I just had an alteration that was quite significant. It went from 10 days to 3 days and its only 2 weeks until they arrive. In general I want to be acommodating but I also believe this should be a fair transaction for both guests and hosts. I accepted it but have now been thinking, was this a fair transaction for me as a host?
AirBnB have a cancellation policy which I think works great, but no alteration policy. Yet both cancellation and alteration are very similar and can have significant impact on your earnings.
It would be great if there was an alteration policy. There might be a lot of things to incorporate into a policy, but just a thought to spark the discussion. If a booking is altered, days that become "unbooked" will be considered cancelled and with a strict policy, that means only 50% of the amount for theese days are paid back. You can as host still choose to be fair and pay back the full amount in case you manage to get those days rebooked by other guests, just like with a cancellation.
Having the policy in the system makes it more fair I think, both for guests and hosts.
I would like to hear what other hosts think about this and maybe if there are any chance or hope that AirBnB will actually consider implementing an alteration policy.
Thanks.