Lay My Hat

Good Afternoon,

Just had 4 guests staying at my house in Turkey (no elderly or children) 3 bedrooms in total. The first day which was a Friday I had a call to say the A/C was not blowing cold in one of the bedrooms. As it was the beginning of Bayram, was impossible to find a a serviceman until Monday. Serviceman came and said there was an electrical fault and had to take some component away and get a replacement. Unfortunately the fault and fitting never got fixed until they day they were departed, a week later. We had provided a fan for the bedroom. They are now looking for a refund which I have agreed on. Has anyone ever had this issue and idea what % I should refund? Thank you

A good way to get a pointer is what's the price difference, assuming there is one, if you were booking an apartment with air con and one without?

Hello lucywho. The A/C was missing for almost the whole time in just one bedroom out of three. With only 4 people staying you wonder how much use that bedroom got. However, to my mind that is not really the point. If you book fully air conditioned accommodation then that is what you are paying for, and that is what you can expect. Summer temperatures in Turkey must be very high, so A/C is a 'must' if you want to be comfortable.

How much to refund to these guests is subjective and opinions will vary. If it were me in these circumstances, I would be offering a painful 25% refund.

That's very generous maths AndrewH? Surely AC doesn't represent 25% of rental value.
As a rule of thumb I'd be more inclined to lean towards Nemo's criteria. Like here, I'm sure there must be some in your sector lucywho that surcharge for optional air con so that would be my starting point. Maybe topped up with a little good will for the inconvenience, sugar coated with the offer of a future discount (which we generally offer anyway)
Bearing in mind it was only one unit & a fan was provided straight away, as long as they were happy with the rest of their stay, I'd take it as a reasonable outcome for all.
Summer breakdowns - don't you just love 'em

COYS wrote:That's very generous maths AndrewH? Surely AC doesn't represent 25% of rental value.

I know 25% is very generous and I didn't get out the calculator or check around for other prices. I just like to look "good" (if not in fact) and achieve a happy outcome. It might become a talking point when the guests get home turning potentially bad publicity into good.

COYS wrote:Summer breakdowns - don't you just love 'em

Yes and guess what - air con.

I don't think it relevant what the prices of the places without A/C are. If your guests had wanted a place without A/C and saved some money they'd have done so. The reason they chose your place was because it had A/C.

It's similar to if someone booked a first class flight so they can be comfortable and arrive refreshed for their business meeting and the airline then puts them into economy class - if the airline just refunds them the difference in price is that reasonable?

You're taking it too literally newtimber. It's merely a way of getting some guidance towards what A/C might be worth. I personally have no idea what value you'd place upon it, but I know that others have used that criteria and I was helping out a newbie here. Otherwise you may as well stick a finger in the wind as to what to refund, which is kind of what Andrew did. No problem with that but it's always good to get more than one opinion of how to deal with these things.

How would you advise it to be calculated as you haven't offered any words of wisdom, only said how you wouldn't do it.

Personally i'd go with coys' suggestion...refund the air con 'premium' (or perhaps a bit less as it was only one bedroom), and a bit on top for the inconvenience.

newtimber wrote:I don't think it relevant what the prices of the places without A/C are. If your guests had wanted a place without A/C and saved some money they'd have done so. The reason they chose your place was because it had A/C.

It's similar to if someone booked a first class flight so they can be comfortable and arrive refreshed for their business meeting and the airline then puts them into economy class - if the airline just refunds them the difference in price is that reasonable?

I think the point is that it was only 1 bedroom - not the whole property. Not too much of an inconvenience. Personally 10% would be OK I think, but it depends on what the whole rental was worth.

We charge £100 extra for a/c.....we have 4 bedrooms and the lounge with a/c. So if one of the new rooms didn't have it for the week that would be £20/25 if you exclude the lounge. I might bump it up to £40/50 but no more.

I have had this happen to villas I managed, thankfully never us, and went all out to equip the room with standalone a/c unit (too noisy to have in the bedroom) and 2 quiet fans. Also a bottle or two of wine as a 'sorry'.
Personally I think that's all you can do. These things happen and they're a nightmare but unless you can magic a part out of thin air you can do no more.

Mouse
x

Mouse wrote:We charge £100 extra for a/c.....we have 4 bedrooms and the lounge with a/c. So if one of the new rooms didn't have it for the week that would be £20/25 if you exclude the lounge. I might bump it up to £40/50 but no more.

I have had this happen to villas I managed, thankfully never us, and went all out to equip the room with standalone a/c unit (too noisy to have in the bedroom) and 2 quiet fans. Also a bottle or two of wine as a 'sorry'.
Personally I think that's all you can do. These things happen and they're a nightmare but unless you can magic a part out of thin air you can do no more.

Mouse
x

+1
Seems reasonable to me.

kyreniagirl wrote:I think the point is that it was only 1 bedroom - not the whole property. Not too much of an inconvenience.

I disagree. We have one double room and one twin room and mostly get couples booking our cottage. The number of times one has slept in one room and the other one in the other room are too many to count ... So this air con problem may have caused greater inconvenience than you think.

Nemo wrote: How would you advise it to be calculated as you haven't offered any words of wisdom, only said how you wouldn't do it.

1 in 4 guests may have not slept well so the maximum I would give would be 25%.

However I would ask the guests what they would consider reasonable and see what they said. They may have slept OK and it wasn't too bad in which case they would say a lower figure. The point is you really don't know how much it effected them, everyone is different.

PW in Polemi wrote:

kyreniagirl wrote:I think the point is that it was only 1 bedroom - not the whole property. Not too much of an inconvenience.

I disagree. We have one double room and one twin room and mostly get couples booking our cottage. The number of times one has slept in one room and the other one in the other room are too many to count ... So this air con problem may have caused greater inconvenience than you think.

Yes. But it is just that .... an inconvenience, not a disaster by any stretch of the imagination. Which the OP already did her best to alleviate by providing a fan. So a reasonable compensatory amount + goodwill for partial loss of air con seems more than fair to me. I don't see why anyone should over compensate, certainly not in the region of 25% of rental. These kind of figures are IMO driving the worrying trend for arbitrary refunds/compensation for each & every mishap, however minor.
Ultimately, the decision rests with the OP but I wouldn't let fear of negative response cloud my offer or we are all just opening ourselves up to ransom. Be fair, be reasonable but don't get yourself mugged.

I'm with the Mouse on this one. We put a/c in the 2 bedrooms a few years back and put 50€ on the weekly rate. 25€ refund plus a bit extra if they left the place clean & tidy