Hi Rob, @Robin4
Thank you ever so much for the very solid and considered advice.
The situation has evolved very quickly and I'm now facing a whole different issue!
BTW, it’s not the flat associated with this email. It's a property in Tel Aviv 35902605
To respond to your questions, being in Thailand, I'm remote from the property but I'm very hands on in terms of communications with guests and have an excellent local team in place who do whatever's necessary on the ground.
I now suspect that the guests are exaggerating the impact of the flaking paint to justiy leaving early (for personal reasons) without penalty.
I've been very transparent with the guests about the damp damage and the steps we are taking to resolve it (they faciliated access for a decorator to visit for a quote). The discolouration and occasional flakes of plaster were not an issue for them until 6 weeks into their stay when they raised the flaking plaster as a significant concern. I arranged the temporary fix which, although not perfect, was a big improvement. Now the flat has been vacant for a few days, we've seen that there are just a few flakes that fell behind a speaker in the living room. Not a spec in the bedroom. Their statement that the current situation made their stay ‘extremely unpleasant’ doesn't fit with the reality.
It's no longer relevant to my issue as they been refunded and left but one doesn't usually expect glowing reviews from guests who behave like this.
You're absolutely right; I made a huge mistake in asking them to pay for the additional night. Having refunded them for 1 month, 1 additional free night might have kept them onside. Lesson learned (I hope!)
I really like your suggestion to be upfront and constructive about resolving the pending issue and proposing that it's done after the review process; reasonable & fair. I’m filing that one as a gem.
Shortly after my original posting (I couldn't see how to update it), events moved quickly and I'm now facing a completely different issue!
Here’s the new issue and it’s with Airbnb and not the guest:
As you saw, the guests asked for a partial refund for the last week of their stay and they did this by contacting Airbnb support. They have not contacted me directly about this and did not submit a claim in the Resolution Centre. Here's the message (verbatim with personal ID removed) that I received from Airbnb support after the guests had called them to ask for a partial refund:
"Hope you are having a good day, we are contacting you because your guest NAME with reservation code XXXX ,we want to thank your be a superhost! ,NAME had some problems since monday due a problems with cleaning on the listing and we are mediating a refund for 30% of the affected nights starting from 22/05/2023 until the check out. thank you for understanding”
There was no information on what steps I should take to clarify or resolve this and I replied to the Agent requesting a link to Airbnb's mediation process as I was not familiar with this process. The agent didn't send a link and, after some delay, send me a message asking if they could me. I provided a number and followed up again to agree a time but they didn't reply or call.
In the meantime, the guest checked out and, within 6 hours of leaving, left a review.
They wrote their review in the belief that they had made a request to me for a partial refund which I had not responded to. In fact, I have not received a claim, just the above message from the Airbnb agent. If the agent they spoke to had appropriately advised them to submit a claim through the Resolution Centre, I would have had a chance to respond.
I'm now in a position that the giuest has left me a possibly negative review that is at least partially due to an error by Airbnb support.
My thinking is that I need Airbnb support to:
1. acknowledge that my guest was given incorrect advice on how to claim a partial refund which meant that they did not open a case in the Resolution Centre.
2. accept that this error prevented me from responding to te guest's 'claim'
3. appreciate that consequent to 1. & 2, the guest submitted their review mistakenly believing that they had made a claim for a partial refund that I had not responded to
4. protect me, as a superhost, from the negative impact of the incorrect advice they provided to my guest
5. recognising that the most reasonable way to do this is to not publish their review.
I’ve had this raised to an Airbnb support supervisor who advises that this is not covered by Airbnb's policy and that they can't take any action. They recommended that I contact them again once the report has been published. Once it's published there will be consequences for me.
Does my logic that Airbnb support have contributed to a likely negative reviuew seem reasomable? Are there other apprioaches I could take? How best to engage Airbnb at a sufficiently senior level so be able to help with something that’s not covered by policy?
I'd really appreciate your thoughts, suggestions, advice (and anyone else's) on this?
Cheers
Bradley