To think I didn’t agree to book this airbnb?

[phollyphoo]

I was looking at booking an airbnb for next summer in a very in demand destination.

It was booked for the first night we wanted. There are only ferries to this island once per week (v remote). The airbnb only accepts 7 night stays

I emailed asking if the airbnb was available the first night, and if it wasn’t, would the owner consider a 6 night stay? We’d book somewhere else the first night.

The owner replied saying they’d made a deal with the previous booking who agreed to leave a day early in order to let us book for the week. But they really didn’t mind.

DH thinks we are now committed to book, but I’m not wholly sold on the villa!

@IncompleteSenten : agree. AirBnB penalises hosts for cancelling bookings so it would be very unlikely for a normal paying guest (same as if a hotel cancelled your booking you’d be 😡)

I block out my airbnb for family/friends so they can be comfortable. If I get a decent booking enquiry family might be asked to decamp to sofa bed for a night/head home early

This, or leaving a window between bookings because of availability of cleaners, to do a small repair, or for deep cleaning are all reasons that the property might have been unavailable but changes can be made - the point is you don’t know

I agree that cancelling booking is unprofessional: if you look down the reviews on Airbnb you can see if there is a ‘cancelled by host’ (and even if so, it can be because a guest has asked to cancel but cannot work out how to do it themselves so the host has to cancel the booking

OP - you really should have discussed this with your husband and decided (I.e. ‘if they can do our dates shall we book this one’) before making your enquiry and messing other people around

As of now, you should decide and communicate your decision. If you want more time to decide, then communicate that

How would you feel if eg someone was asking you to go to another location for a work meeting, you agreed, made arrangements and then they did not communicate anything … this is the situation on the other person’s side

They may have changed their own plans to fit you (as I do for guests who make similar enquiries) so the onus is on you to communicate your decision and it would be considerate to do it quickly

if they got and accepted another booking today (which they are entitled to do as you have not committed to anything) is that also fine with you?

If it's in a sought after area and it's for 2025 then it makes no difference to the owner if you book it or not, someone else will.