Our recent change to the guest refund policy

[Catherine-Powell]

Hi Everyone, 

Hosts are the heart and soul of Airbnb. I want you to know we value you, we’re working every day to improve your hosting experience, and we’re listening to you. Recently, we updated our rebooking and refund policy to allow guests up to 72 hours to report travel issues, rather than 24 hours. Let me take you through our thinking as a company to get to this decision. 

As a two-sided marketplace, we are always putting ourselves in the shoes of both Hosts and guests. In this case, guests have been telling us 24 hours wasn’t enough time to reach out for help if something goes wrong. For example, if a guest wasn’t able to check in due to a malfunctioning lock, they may be more focused on getting settled in an alternative location and attending the event they traveled for. We also heard from Hosts that 24 hours often wasn’t enough time to resolve a guest’s concerns. For example, if a guest notified a Host that the air conditioner stopped working, it could take more than a day to contact a repair person and fix it. The 24-hour window was causing guests to feel like they had to cancel early, when more time would have been enough for Hosts to fully address the concern and keep the reservations.

We went through a similar assessment when we considered extending the filing period for Hosts to submit reimbursements requests. As part of AirCover—which includes $1 million in Host damage protection—if guests cause damage, you have 14 days to request reimbursement after they check out, even if other guests have already checked in.

I also want to assure you that we rigorously assess claims from guests in order to help protect you from fraudulent claims. And, we take action to hold guests accountable for those types of violations of our Community Standards. If a Host disagrees with our determination about a guest report, they may contest our decision and if after reviewing evidence provided by the Host, we agree with that Host, they will receive their payout for that reservation.

Your house rules are another important tool to help ensure the guest rebooking and refund policy is used as intended. House rules set and manage expectations for guests. For example, if you have a backyard pool, you might include a note that you make every attempt to keep the pool as clean as possible, but at times leaves and debris may end up on the surface. This can help guests understand why there may be leaves in the pool. 

Because of the importance of house rules, we’ve made them visible to guests when they book, and by booking, guests are agreeing to read and abide by them. House rules are also taken into account when guest refund claims are made, if relevant. Here are some helpful tips for writing and updating your house rules for guests.

We design all of our updates to help build trust, and will continue to do so as we actively listen to your feedback and concerns. I hope this note has addressed some of the questions I have heard. I want to end by thanking you for all that you do to provide the best possible hospitality for our guests.

Warmly, 

Catherine Powell
Airbnb Global Head of Hosting

[Carolyn693]

@Property2 

 Couldn’t have written this better myself. Your thoughts and well articulated words echo the sentiment of every single host around the world.

I do respect Airbnb as a successful worldwide business but to overly hold to to account the very people

thats it’s success is based on will probably be the start of it’s sinking.

This policy needs to be withdrawn immediately because it is ripping out the heart and soul of all of Airbnbs hosts.

[Property2]

@Carolyn693 Thank you for your kind words. Unfortunately, my thoughts don’t appear to matter. It looks like the decision has already been made. The very fact that this new policy has never been discussed beforehand and all the feedback is coming across after the fact and after the policy was officially announced should tell everyone how Airbnb treats and values its hosts.

Frankly, I have never seen a successful business that would intentionally cut the feeding hand, and this is exactly what is going on here (literally).  Airbnb is nothing without the group of dedicated hosts who spend time, money, and significant efforts to ensure their guests have the best experiences possible. Airbnb has no tangible assets to be able to make any kind of sustainable profit and the only reason it exists is because of the people opening their personal properties to complete strangers that we can’t even see a picture of until we agree to accept a booking.  And yet, it appears that Airbnb firmly believes that making the TOS less and less favorable to hosts is a successful path forward. They appear to feel their superiority by easily overriding host cancellation policies, suspending listings for no reason based on unproven accusations (what happened to the presumption of innocence?), allowing bogus reviews for someone who did not even stay at the property, etc.

Personally, if this new refund policy is enacted, I will snooze my listings so I don’t accept any booking requests under the new policy, honor the existing bookings, and delete my account.  Enough is enough!

The more hosts leave Airbnb, the better chance there is that someone at the top would finally look at the bottom line and realize that building a community of trust can’t be done by giving a one-sided advantage to the guests. This appears to have been Airbnb strategy lately and the latest change is just another confirmation. I am really surprised that Airbnb does not realize that trust is very fragile and something that is very difficult to build, very easy to lose, and almost impossible to regain…

[Kyle670]

Well said! I’m 💯 with you. I’m going to snooze mine as well and eventually delete it. 

