guest won;t cancel

[Adriana100]

Hello, I have the weirdest problem. I have a lady in her 60s who booked my entore house (4 bd) for 1 day in July. Now, I list the same house on vrbo as well to get more business. Usually I have the listings synced, but I was having a bit of a problem with vrbo because over there, when someone inquires, they block the dates for 3 days and they already told me they found something else. Meanwhile - although the dates appeared unavailable on ab because of vrbo, someone else inquired about the dates. So I got frustrated with the listings being synced and I unsynced them in order to get the business of the gentelmen who inquired about the dates that were blocked by vrbo.

The guy ended up not booking it, after so much effort on my part. But something else happened on this 1 hour the listings were not synced. 

Initially i had a reservation on vrbo from july 2-9. In the 1hr frame my listings were not synced a lady booked my house on airbnb for july 7th and she WON'T cancel.

I tried to explaned to her what happened, to apologize to her, to tell her where to look for accomodation. She won't freaking cancel.She booked me like 2 weeks ago. She said she didnt find anything else. No wonder! I know I have the lowest price for the house im offering. What shall I do? I sent her 3 emails. It all fell on blind ears.

I can't cancel her. What shall I do? I mean she will dhow up at my house and it will be occupied. can she review me if she won't stay at my house? why does she do this? in dont understand.

any advice will be appreciated.

[Noel63]

I think you may need to cancel.

[Noel63]

You could try getting Airbnb to do it but I'm not sure they will accept double booking as an extenuating circumstance

[David126]

You need to cancel, you caused the issue.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

Although unintentional, in the end you (host) are at fault and you should be the one to cancel - not the guest. If it were me, I'd contact ABB, explain and get them to cancel - you could try to get it cancelled penalty free but would not count on it.  I think this is just something you will have to accept.

Imo, if I was the guest in that situation, I'd definitely refuse to cancel too.

[Ana1136]

@Adriana100 I understand that it is frustrating but at the end of the day it was your mistake and you should cancel. If the lady cancels she would not get her service fee back and why should she pay for someone elses mistake. She saw available days and she booked. I would also refuse to cancel if i were her. Maybe you should try to contact Airbnb and convince them to cancel penalty free.

[Letti0]

@Adriana100 I can't help you with the cancellation, but I can help you fix your HA/VRBO issue.

When you copied/pasted the link from the VRBO calendar into the import feature of the AirBnB calendar, you included the 'include tentative reservations' which is the default.

Go back to your VRBO calendar export option, uncheck the box  "Include Tentative Reservations in the calendar export"  and the link will change slightly. Copy/paste the new link to your import calendar function of ABB and you'll be all set!

Also another word of advice. As soon as you get a reservation on any site refresh all your linked calendars. HA/VRBO can take over an hour to refresh, so do it on AirBnB as it works the quickest and is the easiest way to do it. The first calendar you sync needs to be the site that you just got the reservation on. Then sync the others and this will instantly block the new reservation on all the sites. If the reservation was on AirBnB still sync all the calendars asap as the refresh on HA/VRBO taking so long can get you double booked. 

[Adriana100]

thanks this is very helpful.

[Lisa723]

Thank you @Letti0 I didn't know about that and I have had the same problem, today!

[Adriana100]

My guest canceled. she said she forgot. she informed me they found another place very quickly after I told her about the double booking. the thing is I appologized to her and I explained to her very quickly what happened. she had like almost a month to their trip. I also told her what sites to look for a house similar to mine and even that there are a couple close to mine, so I tried to help her out the best I could.

the thing is the sync function is buggy. I have a 4 bd house. every room is a listing and the whole house is a listing. then on vrbo the house is a listing.

I want when any of the bedrooms is individually booked to block the listing of the entire house on both platfomrms and viceversa. I had the vrbo listing sunced with all 5 listings on abb and each individual listing on abb synced with vrbo. i dont know what happens but I always get conflicts and days blocked unnecesarily.

[Adriana100]

Also @Letti0 how do you refresh the calndars? I've never done it. I lost quite a few bookings because of these faulty linked calendars. And then double booking happened.

It is to refresh the page or remove all the linked calendars and then copy and paste them again?

Isn't it easier in this case just to manually block the reserved day on the other listings?

I've been thinking about it for a while. 

Thanks.

[Letti0]

@Adriana100 Go to your Calendar then Availablity Settings and scroll down the page to Sync Calendars. Click on the arrowed circles above the garbage can and they will refresh the bookings on each site. 

[Adriana100]

learned something new everyday. I had no idea! Thanks a lot.