Holiday Weekends AND Full Moon

This week is 4th of July falling on a weekend coupled with full moon, whee!
Just had an email from a woman who had called me ~6 weeks ago to ask if she could book 2 rooms for 2 nights (July 3/4). I explained that we had a 3 night minimum, but that if rooms hadn't filled in by yesterday I would call her (knowing full well we'd be long booked). This woman has stayed with us once in 9 years, for the same 4th of July holiday weekend in 2008. Her email from just now is IRATE that she can see on our website that only 2 rooms of the house were booked for 3 nights and how DARE we not call her if we were allowing all those other rooms to stay for just 2 nights.
I'm guessing she's putting in July 3rd as her arrival date and our availability calendar is popping up with that as the first date, which would show only 2 rooms booked for Sunday night. I sent a very gentle reply that all of the rooms got booked for at least 3 days (and several for 4-7 days) but they are coming in earlier versus staying later. Everyone staying here this week is a LONG standing regular, multiple trips per year, thank you very much! I was nice but I wanted to flame her for making assumptions about EVERYTHING from me to my policies to my booking system. Congrats, you just moved to the DNB list.
Is it July 6th yet?

We took off the 2 night min. We are pretty open for this weekend. Hate to think this is what the season will be like. Altho, a slow, steady season wouldn't bother me right now.
Glad you're getting the folks you want! We allow long time guests some slack so if they only need one night, we work with it. But not someone who's been here once in 7 years!

We are so sick of last minute 4th of July guests that we are closing the house for the weekend this year. It will be the first time in 26 years that we have not had B+B guests in the house on the 4th! The cottage guests will get their breakfast delivered to the cottage and I can safely make plans to celebrate with friends on Fri, Sat. and Sun nights!
I'm liking this semi-retirement a LOT!

Silverspoon said:

We are so sick of last minute 4th of July guests that we are closing the house for the weekend this year. It will be the first time in 26 years that we have not had B+B guests in the house on the 4th! The cottage guests will get their breakfast delivered to the cottage and I can safely make plans to celebrate with friends on Fri, Sat. and Sun nights!
I'm liking this semi-retirement a LOT!.

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Enjoy it!
This whole week is huge here, which is how I knew I wouldn't have to worry about dropping the minimum. But the holidays do seem to drive out the last minute folks, who seem to think the whole world will be thrilled to have them!

Morticia said:

We took off the 2 night min. We are pretty open for this weekend. Hate to think this is what the season will be like. Altho, a slow, steady season wouldn't bother me right now.
Glad you're getting the folks you want! We allow long time guests some slack so if they only need one night, we work with it. But not someone who's been here once in 7 years!.

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This woman stands out to me pretty vividly because I remember when she contacted us in 2008 she made it sound like she'd been a super frequent guest of the PO's. So, young naive me went out of my way to make it a good stay, I don't think we dropped a minimum but we allowed a Saturday check-in or something else that she wanted to be an exception to. When I actually looked at PO's records that we had she'd only strayed with them once. I'm grateful for the group we have right now.

Question for you'll. I have a 3 night min stay for this weekend. All but 1 room is booked. (things have slowed down, lake is flooding) Any way would you changed it to a 2 night? What if the 3 night guest find out? Give me your thoughts.

Ice said:

Question for you'll. I have a 3 night min stay for this weekend. All but 1 room is booked. (things have slowed down, lake is flooding)

Any way would you changed it to a 2 night? What if the 3 night guest find out? Give me your thoughts..

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It's a business decision. If another guest questions it and you want to answer, let them know they got first choice on a coveted weekend and these guests weren't so lucky.

Donald Draper said:

Morticia said:

We took off the 2 night min. We are pretty open for this weekend. Hate to think this is what the season will be like. Altho, a slow, steady season wouldn't bother me right now.
Glad you're getting the folks you want! We allow long time guests some slack so if they only need one night, we work with it. But not someone who's been here once in 7 years!.

Click to expand...

This woman stands out to me pretty vividly because I remember when she contacted us in 2008 she made it sound like she'd been a super frequent guest of the PO's. So, young naive me went out of my way to make it a good stay, I don't think we dropped a minimum but we allowed a Saturday check-in or something else that she wanted to be an exception to. When I actually looked at PO's records that we had she'd only strayed with them once. I'm grateful for the group we have right now.
.

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We fell for that a couple of times because we were honoring 'promises' the po's made. After the first year we knew why the po's sold so quickly after buying.

Ice said:

Question for you'll. I have a 3 night min stay for this weekend. All but 1 room is booked. (things have slowed down, lake is flooding)

Any way would you changed it to a 2 night? What if the 3 night guest find out? Give me your thoughts..

Click to expand...

Life is too short to agonize over what might happen. It is your business. Make your policies, but apply them as flexibly as you like. If the 3 nighter wants to make your mortgage payment, then they can have some say in how you run your business.
I had situations like that in the past with another business. "But THEY got the XYZ deal!" My response was "And???"

Ice said:

Question for you'll. I have a 3 night min stay for this weekend. All but 1 room is booked. (things have slowed down, lake is flooding)

Any way would you changed it to a 2 night? What if the 3 night guest find out? Give me your thoughts..

