Feature Request: Guest Cancellation History

[Steve245]

Guests can cancel for free, but their cancellation history is important information to hosts.  I believe that if hosts could see the number of reservations a guest had cancelled, guests would take their reservations more seriously and everybody except serial-cancellers would benefit.

[Paula]

Hello @Steve245, thank you so much for sharing this in our community.

I am sharing the link >>here<< where you can send this feedback directly to Airbnb.

All the best,

[Adriano78]

Like Booking.com, the host can see in their account the guest cancellation rate

[Kia272]

@Steve245 I think you're looking at this entirely backwards.  A host should set the cancellation policy that's best for his or her property, and enforce it. Whatever cancellation policy you set, the guest has to abide by those terms. So I'm not sure why seeing a guest's cancellation history benefits you in any way. Are you going to turn down bookings from those guests? If you have a flexible cancellation policy and they cancel 24 hours out, that's on you, because you have the flexible cancellation policy on your listing. You're allowing them to do that. 

However and whenever they cancel, they are subject to the terms that you've set on your listing. 

So I'm very confused about how seeing a guest's cancellation history will help you in any way. 

[Steve245]

Hi Kia,

Thank you for your response.

I have a 4 BR/4.5 bath near the convention center in San Diego.  We are typically booked about 27 nights per month.  We cater to business teams, but have many families and groups of friends travelling for pleasure as well.

Since our home is so large the cleaning fee is quite high, and have found it to be cost-prohibitive for short stays.  So, for that reason and others pertaining to our neighbors, we typically have a 4-night minimum.  As a result of the factors above, most of our booking come approximately 4 to 8 months in advance.  In 7 years we have only had a handful of bookings within 6 weeks of travel even if we offer shorter stays and steep discounts.

So, when we experience last-minute cancellations, we have almost no chance of rebooking and recovering the lost revenue.  We recently lost a week-long booking 6 days prior to arrival with no note or reason why from the guest.  We lost $2,800 in revenue as a result, which is quite significant to my family.

So, you ask, why don't we have a strict cancellation policy?  Well, we tried that too, and received many emails from our regular business guests and others that wanted to book asking us to change the booking policy because their companies required them to book homes that offered free cancellation in case the needs of the company changed.  The strict policy was just not possible for us as it cost us a very large share of our target guest population.

So, how would cancellation information help?  Say the person that cancelled last-minute had one 5-star review, and 10 cancellations.  Do you think I would have taken their booking?  No way!  Someone with 10 5-star reviews and one cancellation?  Maybe.  I would communicate with them about the circumstances of that cancellation first though.

Also, I think the mere existence of this information would stop the serial-cancellers, because they would soon find that no sane host would allow them to book.

One of our guest once mentioned that they they liked our cancellation policy because they typically booked four or five places, then decided based on their final travel plans which one to use.  I asked how long in advance they cancelled, and they replied "always by the deadline" which I took to mean "just before the deadline."

I discussed the impact their behavior had on the cancelled hosts with them, and it seemed like they had never even considered this.  Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there that don't consider the impacts of their behavior on others.

I hope that you can now see the tremendous value that cancellation information would have for some hosts.  If it is not important to you, great!  But for some of us, the more information we can have about potential guests, the better.

[Kia272]

@Steve245  A good explanation, and I totally get it. But......it seems like a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

You want the revenue from your optimal guest demographic-  the people who want you to have the flexible cancellation policy because their companies require it- but you don't want guests to actually be able to cancel according to your policy. You can't have it both ways. 

 Sometimes, the world doesn't work the way we want it too, but that's just life. 

I'm not trying to be jerk about this,  I'm trying to give you some perspective here. Honestly, you'd end up running in to problems with cancellation numbers, IF this info was available to you, and you started turning down reservations based on the guest's cancellation history. 

I don't think AirBnB would ever even consider making that info available. They are SO guest-centric, that anything that might prevent someone from booking would definitely be off the table. I think you should be grateful for being so solidly booked, and you just have to take the occasional cancellation as it comes. 

Best, Kia

[Steve245]

Kia, with all due respect, it seems like you don't totally get it. 

There are people out there abusing the cancellation policy with impunity, and hosts pay the price.  Hosts get punished if we cancel, why shouldn't we at least know how many times a guest has cancelled, even if they are allowed to continue to do it without penalty?

I just think everyone should take responsibility for their own behavior.  Is that really wanting to have my cake and eat it too?  I'm not asking for guests to always have to pay a penalty if they cancel, and hosts getting infinite cancellations for free and in secret as guests do currently.

One thing we agree on: AirBnB is a totally guest-centric platform!  The contempt they show for hosts can be breathtaking!

Steve

[Kia272]

@Steve245  With all due respect, I do get it, I just have a different opinion. 

It's not possible to micro-manage people's behavior on a platform like this. There will always be  rule-benders out there. I also think that people should be responsible for their own behavior, but I don't think your proposal is a good solution to that problem. 

The bottom line is that you have a flexible cancellation policy, and you can't fault people for using it as it's intended. Kia

[Steve245]

Hi Kia, we'll agree to disagree, but would you really book a guest that you know had 2 visits and 25 cancellations?  Would you consider that guest to be using the cancellation policy as intended?  And do you really think that hosts being able to see extreme cancellation to stay ratios would not help change the behavior of cereal cancellers?  If so, then yes, we have different opinions and we can agree to disagree. 

We often have guests cancel weeks or months in advance because their circumstances change.  I have no problem with that.  To me this is what the the flexible policy is intended for.  But I don't believe the policy was crafted so that guests could book multiple reservations at different homes, then pick the most convenient one at the last moment leaving multiple hosts holding the bag.

Showing cancellations would help hosts tremendously, reward guests that keep their reservations, and only harm bad actors.  That seems like good policy making to me!  I am surprised that you are so adamantly against this as a host.

[Kia272]

If the guests cancel weeks or months in advance, then the strict policy would work fine. And yes I would accept a reservation from a guest with 2 stays and 25 cancellations, because I have a strict policy, and it gives me plenty of time to get rebooked. 

You are asking AirBnB to do something that benefits you in your unique situation, because you want maximum bookings. You keep stating that guests are abusing the policy, but that's not for you to say. If they are cancelling within the terms of the agreement, then they are not breaking any rules. You may not like it, but that's the policy you've chosen for your listing. 

AirBnB gives hosts a choice of three cancellation policies. You've chosen one, but you don't like how it works. I'm not sure why this is now AirBnB's problem and not yours.