Covid-19 crisis & why I feel let down by Airbnb!

[Yossi8]

As most of you out there, all of my bookings got cancelled. I don’t blame guests who have to cancel because they have no way of fulfilling their trips. However, Airbnb kept changing the goal posts on a daily basis re what we should be refunding and I feel almost bullied into refunding trips in the future months when we’re not certain what will actually be happening. No help to hosts, being a super-host counts for nothing, is being offered. None whatsoever! Yet it’s us who are taking the brunt! Guests get refunded! Airbnb makes so much money anyway. And lately Airbnb introduced some super flexible cancellation policy filter to entice guests to book. Now how does this benefit us? It benefits Airbnb & only Airbnb because they get their hands on the guests money to help their cash flow. And when guests cancel it’s the hosts who get screwed! Anyone agrees? 

[Blanka8]

All this years of hard work just vanished in one month .Airbnb lost my trust .I will loose over 50 k and they do not care .After some of us stand up they send this guy Brian with little story to tell but i do  not trust them any more .They were over charging guests and us all this time ,every reservation i got true them they took 500 euro aprox bcz we have villa and they did not provide anything for this money .Why this reservations were not insured ?this money they just took to provide biger welth to them self .In this situation you can see who are they .It makes me sick just to read Airbnb name .Super host my a... 

from now on im renting true all platforms .30% for direct reservations and insurance they can buy seperatly on any big insurance company and there are planty .Airbnb should go back to place how they start sleeping on airmadraces and camps .That is your limit 

[Ola6802]

I totally agree with you same happened to me recently. Guest cancelled becuase the were not willing to comply with the stay home policy due to covid 19 and airbnb blamed me for it and said i canncelled. The guest was going to put other people at risk and was also not willing to comply with the covid stay at home policy, just wanted to stilll recieve vistors in this time of stay at home. Airbnb turned it round and said i cancelled  . I have been on airbnb for 2years and never cancelled on guest. Thwy just took my superhost away from me and spoilt my record of never cancelled. So i agree with you

[Stefanie285]

Completely agree - even before the covid19 cancellations, my guests would cancel and then email airbnb for a full refund - they then do this even though I have a strict policy and paying higher service fee for having the strict policy. What is the use if I pay more service fees if airbnb do not abide to the Host's policies. Don't even get me started on how I feel about full refunds during the Covid19 season. I fully understand that guests should be able to cancel and get their money back, but they could have at least prepared hosts for this and incorporated a cancellation fee of some percentage that would assist the hosts during this time as well, some of us rely on money to be able to pay our property fees. I do see that they "MIGHT" pay 25% to hosts for covid19 related cancellations between 12 March to 31 May - but no statements provided to hosts regarding this - so I will have to check my bank statement if they in fact do pay any fees back to me as host. Not hopeful at this point on how airbnb has managed things poorly this far. Back us up airbnb. 

[Mark1504]

This is more than 2 months that airbnb is cancelling all our booking, full refund for the guests. We leave in Vietnam, we are super hosts since 4 years. We lost 20 000 usd in less than 3 months and it will keep doing the same. Airbnb did not care of us in end Jan until now and just full refund for guests without any real proof. Now it is your turn and it will last all year as guests confidence to travel is dead for few months now unless a miracle.

I perfectly know the pattern of booking since few years now and since end Jan I know already that the business is dead for all year.,

What airbnb do? Refunding all guess full amount even if it is out of their policy.

250M to help hosts and 10 M for Superhost so me being in Vietnam we will never see this money.

this is all reserved mainly for Americans.

All other countries then just sit on those numbers. Stop dreaming.

All be safe and stay healthy.

[Yossi8]

I wonder if Airbnb realise that without hosts they wouldn't exist. It won't be long before another big player move in and pull the plug on them. I have agreed to 100% refund to all guests who reached out to me and asked if they could get a full refund before they went ahead and cancelled. Even for bookings as late as June. Today I feel particularly cross as Airbnb keeps hounding me to refund one particular guest who received 50% and I personally promised her that I will reset the other 50% off her renewed booking as she said she'd like to rebook in the future. What else am I supposed to do? I guess after this we will all be considering our options! 

[Yiwei3]

@Yossi8 I agree with you on the moving goalposts!  I also had situations where the guests cancelled and I got some money per my cancellation policy, but then Airbnb retrospectively refunded them after my payouts.

[Yossi8]

Definitely makes you feel bullied and unsupported! 

[Thomas2044]

can someone confirm that airbnb keeps the commissions of the guests (in form of a voucher) ?

[Yossi8]

That would be most shocking if true!

[Thomas2044]

because that's what it looks like. So in the end, airbnb pays the (if coming for real) 12,5% refund to us from their 15% commission they keep. this sounds all very strange to me

[Rhiannon35]

I began hosting in July 2019 and became a Superhost after my first evaluation in January 2020. The 250 million dollar relief that Airbnb is offering will not help me at all since you must be a Superhost for 1 year to qualify.  This has been such a huge letdown, one thing after another. The unilateral decision to refund guests without so much an email being sent! Shame on you and you call yourself our business partner! If that was the case you would look out for us right now.  When I called into customer service to see what was going on the representative told me I was the only person having an issue with this and it seemed like she was reading a script but so did Brian in the video... As far as the 10 million (25% refunded to hosts, which is really 12.5%) that Airbnb will contribute "if the guest cancels". Does that mean if the hosts canceled at the guest's request we do not receive any relief? The guests receive a 100% refund while the hosts are left high and dry regardless of their cancellation policies.  Airbnb should refund us 50% so they have houses that will be around to host after we overcome this unfortunate situation. This feels so gross to me, a 38 billion dollar company throwing us hosts an unrealistic bone. More of a PR stunt. They take so much money on each booking and never have our backs. 

[Carlota27]

I totally agree with you. 

So sad to know that "our partner's" don't care and feels so cheated!... so sad!   

                                                          😞  

[Serafina2]

@Airbnb Does anybody know when and how that 25% are going to be paid out?

[Divya20]

Interesting to read everything here! 

Not everyone knows that the guests are given two choices: 1. Go per the Hos'ts cancellation policy, and 2. Take the travel credit being issued for the total reservation costs. If the guest selects option 1, the hosts are given 25% of the payout - because they know Airbnb is bread and butter for some hosts. This is applicable for the reservation CHECKINS between March 14 and May 31. And the guests get what they have paid so far on the booking. 

If they select option 2, which they never won't because - money!!!! They loose too. And as a host, you get some payout too in this choice. 

If the host cancels the reservations themselves, they are penalized monetarily and calendars are blocked for the period of the booking. 

So go be a considerate host and accept that request if the guest sends it over to you, or you have them pending, because you have only 48 hours to accept them. Your choice - 25% or none.

P.S.: the 25% is paid by Airbnb from their own pocket and not funded from anywhere.

[Carlota27]

In my case, I am so fool!  Naively thinking I was "helping" the guest, promptly accepted their cancellation request, and I got a penalization with my SuperHost been removed and blocked the cancelation period.  What a joke!, thinking that 'Go ahead, cancellation "Penalty free" believing in the goodness of the 'extraordinary and compassionate new rules'...    😞