Click to expand...

If it's a week out and it's not yet booked we open it up to single night stays. If anyone would question you, tell them you had a cancellation and you're trying to resell it to give the people who had to cancel their money back.
It's a sad truth that you really just have to have an answer ready for people like this…it REALLY gets under my skin that they feel they can judge every little thing about our business. I would never go to someone else's job or business and question how they are operating.
I'm trying to remind myself that the people who do this are just jerks, it has nothing to do with me.

We are full this whole week except Monday night. We have a family reunion staying with us. They come every year for the last fifteen years. We love them and they love us!

OK I took a 2 night reservation. Thanks! Lets hope the lake level drops!

And then she just didn't respond at all to my reply. I'm letting this go, thank goodness she's not in my house for any amount of time!

Ice said:

OK I took a 2 night reservation. Thanks! Lets hope the lake level drops!.

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Ice said:

OK I took a 2 night reservation. Thanks! Lets hope the lake level drops!

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OK so they called today and said they had a death in the family. I said so sorry but I will not refund them unless I rebook the room. And I will not tale a 1 night. Have a good weekend, I will!

Sheesh, people are the same everywhere - nasty and unreasonable.
I have had similar things happen.
the other night, someone called and insisted that I did have an availability for that night when I didn't. She can't see 'tonight' on my calendar, she saw the availability for the next night, blah

Silverspoon said:

We are so sick of last minute 4th of July guests that we are closing the house for the weekend this year. It will be the first time in 26 years that we have not had B+B guests in the house on the 4th! The cottage guests will get their breakfast delivered to the cottage and I can safely make plans to celebrate with friends on Fri, Sat. and Sun nights!
I'm liking this semi-retirement a LOT!.

Click to expand...

THAT is great. Enjoy this weekend

Iris said:

Sheesh, people are the same everywhere - nasty and unreasonable.
I have had similar things happen.
the other night, someone called and insisted that I did have an availability for that night when I didn't. She can't see 'tonight' on my calendar, she saw the availability for the next night, blah.

Click to expand...

Iris said:

Sheesh, people are the same everywhere - nasty and unreasonable.
I have had similar things happen.
the other night, someone called and insisted that I did have an availability for that night when I didn't. She can't see 'tonight' on my calendar, she saw the availability for the next night, blah

Click to expand...

Have had that one quite a lot. It makes me go look at the guest's side of the calendar to be sure.

Morticia said:

Donald Draper said:

Morticia said:

We took off the 2 night min. We are pretty open for this weekend. Hate to think this is what the season will be like. Altho, a slow, steady season wouldn't bother me right now.
Glad you're getting the folks you want! We allow long time guests some slack so if they only need one night, we work with it. But not someone who's been here once in 7 years!.

Click to expand...

This woman stands out to me pretty vividly because I remember when she contacted us in 2008 she made it sound like she'd been a super frequent guest of the PO's. So, young naive me went out of my way to make it a good stay, I don't think we dropped a minimum but we allowed a Saturday check-in or something else that she wanted to be an exception to. When I actually looked at PO's records that we had she'd only strayed with them once. I'm grateful for the group we have right now.
.

Click to expand...

We fell for that a couple of times because we were honoring 'promises' the po's made. After the first year we knew why the po's sold so quickly after buying.
.

Click to expand...

Morticia said:

We fell for that a couple of times because we were honoring 'promises' the po's made. After the first year we knew why the po's sold so quickly after buying.

Click to expand...

Ha! stupid us actually honored a deposit made to the PO who kept it. We thought this would create repeat business and we took the loss. We lost. The guests were awful and we soon learned to trust our intuitions

Morticia said:

Iris said:

Sheesh, people are the same everywhere - nasty and unreasonable.
I have had similar things happen.
the other night, someone called and insisted that I did have an availability for that night when I didn't. She can't see 'tonight' on my calendar, she saw the availability for the next night, blah.

Click to expand...

Iris said:

Sheesh, people are the same everywhere - nasty and unreasonable.
I have had similar things happen.
the other night, someone called and insisted that I did have an availability for that night when I didn't. She can't see 'tonight' on my calendar, she saw the availability for the next night, blah

Click to expand...

Have had that one quite a lot. It makes me go look at the guest's side of the calendar to be sure.
.

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yeah well. I was not too quick that night and did NOT check the guest's side. I felt bad.

Morticia said:

Iris said:

Sheesh, people are the same everywhere - nasty and unreasonable.
I have had similar things happen.
the other night, someone called and insisted that I did have an availability for that night when I didn't. She can't see 'tonight' on my calendar, she saw the availability for the next night, blah.

Click to expand...

Iris said:

Sheesh, people are the same everywhere - nasty and unreasonable.
I have had similar things happen.
the other night, someone called and insisted that I did have an availability for that night when I didn't. She can't see 'tonight' on my calendar, she saw the availability for the next night, blah

Click to expand...

Have had that one quite a lot. It makes me go look at the guest's side of the calendar to be sure.
.

Click to expand...

It builds my plan to let the phone answer. DELETE