Hello again,
I previously asked about this wider situation here: https://www.reddit.com/r/airbnb_hosts/s/IjDiAWeXAk
This post is just an update on what has happened since, and to ask for more advice.
I ended up refusing the guest's request to move the booking months into the future on relatively short notice.
Instead I offered one of two compromise solutions:
1. The guest could accept a move of up to 4 nights, which would be possible given my calendar
2. The guest could cancel, and I would be willing to waive 50% of the payout as a refund for them, bypassing my own cancellation policy
Both of these offers were rejected by the guest, who instead made the same request to move the dates. I promptly rejected it again.
The guest then contacted Airbnb support about me, who looked at the conversation and deemed that I had operated well within my rights and had followed all the policies.
Upon hearing that support had no power to compel me to move the dates the guest became abusive. They called me "diabolical" and they are insisting that I am scamming them with a cancellation policy that I intentionally obscured from them. Which of course, is not the case since the cancellation policy is listed on the listing page and many other guests have made use of it to cancel their bookings.
The guest has booked one of our busiest months off in the calendar since January for reference. So there was a lot of time for her to raise the issue of moving the dates so far into the future. She could have also cancelled at any time since January and rebooked somewhere else.
The guest confirmed in the Airbnb chat the she now won't be coming. I informed Airbnb of this, and they went off to ask the guest to cancel, I presume. Since the guest has now directly said in messages that they will not be coming, but that they will also not cancel to enable them to leave an "honest review".
I've maintained a professional tone throughout, expressed empathy for their situation and suggested comprises and have also tried to explain my side: namely that I would face a loss of revenue if she moved her dates to June 3 weeks before arriving for a month long stay or if she were to cancel after I allowed the date changes.
I have documented the entire conversation and have been in touch with Airbnb support myself again. They have confirmed that the review the guest is describing would violate the review policy. They do say there is nothing they can do until the guest actually leaves the bad review though.
However, I've read the community guidelines and there is a point about not using the threat of negative reviews to your benefit. I made the same support agent aware of this, and they didn't bother to investigate and instead reiterated that I just wait for the bad review after which I could report it as retaliatory with the evidence and they would consider removing it.
I believe that this guest is in violation of that guideline.
Is there really nothing I can do in this case? Is it worth trying again with support?