A guest who had booked 2 of my rooms for tonight (Friday) until Sunday, messaged me last night (less than 24 hours from check-in time), to ask if the reservations could be changed due to the weather forecast for the weekend. She was afraid of possible thunderstorms and flash flooding. (Ironically, today is 80 degrees and sunny). Since this was a very last minute change, and I had already bought a LOT of food for the guests (6 in total), some of which was perishable and not freezable, I was not exactly happy. I should mention that my listing is all inclusive - guests get hearty breakfasts each morning, and a gourmet dinner on Saturday nights. But since I have been a superhost for 5 quarters and did not want 6 unhappy people here if the weather was poor, I decided to try and accommodate her. So I called an Airbnb rep for help. After explaining the situation, the rep said she would contact the guest and try to work out new dates for her, with the available weekends I had in August. The rep called me back to say that the guest would be changing her dates to August 12 - 14, and would confirm this on her new itinerary. Several hours later, I saw the confirmation for one of the rooms, but a cancellation for the second room since 2 members of her party said they would not be available for the new dates. I called the same rep back to say that with my flexible cancellation policy, I should be entitled to a one night payout for the cancelled room since it occurred less than 24 hours before check-in. She said she understood my situation, and would turn it over to a supervisor, since she might not have handled it properly. This morning, I got an email from the rep stating that the new reservation is for only the one room for 4 people, and that neither accounts (host or guest) would be penalized. There was no mention of honoring the cancellation policy and crediting me for one night for the room that was cancelled. I'm wondering if anyone knows how long it takes Airbnb to resolve an issue like this. I had expected some sort of communication by now, letting me know about the one night payout I feel that I am entitled to. So here I sit losing over $500 this weekend, and only making up half of it for the new booking in August. I changed my settings on both rooms immediately to accept "same day requests" up until 9 pm tonight, in an effort to try and recoup some income this weekend. I doubt I'll have any luck. Any thoughts, opinions or advice would be appreciated from fellow hosts. BTW, I also changed my cancellation policy to "moderate", after this negative experience (my first one in close to 2 years of hosting).
