Guests' booking change automatically approved by Airbnb! Why?

last Friday, I got a message from current guest Giuli, saying that they were only 4 persons instead of the original 7 and wanted to change the booking. Then I asked for the proposal of exact booking change as the booking is already running for 2 months without any problem or issues concerning the rent (the rent was already paid for 2 months 7 persons already). The guests will stay til end of July.

Today, I found that she just issued a change request in Airbnb for 4 persons. But what suprise me is, her booking request and the adjusted booking amount were automatically granted by Airbnb without my consensus nor approval! And I was totally astonished by this!

Is any random guest ,who is within his/her booking period, has the right in any position any time to change the booking as he/she likes? Say, in that case, if the number of guest dropped from 7 to 1, do I have no choice but accept the payment of 1 guest to occupy the whole pre-approved booking period?

I don’t know the answer but I think it is best to contact Airbnb to clarify on this issue. Please let us know the answer when you have an accurate one.

I feel it is unfair to make such change without your approval. You may not want to rent to 4 people if you know that in the first place.

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It’s not a bug, it’s a feature: alterations requests to long term bookings are automatically accepted.

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Ugh. Well that’s good to know because we’re used to being asked to accept alternations.

I don’t think it’s a feature. From your like, there is 30 month notice period for quiting or extending the booking. Apart from that, other booking change like number of persons or price is not obligated for hosts to accept.

And such booking change should not be auto approved immediately right after the request is made.

It simply doesn’t make sense.

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“The guests will stay until the end of July”, but the request was made on June 2.

There is more than a 30 days notice, in application of the Long Term cancellation policy.

The guest and Airbnb changed the number of persons but not the move out date.

And the booking amount is reduced by more than 1/3. That means by the next payment date, I have to refund some money because she claimed to pay much in the past 2 months, with just few days notice (since last Friday). Does it make sense ?

Nico, I would still talk to Airbnb, but it may be a sign that your pricing strategy leaves you too vulnerable. Consider a flat fee and no charge for extra people. You may have to chalk it up to a learning experience.

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Thank you for pointing this out.

It would be really, REALLY nice if the CSR’s at Airbnb had any idea what they are talking about. Is it really too much to expect that a representative of a company will give you accurate information regarding said company when you call them? I understand there is some personal responsibility, given this information is on the Air website, but still.

I had a similar situation as the OP’s. My long term guest cut her 14 week stay short by 8 weeks. The change request, to my astonishment, was automatically accepted. I called Airbnb to ask about this and the rep first told me he saw no record of the change being approved and told me I needed to do it. I argued this, since it was right there in front of me on my computer screen. He then changed his story to the approval being a glitch and assured me it wouldn’t happen again!

And yes, I agree, hosts do need to power to approve or disapprove these things. Hosts make decisions with consequences based on guest’s length of stay, or in this case, number of people.

I learned my lesson. I steered my 2nd long term guest away from Airbnb, and asked him to sign a lease.

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Thanks for your sharing.

I think the best way is Airbnb revert the booking request and let me and the guest negotiate.

I have reached both Airbnb and the guest yesterday, and still await their reply…

My stand point is, since this is literaly a breach of the original agreement, the guests could either choose to move out in 30 days, or negotiate with the host for a solution, like reducing part of the booking amount from next payment date.

As a bargain, I will propose reducing to 5 persons from next payment date. The rent that have been paid is upon original agreement and will not be reimbursed.

Does it make sense for you guys?

I think the value of a forum like this one is to speed-up the learning curve.

I appreciate the number of guests changed, not the check-out date. From Airbnb’s perspective, or your guests’ perspective, this is irrelevant anyway. The conditions of the initial agreement have changed and per the Long Term cancellation policy, are accepted if there is more than a 30 days notice.

What happens if you “refuse” to reimburse, is that Airbnb will reimburse the guest anyway, and will collect the amount due from you, either from this reservation is there any payment due, or from future payments. You will not receive a cent from Airbnb until you have paid this.

Bargaining is over. You have no leverage against the guest, the change has been accepted. This would asking the guest to pay more, for nothing in exchange. What you offer is in fact to ask Airbnb for the permission to negotiate off-platform, against the terms of the cancellation policy. Your option is to litigate to Airbnb if you have evidence that there were 7 guests, not 3. Still, you would only have a small chance of success.

In the end, like @CatskillsGrrl, I strongly recommend moving on, and considering this is as a learning experience. Either limit stays to 28 days to refuse the application of the Long Term policy, or make the number of guests irrelevant by charging a fixed fee.

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Obviously, most of the CS function has been outsourced. People on the phone are hardly representatives of Airbnb. Some time ago, the company that took care of the customer service for Airbnb was also doing the same for Netflix. To be sympathetic, Airbnb has been growing much faster than anything in recent years, and there is no realistic possibility to offer any great in-house service under that scenario, unless really pushed by the founders themselves. They have announced they were willing to change things, but I feel there is a ton of work to do.

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Ok here is the updates.

As @smartbnb.io mentioned, the CS was really bad, as in this case. At the beginning, CS countered me back by writing “For what I have being investigating of this situation, the first thing I need to tell is that we do not make any changes without your authorization. Since you accepted the request of your guest, the adjustment was made. If you said no, the adjustment would not have been made.”

Of course I argued back and asked them to check or give the proof that I have pressed the button…

And finally, after 1-2 weeks, another colleague (dedicated case manager… i think in this case, Airbnb employee?) found out it is auto approved as Airbnb set the long term rule that after check in and 30 days before check out, the guests can be auto granted any alter request raised by the guests, including reducing the booking amount or reducing the number of persons…

She also found this doesn’t make sense. But she doesn’t do anything to improve and revert the booking, etc. Instead, she asked me to send the feedback to Airbnb using the form. I did that but til now, I got no reply yet.

In the menatime, I have settled and negotiated with the guests and fixed Airbnb’s mess solely by myself…

I think the value of a forum like this one is to speed-up the learning curve.

I appreciate the number of guests changed, not the check-out date. From Airbnb’s perspective, or your guests’ perspective, this is irrelevant anyway. The conditions of the initial agreement have changed and per the Long Term cancellation policy, are accepted if there is more than a 30 days notice.

I agree on that. As long as Airbnb doesn’t change its long term policy, I will just advise the long term guests to make multiple 1-month bookings instead of the whole 3-month booking.

Bargaining is over. You have no leverage against the guest, the change has been accepted. This would asking the guest to pay more, for nothing in exchange. What you offer is in fact to ask Airbnb for the permission to negotiate off-platform, against the terms of the cancellation policy. Your option is to litigate to Airbnb if you have evidence that there were 7 guests, not 3. Still, you would only have a small chance of success.

Until now, I still cannot agree with you. The request is raised by the guests in the meantime. Why the burden of proof is on the hosts but not on the guests? How to proof the past history? Is the host obligated to enter the guests’ room every single hour to check if the guests are 7 instead of 3?

Think about hotel, if you book for 4 persons 7 nights, and at the 3rd day, you tell hotel you were just 1 person for the whole stay and ask for booking change. Does hotel have to accept the change request first and later proof you are actually 4 persons? If that is the way of doing things, then there is no reservation / booking / contract / agreement in the world.

Things simply don’t make sense, rules are just made by human. Rules can also be wrong.

My previous point was about arguing with Airbnb as a platform. As you have seen, they don’t budge.

I am (truly) happy that you were able to negotiate the issue directly with the guests and collect some of the money back, but mind that other less understanding guests would just let you argue with Airbnb, and grab some pop-corn. Sadly, there is no human factor with Airbnb (or I think, any other platform), unless you get the New York Times on speed dial.