During COVID-19 Fellow Hosts are an embarrassment!!

[Ginny30]

I am embarrassed by the entitlement some of my fellow hosts are having during COVID-19 epidemic.  The world does not revolve around your rental property or mine!  Airbnb has my full support in issuing 100% refunds during this time. 
This entitlement to thinking Airbnb should pay you according to your cancellation policy is absurd.  All of us are “self employed” with Airbnb, we pay them a small percentage to advertise, showcase and handle our bookings.

There is nothing more important to me then my health, the health of others in my community and the health of my guests!  Welcoming guests to my property right now could potentially expose them, myself and my community to this daily growing virus.  We don’t know if they have been exposed to the virus and they don’t know if I have!  
I have a feeling you would still be complaining even if they would go with your cancellation policy.  This is a global problem and their are people out there financially suffering much more than you are!  Airbnb or any other rental company should never be considered your main source of income period!  There...rant over

[Katrina79]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 It is true, host’s should be able to clear their calendars penalty free at this point. In fact, I’m really not worried about the penalties. My heart is breaking for the entire world right now. It is catastrophic what is happening to our health, finances and world peace. I hope everyone here is on board with social distancing to lessen the huge blow our world economy and health is about to undergo. I’m extremely worried for those residing in the United States, but hopeful this will bring the people around the world together and bring out the best in human nature. Please be kind to each other. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. 

[Candee0]

" If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all."  That is what my Mama taught me!

[Sarah977]

@Luana130  It's presumptuous to assume that guests losing "travel money" is no big deal. For all you know, they may have saved up for years to be able to take a once-in-a-lifetime holiday further away than somewhere fairly local. To them, it might be just as devastating to lose their accomodation $ as it is for the host.

@Ginny30  Thank you for your post. Those who feel like we do seem to be in the vast minority here right ow. Not so on other hosting forums- hosts on the other one I follow are taking the responsible tone.

[Ocean50]

"Not so on other hosting forums" ....... which forum??? I only see people trash Airbnb 10x time more on Reddit, Facebook, Twister and Youtube since the admin there isn't getting pay by Airbnb itself.

[Sarah977]

@Ocean50  I don't follow anything on those sites. I'm not going to mention the other forum here because they really don't want hosts coming on there ranting about all the money they're losing. Instead they are posting humor to get us through these hard times, and sharing all the cleaning protocols that are necessary and posting links to places all over that are offering financial assistance to those in need. And offering each other support and guidance.

I found that forum on my own with a simple Google search a long time ago.

[Juan63]

Value your opinion Sarah. But you are not in the same boat as others. You host a fraction of the amount of guests compared to other hosts. The loss of a guests is WAAAAAY less then the loss for hosts. For me it's not a question if guest should receive a refund, but how much and when and where it was applied. 

[Sarah977]

@Juan63  I am well aware that I am not in the same boat as hosts who rely on Airbnb for all or a significant part of their income. To be clear, I think the way Airbnb has been and is going about this is absolutely wrong-headed. I also think that hosts who expected their cancellation policies to be upheld during a pandemic of this magnitude are wrong-headed. For a guest to lose 50% of their reservation cost due to something completely out of their control like this isn't reasonable- they would expect to receive a service for their payment and they will get none.

I think a 20-30% payment to the hosts who normally would have received 50% would have been fair to all. Hosts who felt like refunding all of the guest's payment are free to do so. Some of the guests would bitch about that and some of the hosts would, but at least hosts wouldn't have been left high and dry and guests would have been paying something for the time and effort hosts put into every booking, just in communicating with their guests, and sharing some of the burden that the entire world is experiencing right now.

[Sam397]

@Sarah977 I have seen you twist things around to suit your needs so many times, almost as many times as I have seen you say something that was unbelievably ridiculous. And for the most part I have bitten my tongue, but I cant do that today. I dont know if its the subject or that I am tired but I going to call you on a few things. This comment you made is a perfect example of how you spin things around.

@Luana130  It's presumptuous to assume that guests losing "travel money" is no big deal. For all you know, they may have saved up for years to be able to take a once-in-a-lifetime holiday further away than somewhere fairly local. To them, it might be just as devastating to lose their accomodation $ as it is for the host.