[Mieke61]

Well said!! My thoughts exactly! It’s absolutely disgraceful. The stress levels will be through the roof. I’ve adjusted my settings on Airbnb to make it unlikely to get bookings from 29/04 whilst I work out what to do moving forward. This new policy just opens up a whole new outlet for scammers. 

[Mark116]

@Catherine-Powell   With all due respect, and thanks that you at least attempt on occasion to engage with the host community, this response sounds like you don't actually understand your own policy.

The 24 hour's notice and the new 72 hour notice were/are not written to include 'rectification' only notification.  This is a big difference and a flaw on your outlined reasoning.  You make it sound like this new policy is actually helpful to hosts because now they have 3 days to fix any problem, but the language still gives hosts only ONE HOUR to respond and does not include any deadline about fixing the problem.

My hypothetical:  a guest contacts the host at 4am on the third day of a 5 day stay making a complaint about a 'pest' or something they find unclean.  The host doesn't see the message for 4 or 5 hours....putting them already in violation of Airbnb policies.  The guest gets a full refund, having stayed for free for 3 days and is relocated to a more expensive place, the cost being charged to the host.

Your message also doesn't address the cost of relocation now being born by the hosts, as I said in another thread, the first time Airbnb charges me for rehousing a guest due to a bogus complaint will be the last time Airbnb will see my property listed.

[Elaine701]

@Catherine-Powell 

Respectfully, if you raise the speed limit to 200mph, that's the speed people will drive. 

There's plenty of blogs out there giving step by step instructions to achieve free stays on Airbnb. This new policy certainly has the hallmarks of a 200mph superhighway for those who would be inclined to behave this way.

And enforcement of any fairness just became substantially more complex and difficult. I say this because many, if not most hosts have already experienced some degree of inexplicable incompetence by Airbnb host support. We certainly have. It usually comes in the form of ignorant misguidance, but as often illustrated on this forum, also comes in the form of apparent lack of willingness or resources to investigate claims, resulting in misguided judgements against both guests and hosts, even when the evidence of fault is irrefutable. The host therefore suffers injury in addition to insult.

This has led many hosts to simply have no faith in Airbnb's ability to pass fair judgement, and as in our case, we now avoid using Airbnb as any kind of arbitration method, because it has proven to be erratic and simply, too risky. And frankly, it's quite obvious that Airbnb has both implicit and explicit motivations to favour guests in any dispute.

This condition of distrust also leads hosts to seek diversification away from Airbnb, since it's entirely plausible that a host can be seriously injured simply by a dubious guest making a false claim of some dirt. 

And when it happens, it has lasting effect. It changed me from a devout Airbnb disciple to a devout Airbnb sceptic. I suspect I'm not alone. I have many good things to say about Airbnb, but I'll be the first in line point out the risks, particularly the risks to hosts. I was once an Airbnb "ambassador", but I couldn't in good conscience continue with that. 

So you have more than just a host/guest protection issue. You also have a credibility issue to fix. And that's not going to be solved overnight with a new programme or policy. That will take years to fix.

True, other platforms are less involved and have less market reach. A guest doesn't like something, they complain, and it's sorted or not. Other platforms don't really care much, and intervention tends to be limited to asking the two parties to sort it out for themselves. But that's just the nature of the beast. You cover your own assets. As should Airbnb hosts. 

The difference with Airbnb is that you can suffer much more than just getting your house trashed. From sheer incompetence. And too much uninformed "intervention".

Having said that, and while it's understandable that with all the pressure to solve these issues, it could be forgiven that you would decide to intervene further, with policies like this. However, I would, argue that by doing so, you are actually engaging in too much meddling in the natural behaviour of the market, by assigning yourself judge and jury status. And apparently the judges and jury have insufficient resources or experience to make judicially fair decisions. And I suspect that's what's led you here, to this protest.

I'd suggest getting back to basics, and let the market work naturally;.

HOSTS:

Bad hosts receive poor reputations, and their reputations are made public (as they are now), subject to rejection by potential guests (hosts lose business by being a bad host)... and are eventually delisted if they don't meet a base standard. The ratings system needs review. 5 stars should mean top grade, first class. 4 means upper middle class. 3 means basic accommodation. 2 means undesirable, subject to suspension or delisting. 1 means delisting. >Scam< hosts are delisted instantly and subject to legal action for damages by an independent court. It's not difficult to identify them beyond any doubt. Hosts that have a long, pristine history don't suddenly become scam artists. Host history (or lack of it) must be considered in such evaluations. It's not rocket science. 

