Our guest rebooking and refund policy explained

[Catherine-Powell]

Hi everyone, 

We value the feedback about the rebooking and refund policy that we’ve heard from Hosts in workshops, here in the Community Center, and across Host Clubs. 

From your feedback, we understand that many Hosts aren’t familiar with the policy, and our update raised more questions than answers. We also know that you need more details about how this policy works. 

As a result of your comments, we are doing the following: 

1. We’re removing the language about Hosts being responsible for rebooking costs from the policy. 
2. We’ve also answered some of your most frequently asked questions about the policy that we’ve heard over the past week. 

You can read more about these changes here.

We hope this will help give you peace of mind, so you can focus on what you do best—providing amazing hospitality to guests from all over the world. 

Thank you for being a Host. We want you to know that we listen to your feedback. Please continue to tell us what you think so we can make sure we’re helping you meet your hosting needs. 

Best wishes,
Catherine 

[Eva208]

The 72 hour rebooking policy still remains and will leave the system ripe for abuse by guests.

I have seen guests claim a strand of hair on the couch hair ruin their stay and will want a full refund at the end of their 2 day stay since it's still within the 72 hour booking window.

That is basically opening up to people staying for free.

I have seen countless times how your untrained customer service reps have wrongly refunded guests, and had to escalate to a supervisor to have them backtrack and pay us the correct amount.

This system gives even more power on your reps, which is basically going to cause you to lose even more trust.

[Mary419]

@Eva208 @Cherie71 @Property2 @Catherine-Powell 

 

This “last straw” resonated as such with so many more hosts than I could have predicted!

 

Here is the link although business insider does have a paywall the headline and first paragraph are plenty to understand. 

The idea to snooze on May 18th. Not sure if that’s the cohesive date. Will start watching out more closely for that particular thing

https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-hosts-fed-up-policy-favors-guests-strike-snooze-listings-2022...

[Melinda86]

Airbnb need to start helping out hosts.

If it wasn't for us listing homes they wouldn't have a business.

Most of us now are out looking for other platforms to use as airbnb are no longer supporting us host like they should be. Bring on the new google travel.

[Tony-and-Eugene0]

I think the 24 hour period  was plenty of time for a guest to report anything  that's wrong with the property.  Because  the 72 hour is most of the time way after they have l eft your property. If they stayed and then report something  they should  not be able to get any kind of refund.

[Blue-Sky3]

Tony and Eugene are right on. If they have issues with the property they should report them right away. If there is a problem, the owner should be afforded an opportunity to remedy it. If I were a guest savvy to the airbnb policy and I didn't really want to book a week-long stay to begin with, I would take full advantage of using this policy to get around a minimum stay and get a free weekend stay as well. 

I also highly object to Airbnb removing the clause about travel issues caused by guest negligence. Is Airbnb trying to push us over to another booking channel? I have turned off instant booking and plan to be done with Airbnb after this season unless they revise this policy to also respect the rights of owners who work very hard to provide the most comfortable stay.

[Mary419]

@Maritza131 @Melinda86 

the comment from Airbnb indicating the 72 hours was borrowed from industry standard is really upsetting since it’s easy to demonstrate the opposite. Check this out, VRBO requires contact within 12 hours and by the way it doesn’t cover all the minor issues we have all been worried about like bugs and broken hot tubs. It covers fraud and total misrepresentation. 

[Maritza131]

Mary for what I understand Vrbo will be much better at this point.                                   Im thinking seriously to move Im not happy with this new policy.                                       I think that we the  hosts we are in  risk to host guest free for 3 days 

[Maritza131]

The new 72 hour policy is very upsetting and makes me reconsider moving my listing to a different platform. As a host I feel like I am at a disadvantage. I hope this rule is changed as it is offensive towards us hosts who put in effort to make our listings the best as possible for our guests. As a super host I feel this is not fair and hope this is changed. Airbnb has to know that without hosts, there will be no guests.

[Tony-and-Eugene0]

I can assure you the first time this happens to us, we're out. We've already listed our cabins on VRBO.

[John2406]

@Catherine-Powell I'm sorry, but I've only just heard about the changes to Airbnb's Rebooking and Refund Policy (thanks to an external website), but whilst I am glad that Airbnb has been sensible in rescinding part of its Rebooking and Refund Policy, I am also of the opinion - and far more concerned - that Airbnb has lost its direction by sticking with the "72 hours from discovery" re Guests reporting "a valid travel issue"! (Mind you, I'm also concerned by the latter's wording, as I fail to understand how the majority  of the topics mentioned under the heading of "Travel Issue[s]" have anything to do with 'Travel' - but then, whilst that's more to do with semantics than anything else, it also highlights the fact that Airbnb are trying to force onto the world a "one size fits all" policy, rather than considering that what may well occur in the USA doesn't necessarily apply in other Countries, as "people", "places, "cultures" etc, are different.

I agree with nearly every comment on the topic regarding the "72 hours from discovery" re reporting, and would go even further to say that whoever came up with such a timescale has not only not had any thought about Hosts, but obviously has never been a Host, or known the stresses that Airbnb put on everyone to conform to its policies.

Twenty-four hours from arrival at a property is more than enough time to have "discovered" any "issues", as whilst the onus is on the Host to ensure that everything s/he/they have listed on Airbnb is present and correct (and operational), there is also an onus on the Guest to ensure that s/he/they have verified - within twenty-four hours from arrival at the property - ditto; in fact, I would suggest that the 24hours should be reduced to 18hours at most, as that allows for Guests to have arrived late, had a sleep of at least 12 hours and still have another 6 hours to check everything,  Anything longer than those 18hours (imho) is opening the floodgates to those who would be unscrupulous.

One aspect perhaps Airbnb should itgently look at, is the wording of iys  "What if I need to cancel because of a problem with the listing or host?" policy (q.v. What if I need to cancel because of a problem with the listing or host? - Airbnb Help Centre) as opposed to the wording in Rebooking and Refund Policy - Airbnb Help Centre , as the former (a Guest requirement) states "within 24 hours of noticing the travel issue", whereas the latter (as everyone is against) states "...72 hours after discovery".

Miles apart? definitely, but then the best thing is to equalise the policies' wording, and if 24 hours is good enough for the former, it should be good enough for the latter.

Please don't just reconsider the 72hours policy, but rescind that too, - to preferably 18hours at best; 24hours at worst - but NOT from when first discovered, but from when arrived at property!

Thank you

[Z-And-G15]

"....submitting false or exaggerated reports can result in serious consequences for guests."

No disrespect to the Admin but I had to laugh at that one. What are you going to do, spank them?

We've already had the ridiculous 72 hr rule bite us, if the guest brings four extra guests for a party weekend, Airbnb tells us to submit a request for payment. The guest then has 72 hours to respond, in some way or another. Why 72 hours? Three days later, they are long gone. What did we get from Airbnb? "You should have been more aggressive."