VRBO Host cancelled stay because he forgot to raise rates

[Mindy Jensen]

A friend made a reservation on VRBO for Thanksgiving. The host had a 5-day minimum set and non-holiday pricing in place. (Friend didn't realize it was non-holiday pricing.)

Host sends friend a cancellation notice, and when pressed, responds with "I was traveling overseas, and didn't realize I hadn't set holiday pricing or minimums."

From a traveler standpoint, this is a dirtbag move. It isn't MY fault you forgot to change pricing, and now I have nowhere to stay, I've probably already made airline reservations that will have to be canceled at my expense because YOU forgot to increase your prices, etc. 

While I imagine it sucks to miss out on increased revenue, I feel that these online portals should have a consumer protection policy in place to prevent things like this from happening. 

What is a fair solution to both parties?

[Will C.]

@Julie McCoy

Wouldn't you just be better off in the long run to honor the price/reservation and move along?

[Will C.]

@Lucas Carl

I agree with this post 100%

[Julie McCoy]

Originally posted by @Will C.:

@Julie McCoy

Wouldn't you just be better off in the long run to honor the price/reservation and move along?

 No, but only because the guest cancelled their reservation at my request; it would not have been worth it for me to cancel and take the associated penalties.  And as previously mentioned, I only handled it the way I did because the reservation was a full year in advance, and I caught the error immediately and notified the guest immediately.

[Account Closed]

This happened to me. I host AirBnB's in San Diego and someone booked a year out for Comic Con right after the last one finished. I never had that far out a booking before and hadn't set pricing for the following year in my pricing tool yet. I let him know I wouldn't be able to honor it and he understood it was a too good to be true deal. He asked me what my rate would be and I wound up actually meeting him halfway.

I don't think it's necessarily a dirtbag move on the host's part what happened to your friend and I have a feeling your friend knew to an extent that they found a deal that seemed a little too good to be true themselves. There aren't that many businesses that honor price mistakes and these things do happen. 

What matters a lot here is how long the reservation is held in my opinion. How long a window was there between booking and being notified of the mistake? I think the 30 days the host allowed the reservation to stand is too long and I would have likely eaten the mistake.

In the same vein this occurs with guests when they make a simple mistake within my cancellation policy that won't entitle them to a full refund. I always look at how much time has lapsed. If they held my property up for being booked for a week or longer I'm a lot less inclined to refund them the rest of their reservation. If it's the next day it's a lot easier.

FWIW AirBnB has recently changed it host cancellation punishment at least for superhosts, not sure about non-superhosts to where we're now allowed to cancel up to 1% of our bookings per year before losing superhost status. A welcome change imo.

[Albert Ng]

It’s only September. You have plenty of time to find another place, probably at higher price. The host made a price mistake & don’t want to honor it, that is all. VRBO or Airbnb are like market place. Both guest & host can cancel reservations. A transaction only happen when both agree to it.

[John D.]

We have cancelled bookings due to our rates being inaccurate, or not properly updated, typically because of an issue with one of the pieces of software we use (or in 1 or 2 cases, oversight).  Always within 24 hours of booking.  Weeks later is near inexcusable.

We've had a few times when prices were off by a huge margin due to a software integration issue (priced at 10% of market value for a Festival booking) when someone jumped on the price, and instant booked, when the price was literally only live a few hours.  And when we put in the text of our listing please do not book festivals or major holidays without inquiring first.  A different scenario.

[John D.]

@Account Closed "where we're now allowed to cancel up to 1% of our bookings per year before losing superhost status."  That would be most welcome news!  Do you have a reference for that by chance?  First I've hard of it but seems reasonable and would be super helpful for our business!

[Jason Papp]

@Mindy Jensen

Unfortunately they tend to protect the host 90% of the time.

I had the same thing happen to me on Airbnb. I was booking a rental house in Austin Tx a few years ago, for the 2nd weekend of Austin City Limits (ACL). I booked, it was confirmed and then the following day I got a message saying if I was willing to pay 3x rate I could keep the reservation. I cancelled mostly because I felt like it was unfair, but also because it was ridiculously high. The dates of the festival weekend had been published for over a month, so it was no secret.

I did some research and found that I had no recourse as the renter. Hosts are essential for these short term rental platforms and therefore the rules are set up to protect them first and foremost. Unfortunately I couldn’t leave a review. It simply shows that I had booked and the reservation had been “cancelled by the host”

I'm all for a host pricing things whatever they want and allowing the market to determine if it's fair or not. But retailers can't change the price when you get home with your purchase and STR shouldn't either.

