My answer may not be popular, but if it was me, I would just leave the chair out there with the burn hole in it. As long as it doesn’t affect the chair structurally, I wouldn’t bother to go through all the hassle you will have trying to get Airbnb support to help you, and trying to get the guests to pay. The guests would have to admit they had done it. They might not even know they did and you have no real proof they did. They could claim it was there before and you (or your cleaners) just didn’t notice before. It just doesn’t seem worth it to me for small cosmetic damage. There are WAY bigger problems you could have, believe me. For example, a recent guest broke off a piece of my gutter while driving out with their huge trailer (that they did not inform me they would be brining to my property). The only reason I knew was because I have an outdoor security camera that shows the driveway and part of the front porch. I usually check it on the day of checkout to see if the guests have left on time. That’s when I saw the massive vehicle attempting to exit my driveway. It looked like the piece fell right into the back of their trailer after they hit it. That piece of the gutter was nowhere to be found in my driveway. I messaged the guest to simply ask if they could take a look in their vehicle for it because it would be easier to fix it if I had the original piece. I never anything back from them, and still to this day months later not a word. I had to call a handyman that day to go to Lowe’s and buy a replacement and fix it before the next guests arrived. It was fine, not too much trouble and not a total disaster luckily (I kept telling myself it could have been worse, they could have taken out the whole porch post the gutter was attached to). But I didn’t think a small piece of the gutter was worth the trouble of trying to get a non-responsive guest to pay me.
Anyway, I guess my point is, you gotta pick your battles. You are going to experience way more problems than that. And also as a suggestion…. I have learned a long time ago to not have anything really nice at my Airbnb. I hate to sound negative here, but it’s just the nature of having complete strangers come and stay at your property. Things are going to happen. And if I insisted that every guest pay me back for something they broke or ruined, I’d probably have a lot of negative reviews and not repeater guests. You just never know if that guest has recommended your place to all their friends and family (who could be potential guests). Otherwise if you get Airbnb involved in reimbursement for something they don’t even know they did, it food go the other way: they could blast you on social media, complaining about your place and telling everyone how awful their experience was, etc. Again, to me, none of that is worth it.
