Refund Requests after check-in

[Ann35053]

Hi all

I'm very new to Hosting and was just contacted by a current guest, requesting to change their reservation with a full refund of the remaining nights due to a sudden death in their family.

I asked them to go through the formal AirBnB process and a short while later, I received a formal refund request, which according to AirBnB is up to me to accept or decline. I'm hoping that someone can give me some advice here - will I take the hit and approve this? I don't want to get stung with a bad review and want to be reasonable... is it common that guests want to change their stays after their check in and asks hosts to override the usual cancellation policy?

Thanks in advance!

[Gillian166]

@Ann35053  oh it's a tricky one because sometimes guests lie..... and if it's genuine you want to be empathetic but at the same time it's not your fault this happened, so why do you have to take the financial hit? 

What you can do is offer a refund if you are able to re-book the cancelled nights. A partial refund, keep it vague because you might have to discount to get rebooked. You don't have to refund the airbnb fees, and I don't think abb refund that part anyway.  

the good news is that friday/saturday is easy to rebook. 

[Huma0]

@Ann35053 

You are right to be cautious about this. It is possible that if you accept the request it will be logged as a host cancellation, the same as if the guest sent you the request (if a guest wants to cancel, they should do it and face the penalties, not you!). 

I would follow @Gillian166 's advice here.

For future reference, it is better not to involve Airbnb or tell the guest to contact them. Airbnb in general would rather the host refunds in spite of the cancellation policy, to keep the guest happy. They still get their fee so it's no skin off their noise. CS agents will often try to harangue a host into refunding when they are not obligated to do so. Sometimes, your guest will get a really bad agent who goes ahead and issues the refunded when it is not warranted.

It is better if you take control of your own listing and only involve CS if you have to. I know it can be tricky when a guest tells you of some difficult circumstance.

It's up to you. If you want to refund the guest all remaining nights, do not cancel anything. Send them an alteration request to change the check out date. They need to accept this and then will be refunded accordingly.

Or, if you do not want to, which is fair enough (the guest could have taken out insurance to cover the event of cancellation - it is offered as part of the booking process), follow @Gillian166 's advice. I would also explain to the guest that the host does not get paid until after a guest has checked in, so you wouldn't be able to refund until after that if you do get a new booking. Otherwise, suppose the new booking is cancelled too?

[Agnes520]

Hi my name is agnes from Ireland I’m very new in hosting And decided to put up my property lately this week and join Airbnb but I did not realised as soon as I joined I already got a reservation when I checked my notification through email but I still on the process completing my registration and setting up everything in Airbnb including my account yet and I still to get knowledge how and what else I have to know the platform and so I have to cancel the reservation send message to the prospect guest and apologise for the inconvenience. I don’t want my guest arrived without proper welcome and also a thing occur in the house that’s need attention priority. Thank you for Airbnb they sort out right away preventing my hosting in a bad name or poor review by the time my property will go rolling in due right time but because of what happen I’m got some amount to pay on the next guest make reservations as a consequence. I guess I got penalised for the unintentional mistake..

[Huma0]

@Agnes520 

Turn off Instant Booking! This is how the guest was able to book with you without prior communication. 

Go to your settings (look under policies and rules) and switch it off ASAP. Then, guests will have to send you a request to book (you have to accept or decline within 24 hours) or an enquiry (you just have to respond within 24 hours, but you don't have to accept/decline until they send a booking request).

But really, if you decline too often, that will affect you adversely too, e.g. your listing will go down in search results. I really don't think it's a good idea to have a live listing before it is ready and you know what you are doing (read the help articles on this forum as well as important Airbnb policies, e.g. those regarding host cancellations). I see that you have taken the listing off line, which is wise.

When you are ready, I suggest you start a new listing completely rather than just publish the one you had before. There are two reasons for this:

1. As well as the financial penalties, Airbnb will usually place a note in your reviews saying you cancelled a guest. This is a not a good look when you have no other reviews. I am not sure if they did this with your listing, as I cannot see it on your profile, so I guess they let you off the hook this time.

