All Forum Posts by: Jing Zhou

 Most guests just stay once, i doubt it will work for us if we offer discount for future stay. Do you have large pool of vacation rentals?

 Good to know. I am from asia, and didn't know the different expectation from international guests. 

Recently, We dealt with a difficult Airbnb situation that raised a question for all hosts: when a guest requests a full refund, is it always fair?

Here’s what happened.

The Timeline:

Apr 25: Five families with 9 adults, 4 children and 2 infants checked into one of our properties.

Evening of Apr 26: They reported seeing a mouse.

Apr 27: They checked out and immediately requested a full refund for $1370.

This home is newly built in 2023, and this was the first-ever pest sighting reported. We take this issue seriously for sure, and we ordered pest control service right away.

Despite no earlier complaints and positive comments in their review about the home’s cleanliness, the guests demanded a full refund — even though they had used the home and all its amenities (including the hot tub) for the full weekend.

Our Response and Airbnb’s Decision:
We respectfully but firmly explained to both the guest and Airbnb that a full refund was not reasonable under the circumstances. Airbnb reviewed the situation and suggested us to give guests a 30% refund, which they accepted.

But the issue didn’t end there.

The guest left a 1-star review, which appeared retaliatory rather than reflective of their actual experience. We formally appealed to Airbnb, making the case that:

• The guest used the threat of a bad review to demand a larger refund — a misuse of the review system.

• The 30% refund was Airbnb’s suggestion after their own investigation, not an admission of fault on our part.

Outcome: Airbnb agreed and removed the review.

Final Thoughts

This situation made me reflect on how important it is for both hosts and platforms to maintain fair boundaries. Guests should be able to report real issues — and be taken seriously — but not weaponize reviews or refunds as leverage after a full stay.

As hosts, we’re held to high standards. But we also deserve protection from unfair treatment.

Have you ever had a guest request an unreasonable refund? How did you handle it? Let’s share and learn from each other.

Similar to our status, we mostly manage furnished rentals, and we have a brokerage firm to buy/sell rental properties for our own clients. We don't have any desk fee, and experienced broker will have 100% commission. www.valtarealty.com

Since we manage many short term rentals with hundreds of small tasks that takes less than 30 mins, i didn't find any tools that can help to group the non-urgent tasks efficiently and reduce commute cost. I found our cleaners and handyman spent so much time on commute. Since we want to group more demands to improve efficiency, we are trying to launch this AI/call center membership for 24/7 maintenance. Hopefully, when we have enough volume, we can make our maintenance crew only travel 2-3 miles a day. www.valtahomes.com/membership  , it will be great if you can give us some feedback to this prototype. 

This is exactly we are trying to collect for our clients(landlords). We found the pricing & quotes varies significantly between vendors. It will be great to have a knowledge base on costs & photos.