He has an apartment for rent and there are two parties interested in staying there.
One is a previous guest who has stayed twice at his apartment. The other is a new client.
What makes it difficult for him to decide who he wants to rent to is because the previous guest is staying for only 8 days while the new client is looking at two weeks and both their dates overlap in certain days.
Giving the apartment to the ex-guest would mean loss of income for him as he has to reject the longer rental. The ex-guest needs a confirmation soon but he is unwilling to commit as he is still waiting for the new client who has not confirm his interest. And if the new client does not get back to him, the ex-guest would have already looked for alternative resulting in him losing this deal as well.
As a businessman, he would preferred to rent it out for a longer period. But he would also like to maintain the relationship with the ex-guest.
In a bid to get the best outcome, he tried to delay giving an answer to the ex-guest.
The ex-guest knows that there is another potential booking in competition with him. He knows that the owner is trying to delay a confirmation as he is hoping to get an answer from the new client during this period. But he also has to plan for alternative.
So he messaged the owner for a final date in which he will gives an answer.
The day came but there's no reply from the owner.
The ex-guest decided to give him one more day.
The next morning, the owner replied saying that he will let the apartment to the ex-guest if there's still no reply from the new client by the end of the day.
The owner further said that his wife is not happy with breaking the one week minimum rules in the high season.
The ex-guest was puzzled as he is staying for more than a week. Anyway, he feels that this is just an excuse or lie or whatever made up by the owner.
Putting himself in the shoes of the owner, the ex-guest also thinks that he would prefer a longer rental as it makes economic sense as a businessman.
So he told the owner to let him know if renting out the apartment is going to cause unhappiness with the owner and his wife and he wants to avoid it.