IB guest who have very different expectations of what they are getting in my guest penthouse. They tend not to read the entire listing and don't seem comfortable with any sort of back and forth communication. I get one word answers if I ask something like "so, tell me what brings you folks here to San Francisco". I don't do IB.