Refund

[Sue56]

hi, 

i have a guest from london who booked 10 days at my place.  i have a strict cancellation policy.   she is due to arrive tomorrow, but informed me she was cancelling the wednesday before her saturday arrival because her visa didn't get approved.   

i really need the income at this time and i feel really conflicted about issuing a refund.   i can't rebook the space and my space is harder to fill because it's a share.   

anyone else face this situation?   are you only able to apply for a U.S. visa if you have a flight and accommodation?  could she have applied before scheduling her trip? 

have a nice day : )

[Monika13]

@Sue56    I really understand your dilemma Sue.  I am answering spontaneously here because I actually just applied for my ESTA (Visa waiver) online 5min. ago.   I am Austrian and will be travelling to the US in a couple of weeks. And if your guest is a british citizen she should be able to do the same process. For a holiday it took me exactly 10min. to go through the forms.   So I am not sure what happened there.  She definitely could have applied before she booked her trip.  They do want to know an adress of your first night in the US.  But this can, as far as I know be added when you arrive at the airport.  What I did before is that I booked a hotel that was no problem to be cancelled... for the first night so I could provide an adress.   When I found a more suitable and better accomodation I changed it. 

What I did as a host before with a short term cancellation is that I kept the money and turned 50% of the money I was intitled too into a voucher for a future stay (to be used within 12 months).   Would that be an option for you? My guest was very happy with that.   Also Sue,  a lot of Europeans do have a holiday cancellation insurance included with their creditcard contract. Maybe she would even be intitled for that?  I don´t think she should expect a refund.   I wouldn´t.   Of course if you can rent it to someone else everything changes.

I hope this was helpful.  All the best for a good solution.  🙂

Monika

[Sue56]

@Monika13 thank you monica! 

[Sue56]

btw. she's a chinese citizen living in london.   how much of a difference does that make.  does anyone know? 

[Eileen4]

I'm having a similar problem. A guest cancelled due to passport problems (she waited too long and then didn't want to pay for an expedited passport). The thing is, when she cancelled, she just assumed I would issue a full refund, no questions asked, this despite the fact she is a host herself and so understands what a "strict" cancellation policy means. 

Because of her attitude and her griping messages (wherein the passport problem became something that "happened to her" rather than it being her poor planning), I decided not to offer her a future voucher. Also, I'm wondering if someone books for 5 days during low season, and then wants to change that into a high season booking, would that mean that the dollar amount would then be worth fewer days? And how does one work that out? 

The days are coming up in mid April and I have not had a booking to replace them yet. She is pleading all sorts of domestic reasons why I should return the full amount, which is just making things worse for me...her poor planning isn't my problem but she's using every guilt trip in the book, along with suggesting she gave me ample time to find other guests. But the fact is the days are still not booked.

I'm not sure what will happen, but I want to stand my ground here. I'm having a hard time taking in the fact that this woman is a host herself. April is not high season in Montreal, although it is on the cusp of it.