Guest Caught In A Lie

[Josh Ball]

Curious to get everyone's opinion on what this guest was trying to accomplish as my co-hosts & I are torn.

Guest last minute books property, one hour before check-in. Good rental record, 8 solid reviews with previous trips to our market. 3:45 checks in, 4:15 asks us to call as they have to cancel. Co-host calls & they say house is dirty, smells & rotten food in fridge. We immediately tell them that we can get cleaning lady over there & have it resolved within an hour. They say they'd rather cancel all together as the  kids are on a strict schedule & need to be fed & put to sleep. We comply & tell them to send cancellation request. We still send cleaner over to the house, she arrives, no smell, no food & house is spotless.

We ended up submitting the cancellation through Airbnb so we didn't get penalized & didn't issue a refund. If they had of just been honest with the reasoning for wanting to cancel, we would've issued refund but the fact they lied & we had to send someone over there to check everything we didn't bother.

I think they were hoping we would point blank give them a free night or credit back on their stay but wanted to get others opinion?

Not sure what the end game would be & did they not think we would send someone to take a look?

[John Underwood]

I would not refund them any of their stay. I would preemptively make sure Airbnb knows the full situation and send them pictures to document everything.