GUESTS
Bad guests receive bad reputations and are subject to hosts >freely< declining their booking requests, and are eventually banned from the platform. The guest rating system also needs revisiting. >Scam< guests are instantly banned and subject to legal action in an independent court. Again, not difficult to identify them beyond any doubt. And if you don't give them a 200mph scam superhighway, they're far less inclined to drive that way in the first place. History (or lack of it) also will give you a clue about any guest.

I realize that's oversimplified, but these are natural market forces... I believe there's a smarter, more efficient and fair approach guided by natural market forces. But the policies you're implementing seem to lose sight of that in favour of attempting to control the market to your whims. And frankly, Airbnb does indeed have both motivation and form to engage in guest favouritism. I believe that one way or another, it will to come back to bite you if you ignore it.

With sincerest regards, 

Elaine

[Juliana456]

Elaine701 you are so correct in your statement about the star review system. I had over 240 5 star reviews then had one terrible guest who trashed the place. I asked for a damages to be paid by guest, which I received eventually. As expected though I received a one star review because of this.  I tried to get it removed as it was dishonest, but of course Airbnb did nothing, and it was ridiculously obvious  this was a result of my damages claim. The rest of my reviews should have been considered, when looking at this rogue review. My rating was affected, but at the end of the day it didn’t stop any future bookings. I now resign myself to the fact I’m on my own, and don’t  expect anything from the platform. Don’t care about SH anymore, or any of that as long as I’m getting bookings.  The less I need to deal

with their incompetence the better. 

[Catherine-Powell]

Hi @Elaine701 

I deeply appreciate the time and effort you take, and the level of detail and thoughtfulness you often share in your posts here in the Community Centre. Thank you!

On the fairness of enforcement of this policy (which remains unchanged apart from the 72 hour window), we have invested directly in our customer service teams and management to ensure we have the level of attention and understanding of this policy, to ensure fairness. It is critical to the trust of our market place. 

And talking of market place, we are always looking at how we can continue to improve the review and rating system for our Hosts and guests. I will share your feedback directly with the team for further exploration.

Thank you, Elaine, as always for taking the time to share your thoughts.

best,

Catherine

[Daniel-and-Grace1]

First of all, @Catherine-Powell thank you for spending time hearing the voices from the host community. One thing I agreed with Elaine is being a super host with 2000+ reviews mean nothing to Airbnb community support. 

We got a guest complain about seeing the pesticide chemical along with other cleaning supplies we left in the property, they said we knew there is a pest issue, so they threaten me to cancel the next guests to compensate them for additional days for free otherwise they will report me. Well, the first red flag is if you really don’t like my property why want to stay longer?!?

Obviously we won’t cancel the next guests, so we refund them for half of trip. We physically stop by 2x to check on them, we saw 1 ant by the door. Then they still report to Airbnb to get a full refund saying there is a pest issue. 

I am not sure you know we have already suffer lots of abuse to be able to keep our Super Host status because we don’t want to deal with Airbnb support… there is MORE stress to deal with Airbnb support than just refund the guests. Those guests usually abuse other things as well, like ran AC / heater while opening the windows, wasting obsessive amount of water, use all of our spare toilet papers and paper towels, bring pet in without paying the pet fee, etc. when they complain, we are taking all of those damages + they are staying for FREE?!?!

The thing that bother me the most with the new policy is host are now responsible for paying for their expenses for finding the other accommodation?!?! How can I trust Airbnb’s support agent to investigate whether the claim is true, since most of them don’t really care about their job too. They never apologize even they screw up. 

Unfortunately, Airbnb support doesn’t take account for the amount of reviews nor the how long I have been a super host. They even told me “you have lots of good reviews, it is good to mix with some bad review” The bad review is left by someone who threw a party and accuse me to charging them extra $70 cleaning fee…

Anyway, I hope someone like you will be able to hear those stories like this because host has lot the confidence on Airbnb support.

I have to be honest about the support are mostly outsourced to people who has NO STEAK for the company after the pandemic. It is hit and miss, I have to take my chances… most of the time they just don’t care… they will let me know their shift is ending, they won’t be answering for the next 3 days… even it is an urgent matter, they won’t even ask someone else to take over the case…

Finally, I believe there is always the reason for policy. I believe your goal is to making both guests and hosts trusting Airbnb more. I think we seriously need some accountability for the Airbnb support.