Somebody makes a comment that the guest paying half of the fee once is not as devastating as it is for the host if he loses 100% of the fee 20 -30 times and you come back with that. Well lets do the math and find out.I would say in my case that the average stay is anywhere between $200-$400,inn order to keep it simple lets say the average cost is $200. If the cost is split 50/50 the guest is out a one time fee of $100 (which is less than they would pay for two people to go out to dinner at a nice restaurant) but by making the host pay for the whole thing the host is out $200 twenty or thirty times for a total of $4000-$6000. To say that there is even a chance that its as devastating for the guest as it is for host is ridiculous and an insult to everyone's intelligence.

Now as for your comment:

Thank you for your post. Those who feel like we do seem to be in the vast minority here right ow. Not so on other hosting forums- hosts on the other one I follow are taking the responsible tone

You name one forum that the majority of the host on there think that what AirBnB did was fair. Just one,you do that I will take back everything I said and admit I didnt know what I was talking about.

You have said some great things and are very knowledgeable in a lot of areas important to the community and have been very helpful to a lot of host just starting out and your also a very valuable member in this community, much more than myself but sometimes you can say some off the wall things. 

[Sarah977]

@Sam397  No, I don't twist things, you just don't comprehend my meaning clearly. I said that it wasn't right for hosts to dismiss the money that guests paid for their bookings as something that it's no big deal for them to lose. We have no idea what kind of financial situation guests are in, just as they have no idea what kind of situation hosts are in. For some guests, yes, it's just expendable money, for some, it may be something they've saved for for years and aren't in a position to just lose it all. Maybe they just lost their job, too, because of the lockdowns, and won't be able to pay their mortgage either. Likewise, there are hosts for whom the money they have lost on the coronavirus cancellations will be devastating, for some, it won't be a huge deal. You can't just assume that all guests can afford to lose their "play money" or that all hosts are now financially decimated. It's quite individual. And just as guests chose to book a vacation, some hosts chose to put all their eggs in one basket and rely on Airbnb for their sole source of income. No one forced them to do that.

And again you have put some sort of words in mouth which I never said. I said hosts on another forum were taking a responsible tone. Did I say they think that how Airbnb handled this situation was fair? I did not. I didn't even insinuate it. No hosts think Airbnb making unilateral decisions about refunds is fair. By a responsible tone, I meant that they are not ranting and raving about their lost income, but are well-aware of how Airbnb operates and were never under any delusions about Airbnb being their partner or doing the right thing by hosts. And right now they're just being supportive of each other, brainstorming ideas, and are more concerned about everyone doing their part to stop this virus from spreading than they are about lost income. That in no way means that the lost income doesn't hurt. But no one will need the money if they're dead.

[Wendy1071]

@Sam397 You've called out @Sarah977 for 'twisting things around to suit her needs'  when your example of the $200 stay is used to justify host retaining 50% of cancelled reservations because it 'is less than they would pay for two people to go out to dinner at a nice restaurant'.   That's a fairly lowballed figure.  What about the reservation that's $4,000?  That'd be one nice dinner out.  Everyone here is skewing the circumstances to justify their argument.  The two I find ridiculous are:

1.   Hosts claiming they are being made to give refunds.  They are correctly not going to earn income.  They've never received the income so they are refunding nothing.

2.   Host who claim they've done everything for Airbnb; taken out mortgages to buy places and/or decorated their place and bought furniture etc. to provide Airbnb with a good stock of unique accommodation etc.  Hosts who did these things, did them to attract guests and make money for themselves, not for Airbnb's sake.  

[Mark116]

@Wendy1071   The thing about the EC policy, is that before CO19, airbnb routinely gave refunds that were not covered under the policy, they also, routinely broke their own terms and conditions and policies.  Routinely.  All you have to do is read this forum and you will see dozens and dozens if not hundreds of stories of how airbnb failed to follow its own terms of service.

So, I am not really moved by the idea that everyone signed up for it so they should shut up about it.  It is also true that the law isn't quite what it used to be, non disclosure agreements are no longer enforced, and there have been numerous cases where an entity believed they had indemnified themselves and people were still able to find a way for a class action suit.

