when should I refund/partly refund?

[Anne355]

Hi, 

I have a guest who has not shown up, "because of traffic in Paris". 

I know from another guest that there was no traffic in Paris today.

But I understand that the former might have had traffic problems in some other town. 

Amyway, the guest says she  can not make it to my place today.

Question is, should I refund her for this non-night (she told me at 9 pm, after a sms of mine) ?

If so, I would opt to refund only half, because I am clearly not responsible of what may happen 1000 kms away, and I've cleaned the room up for her.

Besides, I know for sure that there is no traffic from Paris onwards i.e. in the last 300 km (other guest's sayings, she travelled from there after the one who supposedly "was stuck").

most important, subsidiary question: should I refund the guest half, all, or nada, if I'd like the guest to give me 5* ??? 

( i hope I'd get 5* if I refunded 500% but I'm not up to)

What would you do? 

thanks,

Anne

[Beth80]

@Anne355   You had to contact her? At 21:00 ?  I personally would not give her anything. 

You cleaned the room and waited for her to show. When she didn't you contacted her and she gives you a possibly fake reason. She should have contacted Airbnb to cancel when she realized she wasn't going to make it. 

If it was me I would contact her through the site, so there is official proof. Tell her that if she wants any refund she needs to contact Airbnb herself. And I would contact Airbnb and explain the situation before she does. Hoping that they side with you. But this take the pressure off of you and puts it on her and the company. The worse part is that she can review you, even though she never stayed. 

I hope it works out well for you.

[Sarah977]

@Anne355  You can't count on a guest like this giving you a 5* review even if you refunded her in full. She doesn't deserve any refund, she majorly inconvenienced you without even the manners to let you know she was running late. And you have knowledge that she lied about the reason. 

I'd second the course of action that @Beth80  suggests.

[Inna22]

@Anne355  Did she ask for the refund? If not, I would not even bring it up. And if she does, no refund is due. You can explain that the room was put aside for her and you could not accept another booking 

[Kath9]

@Anne355, no, definitely not. If she does ask for a refund, I would possibly refund the cleaning fee only (if you have one) but otherwise no. There is no guarantee she will give you a 5 star review or even review you at all whether or not you refund her. If she gives you a bad review based on you not refunding her, you can leave a public response and/or ask Airbnb to have it removed. 

[Inna22]

@Kath9 I would even say cleaning should only be refunded if @Anne355 cleans herself. If she paid someone else and they could not be cancelled at that point, no refund on cleaning fee either. 

[Kath9]

@Inna22, true - I forget that other people actually pay cleaners!

[Anne355]

thank you for feedback.

Actually the guest showed in the following day (she booked for 2 nicghts). She partly broke my key box (which never happened in one year) and stayed locked in her room from 7 pm (when I came back from work) to 9 am (when I got back to work on the following day), mostly on the phone.

I did not dare to disturb her to say hello ...

now she has left. 

Everything is perfectly clean (well, I am quite sure she did not use the bathroom at all). 

Really weird experience. 

Not having seen her (while she slept one night within the house I live in), I dod not propose to refund for the night she did not spend there ... 

I know from experience that my place rents much better when on instant booking, so I suppose that I cannot prevent from this happening from time to time....