[Tyler Bond]

Yup have had that happen before

[Wendy Fate]

I have made this same mistake, early on in my hosting experience.  It was my mistake for not keeping up with my prices, so I ate the loss.  I can't imagine expensing the consumer for my own negligence and growing pains in running a new business.  

Learn from it and get better.

I now have a system of checking the listing monthly.  Solved.

[Wendy Fate]

We have actually encountered guests in this situation, scrambling to find housing.  We figured out a way to help.  You'll like this story, especially if you have kids and are trying to teach them the business.

We were contacted by a family, traveling from Australia, who had their Airbnb reservation cancelled just 2 weeks prior to their month long visit!  Plane tickets were booked for this summer vacation to visit family when they called us in desperation, even though our ad says 5 night maximum.  

This particular rental is actually part of our personal living space and why we limit it to 5 days.  We only make it available for Nascar Race weekends so that our other STFR is not tied up for those few dates and is available for longer term stays, like travel nurses.  This was a way for us to keep our race team happy and not miss out on long term revenue.   It sounds a little crazy, but we set up our master bed & bath suite with a coffee maker, mini fridge, toaster oven and microwave for those short term stays. Our master walk-in/walk-through closet has a stackable washer/dryer and now included a mini kitchenette, lol.  My husband installed an exterior door in our bedroom so we would have our own private entrance and not have to share any space with the guests. We do our dishes in the bathroom using a plastic bin and dish drain that we setup in our jacuzzi tub. We have a separate stand alone shower that we can still use for bathing, so this actually worked, but only short term for a few days. Until now!

We decided to give up our main living space for the month and stay in our master bedroom suite.  

We kicked our college kids out for the month of July and let this family of four occupy the 3 bedroom/1 bath main level of our home.  We locked off our office and our master suite, giving them the entire 1,000 sf living space with full kitchen, living and dining room all to themselves.  

We figured, the college kids stay gone at friends most of the time, anyway, so we just offered to buy the families' groceries if they could stay for the month. They are close friends and love having our kids over, so it was a good solution. They divided the time between two families and made sure to contribute to the household with cooking and cleaning. (Something they are expected to do at our house, anyway, and a huge help/surprise to these other parents.)  It was a fun experience and they had a story to tell, plus they are learning about rentals and good customer service.  They actually still had to take care of our lawn and wash the guest towels and linens when we were out of town.

The Australians were so impressed and very grateful.  We made some money, but mostly we problem solved a solution and helped the Airbnb community.  

You can do good and do well.  You don't have to choose between the two.

[Theresa Harris]

@Mindy Jensen  They should honor the original agreement.  The person made the booking on good faith.  It wasn't the case that the place was $100 a night and the person made an error when entering the price and put $1.00.  They should get hold of VRBO and file a complaint.

[Rich S.]

In my opinion, the bottom line is if the entire marketplace acted like the host did, nobody would trust the platform.  The "I forgot to change my pricing" is a horrible excuse... the dates are 3 months away and the reservation was in place for weeks.  Like others have mentioned, just a poor way to operate the business from my perspective.  I'd be interested to do an experiment.... If they host would have honored it and made the guest aware, I will honor the price, my mistake... how would the review have been?  What would that review have generated for business?  It would be interesting if you could test this out both ways and see where you end up.  If a resort canceled your stay a month after a reservation was made and a few months before your travel, as a customer, what would be your expectation for compensation?  

[Jennifer Gligoric]

This happened to me through AirBnB with a short term Houston stay during the summer.   They cancelled the night before the stay & said "Oops, just rebook" and sent me the "Host has accepted you..please finish your booking email" - only at a rate $20 more.  When I contacted them they refused to respond.   I contacted AirBnB & I ended up (after my stay, we were lucky enough to just bunk with the friend I was visiting on her air mattress) getting a 20% coupon from AirBnB - and this was a Super Host.  

So even though you can't do anything, Hosts are able to manage their business how they wish, sending a respectful complaint to VRBO might give you a discount.  Good luck!

[Bryce Bender]

@Mindy Jensen

I see, that is a fairly dirtbag type move. As a super host I've found myself stuck with people booking way in advance holidays before I have a chance to up the price. That's mad bad, and my loss. However, I'd argue that platforms like AirBnB and VRBO are already too guest friendly, and have lots of power to hurt the hosts business if they choose. Giving them more ammo isn't good for us investors. I'm sorry for your friends experience, I'd like to think most people aren't that way.

On the other side of the coin I just had this experience as a host. A lady signed up to stay at our AirBnB and paid ahead of time the pet fee. Then 24 hours before her booking she cancels, getting her booking price fully refunded as we offer. However, AirBnB's resolution center (where we do the pet deposits through) closes so you can no longer transfer funds back and forth. So now she wants me to mail her a check refunding her pet deposit, yet her bailing on the booking just a day before left my place vacant for those dates (screwing me over). However, now I'm worried she will complain to AirBnB and they'll somehow punish me as the host if I don't go out of my way to mail her a check refunding her stupid pet deposit.

