Guest wants full refund with last minute cancellation

[Scott1282]

Hi, all - I am thankful for the opportunity to put this sticky question out there for feedback.

A guest suddenly wants to cancel an upcoming 45-day reservation at the beginning of August. The reservation was made five months ago at the beginning of February, and she is now stating that she thought my property was a lighthouse, despite the listing stating nothing of the sort. There is a photo of a nearby lighthouse in the listing.

AB&B is asking me to be generous and give a full refund. Problem is, the property has been off the market since February which means I have to hope that it will get booked quickly after the reservation is cancelled. On top of that, the booking is only available on a monthly basis since my HOA won't allow anything shorter than 30 days. I recently had a 60-day booking cut in half which left me with a 28-day gap I was unable to fill.

TBH I would rather eat part of the cost by offering a partial refund. What would be fair in this case?

Thanks for any helpful suggestions!

PS my property has 100% 5-star reviews, and I was just awarded Superhost status for the 4th or 5th year in a row.

[Scott1282]

Hi, Joan - it’s obvious that you did not read the description either. The space is not shared. It’s a fully independent wing of my house with a separate entrance.

[Joan2709]

Hi @Scott1282 

I actually did read the listing...I think perhaps you misunderstood my post?

I didn't say the listing was a shared space....I said the bed is in a common area inside the property and not in a separate room with walls and a door:

"What is a studio apartment?

A common studio apartment does not have a bedroom that is separate from the living room or kitchen."

Since your listing states "1 bedroom" guests might be expecting a separate bedroom with walls and a door where the bed is.  Your queen bed is in a common living space (near kitchen) and not in a separate room. 

[Scott1282]

Hi I wanted to say thanks to all the Superhosts here who have contributed to this discussion. The guest decided to stick with the booking after being advised by an AB&B Ambassador. Not my preference, as I offered to refund half of the 6 week fee.

My concern now is that I have a guest who is stuck with a booking they didn't want. I can only hope that they have accepted that they have to bear responsibility for the error since they're a two-time AB&B user and simply did not know any better.

However, in response to those of you who urged me to change the listing in so many ways: some of your advice made sense, other suggestions would just be pandering to guests who don't take responsibility for their own errors in judgement. I feel pretty strongly since out of 50-60 bookings, this is the one and only time this type of situation has come up. Which tells me it's an outlier.

As for those urging blanket forgiveness: this guest did raise new issues at the last minute to try and get out of the booking, such as: the location was inconvenient, concerns about accessibility, etc. Completely disingenuous and fairly transparent.

Under the circumstances, I felt it was necessary to establish some boundaries since my experience as a host and an observer of human nature tell me that I have to make very sure that the guest clearly and unambiguously understands what to expect, so I followed up with a long list of just that. I also want them to know that casually cancelling a 5-month old reservation for a six week stay is completely unacceptable. For those of you who advocate caving to the whims of an indecisive guest, I don't play that game. Sorry. Think what you will.

PS: AB&B support for hosts sucks. Period. After hearing that the guest decided to keep the reservation, I inquired about my rights if I decided to cancel anyway. I would end up paying a $600 penalty, the original booking period would be blocked from any new reservations, and I would lose my Superhost status.