My feed back to Airbnb today after a June guest canceled:
I had a cancellation today for a reservation starting June 17th, 2020, on Maui. My website that I can see said no to extenuating circumstances because it was after May 31st! I called up only to find out you have once again changed the rules! That sucks, just so you know. I am a super host, I would think you could have mentioned it. Supposedly you sent out a notice, I didn't see any notices.
Now I find out that you are going to let this cancellation and that cancellation go as "extenuating circumstances". I cannot afford to be an insurance company without even getting any premiums! Do you understand? If the guest didn't buy insurance, and they have a death in the family, I have to pay for it? Stuff happens. I am one condo. I cannot afford to pay for someone else's choice of not buying insurance for their trip. That is on the guest.
I have made a lot of money with my Airbnb site. But to be truthful, when I say "no refunds" I mean it. The guests know if they even try to read it. I don't hide this! VRBO still sends me my income when a guest decides to not come to Maui for whatever reason they say. Yet you are going to override my no cancellations policy and give my profit back. People book a long time in advance for a trip to Maui. It is not the same as "Oh, let's take a ride to the next state tomorrow" type of vacation. So when you allow them to cancel, against my wishes, I am NOT O.K. WITH THAT! I cannot rebook that close to the reservation.
I have to rethink my being able to host on Airbnb. If I am rethinking it, you can be sure others are too. You cannot do business with a company that you cannot trust to keep their word. You just randomly make changes.
Then, poor business move on your part, you do not offer insurance on your site! If you offered insurance, and it popped up with every reservation, "do you want to insure this trip?", then no one would have issues with cancelations, guests or hosts.
Please offer insurance and please stop making changes that are detrimental to hosts or you aren't going to have a lot of hosts.
Also, hosts, did you know that Airbnb is going to continue to offer extenuating circumstances for illnesses or whatever else a guest tells them to cancel. So your reservations are never really secure! You can never count on that time being truly reserved if the guest is an Airbnb guest.