All Forum Posts by: Carolyn Fuller

Heads up, South Korea is now forcing Airbnb to offer full refunds to South Korean guests all the way up to the final day of the reservation. Airbnb gives hosts the opportunity to decline the reservation. If the reservation is just for a couple of days, I accept it. Longer and I would reject it.

A lot of my guests expecting full refunds are coming from East Asia. I'm now wondering if that isn't a cultural difference. Perhaps the East Asian hospitality industry provides full refunds no questions asked. 

I worked for a US retail company that had a policy of accepting returns no questions asked and even when I accidentally uncovered someone seriously abusing the policy, my bosses wouldn't pursue the matter. 

As a host, when I treat the expectation as a cultural misunderstanding, as opposed to spoiled guest syndrome, the whole experience goes much more smoothly. 

I'm not sure why this is happening, but I seem to be getting a lot more people who want to cancel and get full refunds in the 11th, 12th or 13th hour than ever before.

I found the hard "no" led to headaches so I switched to, "if it is rebooked, I will give you a refund." That has worked out much better.

Some of my 11th hour cancellations end up deciding to come after all. 

My 13th hour cancellation was someone who had booked for 3 weeks and after a week announced that her plans had changed and she was leaving the following morning. She wanted a full refund on the 2 weeks she was cancelling. 

She finally accepted that she wasn't getting a refund if the unit wasn't rebooked. She monitored the bookings and asked me to slash my prices in hopes of getting bookings. I did as she asked and managed to book 6 of the 14 nights she had cancelled. And that was at bargain basement prices! After removing the expenses involved with turnovers, she is getting back a 1/4 of what she lost in that cancellation. 

It was slightly more work on my part but a ton fewer headaches. She isn't thrilled that her refund is so low but I was able to give her an exact account of the revenue minus expenses and she thanked me.

Far fewer phone calls. Far less of a headache. I'm happy and the guests are reasonably ok. The ones who decided to come, after all, left 5 star reviews.

 Huge hit! Anyone who is able to leave a bottle of wine for their guests should do it. On the other hand, the croissant are cheaper, local and work pretty darn well.

 I am but our cleaning crew does it for us if we are out of town. We live right over the apartment.

 I don't think you will see much movement in your reviews with Dave's cookies. If there is anything in the resort area that your on the ground crew could pick up and provide, that will make a difference. There's something special about being offered small local items. 

 Unfortunately, some blue law states (e.g., Massachusetts) don't allow us to leave alcohol in our Airbnbs... Sigh...

My ratings & reviews improved substantially when I went from providing quality chocolate & fresh flowers to providing croissant from a local bakery. Expenses went down and ratings / reviews went up.

I did the switch after staying in an Airbnb that provided both flowers and local bakery goodies. My husband & I really appreciated the bakery goods, not only because they were tasty but because they left the address for us so we could continue delighting in the offerings. We didn't even notice the amazing fresh flower arrangement for almost 24 hours!  

I immediately got home and created a laminated note about the unique local bakery, which bakes the best croissant I have ever tasted, including the croissant I had in Paris, just around the corner of the Airbnb listing. I leave the laminated note plus the croissant and no flowers.

Local goodies win out over anything else you can provide.

Yep. I have a 2-person unit with a glass top dining table and it has worked well.

I think this question is dependent upon location. I would do the work of manually looking through other listings in your area. You don't know for sure exactly what their occupancy rates are but you can certainly get a feel for it by seeing what future dates are open. Also, just compare your listing with the competitor listings. Are your prices a lot higher? If so, are your amenities worth the extra price? I'm constantly juggling the rates for my Airbnb listings based on what my competitors are charging. 

As for my MTR listing, I have 100% occupancy on it but I have a very easy target MTR market of visiting scholars. 

The unit is within blocks of Harvard University and a billion other universities are within a few miles. I advertise via Sabbatical Homes and Harvard Off-Campus Housing and insist my leases begin on Sep 1, Jan 1 or Jun 1 and end on Dec 31, May 31 or Aug 31. 

It is pretty easy to keep it fully occupied but it does mean I turn away a ton of people who want a lease that doesn't quite fit my requirements. 

Reliable, thorough housecleaning services can be challenging to find. Once I found a super reliable and thorough cleaning crew, I made sure I let them know I value their services. During the covid shutdown, I paid my cleaning crew 50% of what they would have been paid before the shutdown. When I have last minute cancellations, I still pay them. When I have last minute needs, they go out of their way to accommodate me.