guest cancelling but refuses to formally cancel

[S14]

This has happened to me twice:

-- Guest books during worldwide COVID pandemic process

--Before booking is completed, I remind guest of our cancellation policy, with a direct link to it, and advise them to check for travel advisories.

-- Guest says ok and confirms the booking

-- a week or so before check-in, guest "suddenly" realizes there are travel advisories (duh) and says they don't feel comfortable coming, wish to cancel.

-- fine, no problem

-- guest remembers that there is a cancellation policy and writes to DEMAND a full refund.

-- request denied. Referred again to cancellation policy and the AIrbnb Extenuating Cirucmstances policy (which specifically does not apply)

-- guest continues to harrass me daily, demanding full refund

-- guest contacts Airbnb support (fine) but AIrbnb support writes me to ask if I would like to give them a full refund (not OK, seriously not OK)

--guest passive-aggressively refuses to cancel until like 10 minutes before our check-in time -- even though they have known for many days now that they are not coming.

-- Guest gets cleaning fee refunded, but it is too late for me to cancel with the housekeeper because they waited so long. (Yes, I COULD cancel the housekeeper, but she will not keep working for us if we keep cancelling short notice. She has her own life and other jobs which she turns down to save dates for us.)

-- AIrbnb Cancellation policy seems to be that they will refund the cleaning fee as long as the guest never showed up to check in.

I have a lot of problems with this. And it's not just about scheduling the housekeeper. I need to know if they are planning to show up or not --- as far in advance as possible -- for many reasons.  Once they know they are not getting a refund -- but knowing they will get their cleaning fee back no matter what -- there is no incentive for them to push the "cancel" button. They would rather aggravate us -- on purpose it seems -- as a payback for refusing to succumb to their feeling of entitlement, refusing to break our agreed upon cancellation policy to which they agreed.  It's the "me, me, and only me" attitude. Very upsetting.

[Emiel1]

@S14 

Not to mention they are blocking dates on your calender, preventing other guest to book.

[Ute42]

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@S14 

Leave them a horrible review, You're gonna get one anyway.

Just tell the story as it is, no host will accept this guest for future bookings.

[Debra300]

@Ute42, 

The horrible guests will still be able to book with hosts with IB turned on without the host recommendation.  Also, guests can even get Airbnb to get them around this.  When I first opened my Atlanta apartment, I received a call from an Airbnb CS rep asking if I would accept a next day stay, because they had a guest that just had their reservation cancelled the host (they didn't state why).  I said yes, misguided in my assumption that Airbnb wouldn't send me a bad guest.  When I received the confirmation, I looked up the guest's profile, and he had a single review, and it was 1 star.  Host stated that the guest broke several house rules, and smoked weed in the space.  I called back immediately, and said that I was uncomfortable with the guest based upon his review.  Lesson learned: make sure to ask probing questions to everyone who tries to book, even Airbnb reps.

[Susan1188]

With the pandemic this has been happening more and more!

People book now thinking it's a free for all on cancellation regardless of your policy.

I am in the middle of this too today.
Guest said they are not coming - they have a reason but I don't know if it's true or documented - they refused to cancel and is escalating with CS.
So I am ready for check in.

I asked them to please cancel, to free up my dates, and then claim their extenuating circumstance refund (which they will have to justify).

They don't want to do that so are holding their dates.

My question is can they leave a review if they are no-show.  How does ABB know they do not show up.

[S14]

@Susan1188 

I hate to tell you this, but Airbnb doesn't care if they show up or not. They WILL give a no-show a chance to write a review. What baffles me is how or why it could be considered valid for someone to write a review when they never even showed up! But that's how it's handled. In fact, when someone DOES cancel, even far in advance, they are also invited by Airbnb to write a review. And the only time Airbnb will agree to delete a review is if someone writes in a manner which is derogatory.  Of course, a public response can be written to any review.

[Susan1188]

this is not true in my experience, reservations cancelled by the guest cannot leave a review

[S14]

It definitely happened to me twice so far. Before Covid, I didn't get many cancellations, but now... OMG. I asked Airbnb before -- and also asked them recently -- and both times, Airbnb Support told me that guests who cancel can "sometimes" leave a review. I don't understand how Airbnb decides when -- if it's random or based on some secret criteria. LOL -- I could show you one of them, but in that case, the guest's review was derogatory in nature so I did get Airbnb to remove it. In the other case, it was very recent -- this is one where the guest waited until literally 10 minutes before our official check-in time before cancelling (and so she DID get the cleaning fee refunded, although it was too late for us to cancel with our housekeeper). She knew for over a week she was going to cancel but refused to do it until then. The reason she delayed was because Airbnb gave her the impression that the cancellation fee is negotiable. So she felt that if she just kept asking and harassing me (and surely harassing Support also) she thought that eventually  she'd get what she wanted. She didn't get it. But oh boy did I get harassed. Thanks, Airbnb.  Ever wondered why it's so hard to reach Airbnb? Well...

In those circumstances where reviews are invited after a guest cancellation, these review invitations are sent to both the guest and the host.

If you read a lot of reviews, you will probably see, as I have, that there are reviews which simply say "the guest cancelled" or something like that.

Both of my experiences with this were when the guest cancelled the same day as check-in. So, perhaps that is the criteria?  I have not seen any other invitations to review after a cancellation, so I'm thinking that is probably the case.

[Ute42]

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@S14  @Susan1188 

Airbnb states:

• It is true that hosts and guests who cancel a reservation on the day of check-in or later can leave a review, even if the guest doesn’t stay in or enter the listing

Pls check this post:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/To-Clara-Liang-Product-Director-Last-min-cancellation-be...

[S14]

@Ute42 

Thank you. That was really helpful.

Wouldn't you think Airbnb would modify the form of the review questions, since the guest never actually set foot in the space?

[Ute42]

.

@S14  

Airbnb will not modify the form of the review questions.

The function of their policy is to put pressure onto hosts to accept unappropriate guest behavior.

• Guest checks in at 2am

• Guest booked for 2 but shows up with 6

• Guest brings a dog to a no pet listing

You can always deny entry to suche people, but You will get a bad review.

Airbnb is doing this on purpose, they know full well what they are doing.

[Anand247]

There is an issue with the AirBnB cancel feature.  This has bitten me thrice now.  I click Cancel but it is not over there yet - you need to put in some message and then click another button and I think there is still one more step.  If you don't use AirBnB frequently then its hard to remember to click through all their menu forms.  Lousy.  Maybe this happened.