I have an AirBnB guest demanding a full refund claiming her flight from San Diego to Houston on Friday was canceled due to weather. The weather forecasts in both cities (and the common connecting hubs) are going to be quite pleasant, so I think she's full of ***** She has not provided flight information and all the major airlines don't list cancellations that far out on their websites.

Flight Aware is the only other place you could check, but I doubt it shows anything. Southwest was cancelling flights a day or two out during their big disaster after Christmas, but that was a very unusual situation.

I'd be asking for proof of cancellation - in the form of the communication the airline sent her confirming that the flight was cancelled.

TXTransplant said:

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Flight Aware is the only other place you could check, but I doubt it shows anything. Southwest was cancelling flights a day or two out during their big disaster after Christmas, but that was a very unusual situation.

I'd be asking for proof of cancellation - in the form of the communication the airline sent her confirming that the flight was cancelled.

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I didn't know Flight Aware tracked that info.

She's a liar.

Quote:

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Total delays Friday at San Diego Intl: 0
Total delays within, into, or out of the United States Friday at San Diego Intl: 0
Total cancellations Friday at San Diego Intl: 0
Total cancellations within, into, or out of the United States Friday at San Diego Intl: 0

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Anecdotal, but I am not sure the airline communicates such decisions internally. Friend is an AA pilot in DFW. Put his chains on and reported to work yesterday only to sit around as they cancelled flight after flight until his itinerary was not workable and he came home.

Would be highly unusual to know a flight cxl 2 days ahead in my experience.

From the AirBnB side (we are hosts as well), I'd be weighing the cost of the stay against your tolerance for a potentially bad review.


I really don't like getting negative reviews so we tend to be pretty forgiving with cancellations. Given that there is a weather event in Texas right now, I hate to say it, but I think most readers of those reviews are going to side with the guests perspective. So you may be justified on principal, but it might not be a good business decision.


If it was a lengthy stay, you might offer a compromise, middle ground. We've done that before.

If she cancels her booking, she doesn't get to review us. For that matter, if she doesn't cancel, but never shows up, she still can't review us as long as we can prove she never showed up.

ETA: We told her to edit her booking down to only one night, let us approve the change, and then cancel so she only takes the non-refundable hit for one night. Her response was to demand a full refund, even though she agreed to our cancelation policy when booking.

ETAA: Our practice is to credit the non-refundable amount toward a future booking.

I would just ask her for proof of the cancelled flight or re-booking or whatever, email, screen shot, whatever she has.

I would add, and its quite unlikely, too, but its not impossible that the flight wasn't cancelled but she's gotten bumped (pretty early) due to other cancellations or something. I don't know, just thinking of all the possibilities

Ryan the Temp said:

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If she cancels her booking, she doesn't get to review us. For that matter, if she doesn't cancel, but never shows up, she still can't review us as long as we can prove she never showed up.

ETA: We told her to edit her booking down to only one night, let us approve the change, and then cancel so she only takes the non-refundable hit for one night. Her response was to demand a full refund, even though she agreed to our cancelation policy when booking.

ETAA: Our practice is to credit the non-refundable amount toward a future booking.

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Good to know. We are just shy of a year doing this (I'm figuring out taxes this week, ugh), and my wife really runs the place. She probably knows that you can't review in that situation but I clearly didn't.

Given that offer you made her, I'd stick to you guns. Tell her to take your very reasonable offer, or leave it, but if she leaves it, she's going to lose out. She can take it up with Air BnB. Although the one negative is that she's still holding up one day on your booking schedule, and we get a lot of last minute bookings. Not sure if you do or not.

On an aside, we set up a general partnership (a one-page filing with the County) and we write off everything as a business expense: utilities, maintenance, cleaning supplies, mileage to buy stuff, and even landscaping because the appearance of the property is an important aspect of attracting guests. We are allowed to consider the entirety of the space a "home office" because it's used solely for the business. We file jointly and split the expenses and revenue down the middle when filing taxes.

Generally, the only time you will know 2 days out about a POTENTIAL cancellation or disruption, is when there is a major weather event forecast. Airlines then issue waivers to allow you to change/cancel your flight at no cost, to help prevent stranding a ton of people. That may be what she is referring to, but my guess is she is FOS and just changed her plans.

Ryan the Temp said:

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On an aside, we set up a general partnership (a one-page filing with the County) and we write off everything as a business expense: utilities, maintenance, cleaning supplies, mileage to buy stuff, and even landscaping because the appearance of the property is an important aspect of attracting guests. We are allowed to consider the entirety of the space a "home office" because it's used solely for the business. We file jointly and split the expenses and revenue down the middle when filing taxes.

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Thanks for the tip... hadn't thought of calling it a home office. I think all the other stuff we are pulling in as expenses. I think because of all the startup costs to get our place up and running, we are going to report no income this first year. My wife also had a direct sales business and it exploded this year, I was getting really nervous at first about a big tax bill but I'm slowly whittling it down!

Make taxes great again!

I need closure; What was the final outcome?

Irish 2.0 said:

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I need closure; What was the final outcome?

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We did not grant her request for an exception to our cancelation policy. We did, however, offer to apply the non-refundable amount toward a future booking.

We also booked the days she canceled within 12 hours of the cancelation, so we came out ahead.