I don't even really object to the 100% refunds so much as I object to how airbnb did it unilaterally, without any input from hosts, that they make 100% refund the first and only option, unlike VRBO which first offers a 1 year credit, and that so far, airbnb has done zero to help its host weather this storm.

Of course it doesn't help either that airbnb lost the thread of its own story some time ago and allowed the public to acquire a negative image of the company and of hosts as greedy landlords trying to subvert existing laws, so now, no one feels sorry for the evil landlords who are going to go bankrupt and/or lose their houses. 

[Wendy1071]

@Mark116  Yes, your thoughts are shared by many hosts and if the judicial system is of the same opinion there could be some beneficial changes for Airbnb for hosts.   It will be an interesting case to watch.

Good luck to you and your family navigating these uncharted waters.  

[Karen2391]

I support the EC policy completely. It’s the “zero sympathy” factor for hosts that kills me. Yes, it is terrible for anyone to lose money in this and hosts were fully informed that all reservations were subject to host cancellation policy override. But there are MULTIPLE ways that Airbnb is forcing ADDITIONAL hardships and doing disservice to hosts. Legitimate host objections RELATED to the application of the EC Policy are being met with strong host hate, which is not only unfair, it is surprising and quite a bit heartless to me as forums bleed empathy for nearly every other walk of life whose worthy and productive incomes are affected.

[Mark116]

Any way you look at it,  hosts are losing significantly more money than guests.  The guests have one trip, that is it, a trip where they already had allocated the money.  Hosts are losing entire months of reservations.  I quite honestly, don't understand how or why anyone would  not understand that the financial impact is massive for the hosts, vs. small for guests.  And yes, I understand that some guests are also facing financial uncertainty due to the shutdowns, but it still is not the same ball park.

It would have been incredibly easy for airbnb to set up things so that first the guest is offered a travel voucher for one year to the same property.  If they refuse, then fine, give them the refund.  It would be nice if airbnb also followed the lead of other multi national and national corporations and did something tangible for hosts who are losing whole seasons of bookings.

[Susan17]

@Mark116 

Leave them at it - you're wasting your time. Suits them better to look down their noses at everyone else from their sanitised, disinfected, righteous  ivory towers, and convince themselves that the rest of us are just greedy, irresponsible, heartless b******s, rather than face the facts that maybe - just maybe -their skewed perspectives on this issue are driven entirely by their own excessive fears and anxieties, rather than any fair, rational, level-headed thought processes. (There's taking sensible, responsible precautions... and then there's outright paranoia). No matter how many times we try to explain our position to them, it's clear that their care and compassion lies with the guests, rather than their fellow hosts, who they now obviously judge as being the scum of the earth, rather than ordinary people just fighting to save their homes and their livelihoods, and take care of their families.

Why anyone should feel it's fair or right that on a 2300 euro booking, for example, the host should take the full hit, rather than ten young lads on a beano for St Patrick's week losing a mere 115 each (which wouldn't even cover a single night on the beer for them in that location), and the host losing 1150, is utterly beyond my comprehension.  And for the life of me, I can't fathom why any right-thinking person would support the refund of a full 2800 euro booking for 8 high-ranking professionals, to the multi-million euro multi-national company that employs them, rather than the burden being shared 50/50 with the host, so they would have at least some income to meet their expenses and feed their family.

Equally dumbfounding (and deeply saddening) to me is how - or why - anyone with even the slightest sense of justice, decency or equality would support an abusive, exploitative policy being immorally and illegally deployed against their peers, solely for the financial, operational and PR benefits of an unethical and duplicitous multi-billion dollar global corporation. Or why they would rather castigate others being beaten down and robbed blind by an unlawful policy, than recognise the rank injustices of one person being forced to assume 100% of the risk and responsibility for the travel disruptions of possibly 100- 200 or more complete strangers, over a period of many months, who have willfully neglected to put in place any measures whatsoever to mitigate for their own risks and responsibilities. (And despite the wholly inaccurate and disingenuous claims that no such insurance exists, plenty of insurance companies offer ample CFAR cover to protect against all eventualities, should one choose to apportion a small fraction of their entire trip budget to purchase it) One day, in the not too distant future, the whole picture will become crystal clear, and it will be the self-serving apologists and cheerleaders who supported these abuses, who'll be the ones feeling the shame and embarrassment then.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.