Once again, I’ve had guests fail to show up for a three-day weekend reservation. I accepted the request from a nice retired couple, not newbies, two weeks ago. I accepted their reservation and sent them a welcome email. Then, the day of their expected arrival, I wrote another email, trying to determine their arrival time, but I heard nothing. I share my home with my guests.
Finally, at 11:30pm, I thought I should call, to be sure they were safe. I clearly awoke them, and there was some confusion. My guest said she was at my house, when she most certainly was not. Eventually, the woman said she’d never received confirmation from Airbnb, and that she’d booked another place. She was still confused when I hung up, as was I, because my app clearly told me I’m hosting them. I have a strict cancellation policy, which I’ll mention, because of what follows.
Before going to sleep, I called Airbnb and asked what could have happened. I asked how my guest could even BE double-booked. The agent had no idea what could have occurred, and opened a case. I went to sleep.
Next day, I received a text to my home number from the guest, apologizing for the mixup. She says one of her email accounts is “not working,” and that’s why she didn’t receive confirmation. She says she got busy and forgot to investigate further. She says she went to the Airbnb site to look for it, and she couldn’t see it, because “it turns out [she] was using a different email account, so [she] made another one.”
The explanation is confusing, to say the least, but it hides an abject failure on the part of Airbnb to check the telephone number and email address of guests during the reservation process. People change numbers and addresses all the time. Yet Airbnb doesn’t verify those essential pieces of contact information. Had they done so, my guest would have known immediately which email address to check, or she could have changed the address right there. None of this confusion could have occurred.
I’ve experience problems due to this failure more than once, and I’ve written repeatedly to Airbnb asking them to program this vital change to the reservation process. One guest went to the wrong house, to the back door, late in the evening (I received a message in the app), and I couldn’t telephone him to get out of there before something terrible happened, because the number Airbnb provided was not in service.
To top off this story, the rep I called wrote me a long email late the next day asking me, in the spirit of community and generosity, to refund the guest, regardless of both my cancelation policy and the fact that the problem was a foreseeable one, due to the failure of Airbnb to verify the guest’s contact information.
I don’t think the guest will write me directly to ask for a refund, but the Airbnb CS mounted a pressure campaign to urge me to give up my weekend to them: “Considering the importance of fairness and community spirit, we kindly request if you would be willing, as an act of goodwill, to offer X a refund or even a partial refund. While we acknowledge your right to uphold your cancelation policy, we sincerely urge you to take this situation into consideration. Your understanding and flexibility would be greatly appreciated.” SERIOUSLY??
I wrote back that I felt the problem belongs squarely in Airbnb’s lap, not mine. I thanked her for her collaboration and said I was eager to hear her resolution, mirroring the language she’d used at the end of her pressure campaign.
Do you think we might team up and get this needed change made to the reservation process?
