Booking for my listing and other listing for same dates.

[Vincent-and-Martina-0]

We had a booking from a family from overseas for 2 weeks in high season, which they made about 6 months in advance. Five days before their due arrival date they cancelled out totally, citing work commitments. This left us with no bookings for our listing for those two peak weeks. (due to other commitments we dont do last minute bookings)
Some weeks after I looked up their reviews. They had stayed in a listing in this country about 100 mls away, during the same dates as they had cancelled for us. I know a variant of this practice was rampant in the Restaurant industry for some years, with people making multiple bookings, then on the night choosing one to go to and in most cases not even bothering to cancel the rest. We have fallen victim to this double/multiple booking practice so I am sure it has happened to other listings.
We are at a loss to know how we can avoid it happening again. We feel if we increase the severity of our cancellation policy we will affect our business. We tend to get people booking several months in advance and we think people will be afraid of losing half their booking fee. Can any host give us some suggestions or any thoughts they have on this. Many thanks.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Vincent-and-Martina-0 Sadly the only choice you have is to strengthen your cancellation policy. We always used Strict as we wanted any reservations we got to be as solid as possible. With the current glut of short term rental properties guests will sensibly book one as a fallback and then see if anything better/cheaper is available last minute.

[Vincent-and-Martina-0]

Thanks for your reply. When you say they will sensibly book one as a fallback am i to understand that this could be a common practice in Airbnb and that actually we have been lucky that it only happened to us once. ?

[Joan2709]

@Vincent-and-Martina-0 

Yes, this is becoming more and more common, especially in saturated markets.

[Vincent-and-Martina-0]

Oh.!    Well thank you for letting us know.  I think we will have to look at our cancellation policy.  If we were unlucky enough  to have several in one season it would really hurt

[Shelley159]

Hi @Vincent-and-Martina-0 

The way I see it, one essentially chooses between being flexible in total, or not. If you can be flexible, then flexible cancellation, but also flexible to receive last-minute bookings if someone cancels.

If you have a cancellation five days before someone arrives (like in this case) and your situation is such that you can't accommodate someone else in their place, perhaps that is better matched with a stricter policy.

I do understand why you are annoyed at these guests - they seem to have no consideration for the host's position.

[Vincent-and-Martina-0]

@Shelley159 Thank you for your reply..  Yes. I suppose you are right.!  We have to decide to be totally flexible or not.  I was just asking in case we were missing some other option.

[Helen3]

Yes use a stricter cancellation policy @Vincent-and-Martina-0 to avoid being out of pocket for last minute cancellations. 

[Vincent-and-Martina-0]

@Helen3 Thank you for that. ....  A view on the strict cancellation policy.......  When we were first considering our policy we had felt that if a guest say books months in advance and then stand to lose  money if they cancel after 30 days, that this would deter most people from  making a booking with us.  I know it would us if we were booking with another host. They may still be several months away from what was their original  intended travel date and yet they lose money. 

After the much appreciated reply's that we have received I am wondering is the Airbnb cancellation policy a fairly blunt instrument, and definitely  needs a little tweaking.   Is the market evolving in such a way that there is a danger of  putting their business model in jeopardy. ? If the practice of multiple booking becomes the norm how long can hosts put up with that. When is a booking not a booking.? Will host move their listings to another platform .? 

I think as a help to us, a feature that shows on a guests profile how many times a person has cancelled bookings in the past would be of some help.