But his type of worry is what we have as AirBnB holds so much over us hosts.

[Account Closed]

Originally posted by @John D.:

@Account Closed "where we're now allowed to cancel up to 1% of our bookings per year before losing superhost status."  That would be most welcome news!  Do you have a reference for that by chance?  First I've hard of it but seems reasonable and would be super helpful for our business!

I can't find any official policy but I found this discussion topic posted by AirBnB regarding it:

https://community.withairbnb.c...

I know that it's been implemented on my account. One other caveat is that this is for instant book hosts Ithink.

[Braden Trunell]

Like everyone has said, the host is definitely a dirtbag and should honor the reservation. However, he/she does have the right to cancel if they wish. The first thing I would want to do is leave a negative review, but I can see the rental sites now allowing you to leave a review on a cancelled booking, because some hosts may have legitimate reasons to cancel. So, I would definitely call VRBO and see what they can do. I would hope they would do something, like a coupon or discount, as hopefully they do not want to lose the business. I would also hope these rental sites keep track of how many booking hosts are cancelling and penalize them such as not allowing them to rebook the rental for those dates. It would also be great to see these rental sites have a "point of no return" where the host cannot cancel bookings, such as a few weeks before the traveler's stay, so they are not left high and dry right before their stay.

[Nancy Bachety]

This is exactly the reason we don’t do instant book. Admittedly, hosts will probably rave about it, but it stresses me out and I found myself holding my breath when a request came in  if I didn’t adjust pricing yet for months in advance. Pricing companies are definitely not the answer.

You can’t cancel a request but you cancel reservations. Never happens without instant book unless you’re a jerk.

[David Stumpf]

This happened to me when booking a bachelor party in New Orleans. Immediately after booking the owner emailed me and said he forgot that there week was Jazz Fest but honored the price listed.

[Richard Wing]

@Michael Noto do you cancel or force them to do it so they get penalized?

[Michael Noto]

@Richard Wing Force them to do it because if you don't I am pretty sure you get hit with some kind of fee as the vacationer. Even if I didn't get hit with the fee I would still make them cancel. 

Sorry, if they want the extra money that is fine,  but I am not doing them a favor. This is a trip planned months in advance and with one click of a mouse less than a month out they throw the whole trip into limbo. Bad way to do business. 

[Richard Wing]

@Michael Noto Yes, I totally agree. That's what I would have done.

[John Teachout]

We operate 3 airbnb spaces in our home. We are superhosts and I will say that airbnb definitely slants towards the guests. We don't use instant book and thus can refuse any stay requests (we never do) Our cancellation policy is the most liberal with guests being able to cancel with 100% refund up to within one day of the stay. Even still we have had people cancel the day of and want a refund. We just abide by the published cancellation policy. We had a case where someone came, checked in and got a key and then went away to visit some relatives. They wound up not staying (came up with some elaborate story of how their vehicle was damaged and they couldn't get the parts and weren't able to drive it...) Anyway, they brought back the key the next day but wanted a refund. This was on a holiday weekend (same pricing) and we said, um, no as there was no possibility to rebook the room. Airbnb asked us to refund them and we refused as we were abiding by the cancellation policy that they came up with. Eventually Airbnb refunded them out of their skinny pockets.

[Kyle Nelson]

This same scenario happened to my wife’s aunt and uncle that were planning a big family vacation in Maui. They had it booked for months before the host realized they didn’t put the holiday rates in for thanksgiving. It went from $600 night to $1500. Really can mess up a vacation for multiple families.

[Bruce C.]

Originally posted by @Michael Noto:

@Richard Wing Force them to do it because if you don't I am pretty sure you get hit with some kind of fee as the vacationer. Even if I didn't get hit with the fee I would still make them cancel. 

Sorry, if they want the extra money that is fine,  but I am not doing them a favor. This is a trip planned months in advance and with one click of a mouse less than a month out they throw the whole trip into limbo. Bad way to do business. 

Not correct.  The guest can cancel within 48 hours and get every penny back as long as the stay is more than 48 hours out.  I think the hosts should have the same option. 

When I first set up my accounts and was still figuring out how the booking window and seasonal pricing stuff worked, I had someone book a weekend in June and the bike rally in November months in advance.  I lost a couple hundred each weekend.  I now have my base prices set at the highest price id ever set so that when dates open up automatically I won’t lose money if someone books them before I adjust them