Cancellation before arrival

[Ardi248]

I own a villa near the beach here in South Albania and I’ve been renting it for nearly 3 months. So guys I’m new to this. Being new, I set up my cancellation policies as Moderate, meaning 5 days prior arrival. I got a reservation 2 months before his arrival date. So I was happy about it. Than the guy messaged me asking to bring to 2 extra friend. I agreed. After a little while he wanted cleaning during stay. I agreed and said him you don’t have a pay a penny for it, I will take care of it for you. So 6 days before his arrival he canceled his reservation saying he had some problem with his daughter health. I wished him all the best but what makes me doubt if he was telling the truth is that a day later he would have got penalties if canceled. What makes me upset is the fact that I got 7 days blocked for 2 months and unblocked 6 days before. I don’t think that’s fair because the summer here doesn’t last very long and these are the only time when we get to work. What do you guys think about this case? What do you suggest me to do? What cancellation policy should I use? Thank you everyone. Hugs!

[Helen3]

I think if you don't want to risk a guest cancelling at the last minute don't use a moderate or flexible cancellation policy @Ardi248  or you will encourage people who book who may want to change or cancel their arrangements.

I charge extra for extra guests and if guests require extra cleaning then I would charge them for it  (I price in weekly cleans for longer stay guests ). 

[Ardi248]

Thank you Helen for your reply. What if your house capacity is 4 people. You get the booking for 2. After a while this person wants to officially add 2 extra people. Do you charge them?

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Ardi248 You really need a strict or firm cancellation policy. We use Strict and accept we lose some peoples bookings but those we get will be more likely to be honoured. I have a theory that people book moderate and/or flexible and then they see, just before the free of charge cancellation runs out, if anything better/cheaper is available and, if it is, they swap to it.

On people numbers I disagree with @Helen3 . We have a price for our apartment that sleeps 6. It is the same price if 2, 4 or 6 people book it. Recently we had a booking for 3 people and a change request to take it to 6 which we agreed to (at no extra charge). Now if we did have a cheaper price for say 4 people and extra charges for guests 5 and 6 we would be forever worrying as to how many people were staying in the apartment and some guests would certainly try to rip us off.

I should say Helen is not wrong - every host has different ways of doing things and different criteria so we all have to Mae our own decisions.