Short podcast episode (Short Term Rental Riches) where host Tim Hubbard explains how to handle guest alteration requests for Airbnb/short-term rentals. Covers common scenarios (lengthening, shortening, cancellations, monthly discounts, property issues), recommends sticking to cancellation policies, involving Airbnb when needed, avoiding host-initiated cancellations, and seeking win–win solutions to protect revenue and reviews.
Chapters
I love traveling. That's why I got into short term rentals. That's why I got into real estate to begin with. But short term rentals for me was a way to really boost those cash flows. But as we host guests and as people travel around the world and stay in short term rentals, sometimes things come up and they have to change those reservations. And that for us is a whole other set of operations. Should we accept the alteration request, how do we go about changing it? So on and so on. That's what we're going to dive into this week. Welcome back to the Short Term Rental Riches podcast. Welcome to Short Term Rental Riches. We'll discuss investing in real estate, but with a specific focus on short term rentals. Quick actionable items to acquire, manage and scale your portfolio. I'm your host, Tim Hubbard.
So if you've traveled at all, this has surely happened to you. This has happened to all of us. Things just pop up, right? Our flights get canceled, they get delayed, we get sick, whatever it happens to be. Sometimes we have to change our travel plans. And that is one of the things after Covid and after the pandemic that people really, really value. They're valuing flexibility. Right. And we're seeing that in the way that they book the reservations. A lot of reservations are booked, much more last minute. Now, some airlines offer cancellations up until a certain period of time, but when it comes down to it, when someone asks for an alteration with your property with a reservation they made at one of your rentals, how do we decide on that? Well, a lot of times they're asking to either lengthen it, which, that's awesome. We want that. If they want to stay longer in our properties, awesome. But. But our properties aren't always available. Right. So if that unit's not available, we could maybe offer them another unit we have. But let's look at the flip side real quick. If they want to shorten their reservation, so maybe they booked a week long and they get there for the one night and they say, oh, I would like to check out tomorrow. Well, should you let them? I would say no. And everyone's got a reason. I know a lot of them are very legitimate, but the truth is your property is reserved for those days. And the likely that someone else is going to book it right after them isn't as likely. Right. You still got to get in there. You got to clean. So you really should be following your cancellation policy now. You should know that an alteration request is something that a guest can request on airbnb. Specifically. It's also something that a host can request and either side can accept it. It can change the reservation length and the price and all of that. And Airbnb will handle those payment differences as well. But if someone's trying to book a shorter reservation after they've already booked in, well, then I would say I would recommend you stick with your cancellation policy. If the guest gives you a lot of trouble. Well, you can involve Airbnb, and they're going to have to follow your cancellation policy, too. Now, you might consider if someone said, hey, I don't. I'm not going to be staying the full week, maybe offer to book other dates out in the future instead of just full on canceling it. So that is one sort of resolution you might come to terms with them on, and a little more of an agreement. One thing you don't want to do is if you're not coming to terms on the alteration or the change in the reservation, you don't want to cancel your guest reservation. That's a big no. No, you get penalized big time. It's also one of the things that Airbnb uses to determine whether or not you qualify as a super host. There's only a few times you can cancel someone's reservation throughout the year. So there are some scenarios where you can have a reservation canceled. Mainly that's if you're just not feeling safe. And I always recommend just contacting Airbnb and letting them help you out with that one. Now, sometimes people will book a really long reservation, let's say for a month, for example, and then cancel after they've been there for a week. But. But they've got your monthly discount. So take a look at that before you accept this alteration. Make sure you consider that and that that person got your rental at a discounted rate because they were going to stay longer. And you want to make sure that you work that out with them so that everyone is happy in the end. One thing that's come up for us when we get an alteration request, maybe there's something wrong with our property and that just happens. Maybe the AC goes out and I don't have another property to transfer them to under that Airbnb account. Now, this probably isn't for everyone, but I have multiple Airbnb accounts. And if you want to transfer someone from one Airbnb account to the other one, well, you just can't do that. So you have to do that kind of off the books. You can send the other listing to them and ask them that they, they book it and then have them cancel the other one and then work it out. Airbnb doesn't really want you to have multiple Airbnb accounts, so that's the reason you can't just easily transfer in between. So. Yep, travel changes are just part of the game. It's part of the nature of travel. Things come up and things happen. So these things are going to come up. I just highly suggest you work it out with the guest, but make sure you're not getting taken advantage of. Stick to your cancellation policy. If someone's trying to pull a fast one on you and book a month stay, but then they cancel earlier on. Will involve Airbnb on that, involve VRBO on that one and, and just know these things are gonna happen. But a win win situation is gonna leave your guests happy, it's gonna leave you a good review and it's gonna make it easier for you to keep on keeping on. So real short episode this week. Hope you're having a fantastic day out there and I will catch you next time.
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