help long term wants to cancel early

[Kelly2364]

Does anyone know what penalties I would face for permanently deleting a listing with a guest still booked? My guest is booked through December, but she wanted to cancel early in July and I was ok with this for her and willing to help her do so. However, I'm unable to make the alterations online and so is she, we both get an error message. Both of us have been contacting Airbnb support via phone and chat daily and they have been unable (or say they're unable) to cancel the remaining dates as well "due to it being such a long stay" is what they tell me. Anyway, her most recent payment didn't go through so now I have a booked listing and I'm not getting paid and she isn't actually staying there and has no plans on resolving the payment. I'm considering just permanently deleting the listing and starting over at a later date or leaving the airbnb platform altogether, but I also haven't been able to get an answer from airbnb on what penalties this would give me. Airbnb support just says it isn't possible to delete a listing with an active guest. Any ideas??? I'm beyond frustrated.

[Zheng49]

Whatever you do, don't just delete the listing. That just sounds like a band-aid fix.

Usually in cases like this, you can ask the guest to cancel. If there is a payment issue, then the reservation should not be confirmed in the first place. It should be stuck in the 'Awaiting Payment' stage. It should fix itself in 24 hours or so judging from prior experience. By that I mean the reservation will cease to exist, and it will be considered as if the guest cancelled the reservation. 

If it's a fact that it's been 24 hours already and the reservation is still there, then that's a bug on Airbnb's part. If you don't end up getting paid for this reservation, then you can contact Airbnb , and they should be able to pay out this reservation regardless of whether the guest physically stays or not. 

@Quincy @Sophia 

[Joelle43]

Hello @Kelly2364 

Definitely agree with @Zheng49 advice - don't do anything your end without involving CS first and your idea of delisting to reenlist later will not work as Airbnb will consider this as a duplicate listing and will suspend the new one.

If you have a long term guest then Airbnb's long term cancelation policy kicks in which means that the guest have to give you a months notice and need the host to approve if the notice falls under the 30 day notice.   A guest can shorten their stay with no host approval if they give that 30 day notice so the information that CS have given you is incorrect. Guests can shorten their stay with no problem normally so a long term booking doesn't guarantee they will stay for the full duration.  Below you'll find the long term cancellation policy explained:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1361?locale=en

In your case however, things have gone awry because your guest has defaulted on their payment and you say that she has already left so imagine you never got your 30 day notice period either?

I would ask to speak to a supervisor if you are getting nowhere as you need your calendar to be freed up so that you are then able to receive bookings/pause your listing and just plainly gain back control.  The financial penalties you would face would be important and they are available on the Airbnb website under host cancellations.

What a horrible position to be in Kelly but Zheng has tagged two of our community managers so they will be alerted to your plight.  Do you know if there is a ticket open for your case?

Keep us posted and hang in there!

Joëlle