The Guest did not Show Up

[Julie319]

I had a group of seven coming in yesterday that have not responded to any of my messages regarding check-in details (I've reached out through Airbnb, text and calling) and then did not show up last night.  First time I've had this happen and not sure what to do.  

There's been no communication since the reservation was accepted and they are also supposed to stay tonight.  

What are my options here?  I'm a little weirded out by the radio silence.

J

[Nicole2907]

Hi Izzie!

We are new to hosting our home in Curacao.  And our first reservation  for our home was booked on 10/20 with check in today 10/23/22 but I have not been able to make contact with them. I have emailed and called them everyday since the day they booked and sent my last email at 10 pm Thai evening.  I have tried emailing them within the AIRBNB app, calling and emailing directly to their personal email and Airbnb has tried calling as well.  
Because this is the first guest we are hosting we got everything ready at the house and even bought them a nice bottle of local wine as a welcome gift.  At this point what do we do? Since we are new hosts will this affect my host rating? What do others in this forum handle these types of situations? Also, can you share your templates with me as well?

Thank you

Nikki

[Sam237]

I have never had  a no show. But it's great to read everyone's responses to have an idea of what to do. 

[Ronila0]

Ive also experienced a no show-up , the guest gave me a wrong num that i kept contacting and trxting and stayed til 1 am waiting for their arrival, but on the following morning , ive got a message from thwm nd telling me their reasons they got lowbatteries and no chance to communciate with me and they continue to travel instead to stay. And now they afe aaking for refund , will you help me decide on this matter?

[Kyli3]

Keep your money! if you refund them then you have lost out on income due to them changing their minds. i would tell them to forget it!

[Peter75]

Hi,

can you advise of the outcome in this case. it happened to me too recently and i refused the refund request from the guest as his booking blocked another guest from booking with  me. He has appealed to AIRBNB

best

peter

[John1080]

@Ronila0, you have no reason to refund them. They made a booking, had the nerve not to contact you at all, did not show up and now want a refund? I don't think so! 

[Amy812]

I have a no-show situation right now for a 2-day reservation during UVA graduation weekend--our busiest tourist weekend. She reserved back in January and we exchanged friendly messages then.

In anticipation of her visit, I began Airbnb-messaging her three weeks ago. I have sent 4  such messages, two emails (using the email address Airbnb gives for her), and have left THREE voicemails in the past week and a half. No response. (I’m actually concerned she may have died!)

My checkin window is 4-6 and just ended. No response.

So for a 2-night stay, I consider the first night’s checkin window to be the only checkin period of the stay—and therefore I shouldn’t have to wait for them in case they want to check in tomorrow. Especially with zero communication!

Normally, i wouldnt feel burdened, and would just hang out both days. But I am helping with an urgent family situation 100 miles away and will be there tomorrow till 10pm. And I actually came home today solely for the purpose of honoring my hosting obligation.

What do you think of any or all aspects of this situation?

[Sarah977]

@Amy812I wouldn't wait and just expect (or wonder if) a guest to show up if they had failed to answer 4 messages, 2 emails and 3 voice mails. If a guest fails to answer my messages, and doesn't respond to texts, emails or phone calls, I contact Airbnb. and ask them to make contact. I would have done that after 2 unanswered messages and 1 unanswered email. 2 or 3 strikes. 

I would have done the same as you, though, as far as waiting around for these guests. I might wait for an hour past check-in, nothing more. But alerting Airbnb that they haven't responded for 3 weeks to any of your attempts to contact might come in handy if they show up at midnight tonite and phone Airbnb in a huff, demanding their money back.

[Amy812]

Thank you so much for your reply! I left that part out but Yes, that is exactly what I did - only four days ago, though. I wrote to ask them to contact her using the Contact Us/Help option. I got an auto reply saying my issue had been forwarded to a specialist who could help me. Alas, I’ve heard nothing more. Have they been responsive to you in the past?

I will take your advice about making extra sure to record their not showing up and so forth. And I will head out of town tomorrow without feeling like I “owe” them a second checkin window 4-6.

Again, I really appreciate your input. I’m pretty new to this and incredulous that a guest would do this. And yet I feel bad that she might end up stuck with nowhere to stay on a weekend when the whole town is booked!

[Sarah977]

@Amy812  Some guests don't know to turn on their Airbnb notifications in their profile, so once they've booked, unless they have questions to ask you, they may never check their account for messages. But that's not an excuse for not answering messages, emails or their phone. I get what you mean about thinking maybe she died or maybe had some serious accident or something. But some people are weird- they'll book and then just show up at the door 2 months later (my guests don't, but I've read here on the forums about that)

I have had to ask Airbnb to contact the guest 3 times over the last 2 and a half years. But that was when I didn't get a response in 5 days or so, not for 3 months. Twice the guests had been somewhere, camping in one case, and at a retreat in the other, where they had no Wifi or cell signal (at least that's what they said). In the third case , the guest had had a death in the immediate family and was consumed by it- her Airbnb messages and answering her phone was far from her mind. I'm quite sure that one was true because she cancelled, sent a super apologetic message, said she never got any notifications of my messages, and never asked for a refund.

Yes, Airbnb was responsive and did get ahold of the guest, in the last case, it took them 3 days to reach her.

I can never remember from one time to the next how I get there, but yes, I used the Contact Us message function to contact CS. But I did it contacting them about that specific reservation- there's a place where your active reservations come up in that Help/Contact section and the message is related to that reservation, not a general contact box. They seem more quickly responsive to those messages about a specific reservation.

Personally I get stressed with last minute stuff, so I send my guests a map to my place (via email) and a message re check-in, etc, one week before arrival (most people book here at least 2 weeks before check-in date) and ask them to confirm that they got it. If I don't hear back, I try once more, and might send a text message to tell them to check their Airbnb messages. 

[Pete69]

It's not fair to be shut out of business because someone is a no show. Refer them to argue with Airbnb support. Tell them that Airbnb runs the show.

[Amy812]

Ah! Good to know that they may not be checking AirBnB messages. Normally I would have waited till a week before but I reached out three weeks before because of a scheduling issue. In the end, they did not show or calls AirBnB CS was very helpful by phone and I was paid the full amount.

The rep said that if a person arrives past the agreed-upon window or time, the host has no obligation to accept them. So even if my guest had called that night or the next day and said “Hey, running late but on my way!” it would have been within my “rights” to decline and I’d still get paid.

[Chris-And-Mièle0]

Yes. That's good to know. But as of my story (read below), believe it or not they would still be able to leave you a nasty 1 star review even though they did not stayed at your property.  AIRBNB should definitely do something about that. What a ridiculous policy is that?  

[Zappa0]

I think sometimes guests decide not to come on vacation and if you have strict cancellation they probably think "I won't get my money back anyway." 

[Amy812]

Makes sense! I did that with plane tickets once.