Their pay is way less than what we pay for our cleaners. We even award our cleaners monthly bonus if we can achieve a certain rating. 

What are their performance metrics for supporting the host? What are their incentives to investigate the truth? 

[Catherine-Powell]

Hi Daniel and Grace,

Thank you for sharing this message. As you've likely already seen, we removed the line in the refund policy that you're referencing about Hosts having to cover the cost of equal or better listings. While that language has been in the policy for years, we rarely, if ever, used it. Here are the FAQs we published that clarify even more what the recent changes mean and how the policy works. I've also noted your concerns about CS and passed them along to our head of Community Support. We are continuing to make improvements to the overall CS experience, but it's comments like yours that make clear we have even more work to do. Thank you for hosting. Please do keep tagging me here with questions and comments.

Kindly,
Catherine

@Daniel-and-Grace1 

[Suzann0]

Hi Catherine, @Catherine-Powell 

Thank you for talking with hosts and trying to assure us that Airbnb does support and care about us.

I have been a host for 9 years now and can really see the difference of late. Airbnb has lost the spirit of what it was and should have remained. You talk about the "trust of our market place" however I feel the trust is gone from hosts as it appears that the trust Airbnb is attempting to grow is the guest, in order to grow the business. The new policy confirms this.

I have really enjoyed being a super host for many years but feel that this is of no benefit to me now. I really dislike dealing with the contact centre (as I am trying to now) and being told by a disingenuous person "thank you for being a super host. We really value what you do". Only to be waiting now nearly 4 days for someone to sort out the problem and call me to discuss as this is a problem on Airbnb's end from a person in the call centre not applying "attention and understanding of this policy, to ensure fairness"

[Catherine-Powell]

Hi @Suzann0,

Thank you for this post. First, I would love to better understand the issue you experienced and what happened with our Community Support team. Are you able to DM me so that I can address it and make sure it is resolved?

Second, we received a lot of feedback recently about the update we made to this long-standing refund policy and realized we needed to better clarify how the policy works. Because of comments like yours, we published a list of FAQs that directly address the points you raised. We also removed language about Hosts being responsible for rebooking costs.

You have been with us for nine years. That is a true commitment to hosting and to us. We hope you'll continue on this journey with us for many years to come.

Many thanks again for sharing your thoughts,
Catherine

[Suzann0]

Thank you for getting in touch with me @Catherine-Powell.

I will endeavor to explain the various issues in a DM to you soon.

Kind regards

Suzann

[Mary419]

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I think Airbnb is underestimating the toll this takes on the mental health of good hard working hosts. The concept of having to bring our evidence to Airbnb to plead for our payout may sound simple but it is time consuming and... pardon the drama but it is soul killing.

" If a Host disagrees with our determination about a guest report, they may contest our decision and if after reviewing evidence provided by the Host, we agree with that Host, they will receive their payout for that reservation." 

Any host who has received the harsh scoldings that come from the Airbnb agents, or the maddening one way emails delivering the bad news that the decision stands.... emails are delivered to host inboxes which literally CANNOT receive a reply. Even if someone gets their "case" ruled in their favor in the end these little battles are becoming common and they are ruining our lives.

Keeping guests happy purely for the sake of reviews was already enough stress for us to handle.   Knowing that all our experience giving us the wisdom to decide how much if any compensation should be due for said "travel issue" means nothing if the booking is on Airbnb. It becomes a game of TOS links and evidence and arguing.

Hoping that I remember to type out all

the things in my house rules to win the game is another layer of stress. I have to make a rule that leaves fall from trees to help guests understand why leaves got in the pool. Where does it end? 

I think it is enough to say that when I get a text or call from a guest with ANY issue at all I check immediately to see if they are booked through Airbnb then there is a sinking feeling if they are.  Because I know the game has begun. 

It is so sad that Airbnb did not go the other direction and just focus on true fraud (such as the Vice Magazine expose, and all fraud listings that are totally different from what was shown) and illegal listings and listings that do not actually exist. Bringing down the hammer on honest hard working hosts instead is a wake up call. 

[Donna1157]

@Mary419   and that is why I have a 17 page lawyer - drawn legal contract must be signed as rule number one in my listing. 
Million dollar question now is will ABB nullify it, @Catherine-Powell ?