2. When you publish a new listing, you get an initial boost in the search results (I think it is a month). You want to benefit from this as much as possible.

Also, make sure you check your pricing. Airbnb often applies a discount to new listings for the first few stays. I think you can disable it if you want to, but if you want to go with the discount, make sure you don't have other discounts in place (e.g. long term) that will mean the guest ends up paying so little that it's not worth it for you.

[Gillian166]

@Agnes520  it's a serious flaw that you have to publish your listing before fully completing it or understanding the process, and the default is to allow Instant Booking. 

You didn't "get lucky", Airbnb has charged you for an error that wasn't 100% your fault. That is rude of them. 

@Huma0  has excellent advice as always, I agree to make a duplicate listing (turn off Instant Book!), and use that one instead, turn your calendar dates off and then only open a few months at the time. Until you feel comfortable. Don't accept any long booking from new guests, or anything that seems weird. 

[Helen3]

A difficult one - unfortunately some guests lie. @Ann35053 

I would say I'm so sorry to hear about their loss. And suggest they claim any costs for cancellation against their travel insurance.

Say as a gesture of goodwill on your part you are willing to offer a proportional refund of the HOST fee for any days you are able to rebook.

It is not your job as a host to act as their travel insurance. In effect they are asking you to cover the costs of them having to cancel their booking and for you to be out of pocket.

Just decline the request from the guest for you to refund the rest of the stay and message them with the offer of a refund if the dates get rebooked.

[Gillian166]

@Ann35053 Also if you do try the option of "i'll refund you if I get another booking" make sure to wait 72hours after the replacement booking to issue a refund to the original guest, because that guest has 3 days to complain about something.  

[Huma0]

@Gillian166 

Do you mean 72 hours after the replacement booking has ended?

[Gillian166]

@Huma0  the whole thing is a chain of events, and if we get a last-minute booking who turns out to be a kook, that's related back to the first guest who cancelled. 

[Huma0]

@Gillian166 

I know, but what I meant to ask was, do you mean that they could put in a claim for a refund up to 72 hours after check out and still be eligible? At least that's what I thought you meant.

To be honest, I never thought about it that way before. I only thought about not refunding the previous guest until I had gotten the payout for the next booking, i.e. after the next guests had checked in and payout had been sent and received.

I didn't think about the new guest claiming a travel issue I guess because I've never had a guest do that but, for sure, it could happen...

[Sudsrung0]

@Ann35053 

Well you got some great advise from the ladies here, better than Airbnb CS 

One thing I will say try not to involve airbnb as much as possible, they will pressure you in to giving a refund,

I have had 2 this week, and it was the first time in a long time I have had cancellation request,

The first one I just told him he is the one who has to cancel not me, Please refer to airbnb's T&C you agreed to them when you booked and bye the way it was the day before he was due to arrive, My policy is set to Strict, I didn't give him a refund.

The second one was a bit more difficult as he contacted CS in India sorry "No Refunds"

I had already asked the guest did he have travel insurance which he said yes, OK claim off them,

He was sending me loads of abuse, stupid idiot he was doing it via airbnb messenger so airbnb could see everything, there's another good tip for you always keep on the platform with the guest then you can always prove what was said.

[Ann35053]

@Sudsrung0 @Huma0 @Gillian166 @Helen3 thank you so much for taking taking the time to respond to me, really appreciate it. Steep learning curve!!! I'll definitely be better equipped to respond to and handle the next random query - luckily so far all other guest have been amazing, fingers crossed curve balls like this one don't happen too frequently. 

With the current guest, I encouraged her to speak to her travel insurance and haven't heard anything since 😊 Have a great weekend everyone.

[Huma0]

@Ann35053 

In future, if the guest doesn't have travel insurance to cover it, you could also remind them that they were offered insurance to cover their stay by Airbnb during the booking process.

I have not had to deal with a cancellation, nor an alteration request for a while, except for alterations that were allowed within the long term policy. But, I am thinking of reminding the guests before they book to read the cancellation policy and make sure they have insurance to cover their stay.