Partial Refund Questions

[Liz229]

Hello! I'd appreciate any feedback or technical advice on this situation:

My boyfriend and I co-host our room every year when we go to another state to work for 3-4 weeks. We've always had our housemates manage the house and clean our room while we are away and we've never had any problems or negative reviews. 

However, this year, we had new housemates who had never done this before, and despite their reassurances that they were up to the task, our last guest complained of a lack of cleanliness in his review. 

We've apologized publically, and have discussed the matter with our housemates. (And in the future, will probably not rely on housemates to handle the cleaning of the space while we're away.)

The two questions that remain are:

1. Should we offer a partial refund - maybe at least the cleaning fee - to the guest? And...

2. As he didn't bring this issue up during his stay, I'm now having trouble figuring out how to offer or send a partial refund.

When I go to the Resolution Center, it doesn't show any of our past reservations, and when I select "Send Money," I get a pop-up that says "Can't send money. You don’t have any eligible reservations to send money to right now."

So... what do we do? Thoughts?

[Rachael26]

@Liz229

Just a couple of thoughts -

If the last guest has already left a review - then I wouldn't worry about the refund... it's past and lesson learned and time to move forward.

Arrange with your roommates for the future that IF they clean the room and a good review is left - then you will consider them a partner in the business and 20% or whatever fee you decide will be shared with them. Just make sure they understand it is contingent to receiving a great review! 🙂

Best Wishes,

Rachael

[Liz229]

Thanks for your advice Rachael! We did offer our housemates a percentage of the total fee, so we will definitely be taking that into consideration as we move forward with paying them.