3 bookings were canceled by host

[Soraya94]

YEs the coronavirus is happening but I still booked 3 different reservations to ski up in bear valley resort and low and behold the hosts have realized they need to increase their prices since kids in california will not be in school for the next 2 weeks.  3 different hosts all of a sudden say due to coronavirus they are not hosting but the dates are still open and the price have now doubled! If you want to make money then do it but if you show it available and to slow to change your price before I book then you should honor the booking. wasted my time and unfair to us guests who give you plenty of business. This should be illegal but AIRBNB is not on our guests side. 

[Anonymous]

@Soraya94  Funny that you say that...if you read other posts in these boards you'll see a huge number of hosts who are very upset that Airbnb is overriding their cancellation policies and costing them huge amounts of money.  Airbnb doesn't offer any protection against this situation - when the Extenuating Circumstances cancellation clause is activated, the host takes all of the loss. In effect, this is basically making hosts act as guests' free travel insurance. 

If you don't currently have an active booking, I'd recommend holding off for awhile before making travel plans. The situation is changing each day, and I doubt things are going to go back to normal before the ski season is over.

[Soraya94]

Well as a guest I was overridden 3 times even though the schedule showed completely available. I wasted a lot of time to find out all of a sudden last minute not available. Maybe they thought I was going to cancel since we planned to ski but  wouldn't.  we were still going regardless. Home away confirms once I click reserve there is no waiting period.

I am super understanding but now I look and the homes are available at triple the price. I believe in profit but not at my expense by canceling my reservation. I finally found someone kind and stuck to the reservation. SKi or not we are going finally

[Sarah977]

@Soraya94  I'm glad you got a booking finally, but it's hard to say, really, why those other places suddenly tripled in cost. Some hosts actually use a strategy when they don't want guests to book (like maybe because of coronavirus) of doubling or tripling the price, assuming no one will pay that much, because actually shutting down the listing for awhile or blocking dates can result in a much lower search ranking when a host is ready to host again. It's like sometimes guests get upset when a host says sorry, we actually aren't available for those dates (even though they show on the calendar as available), then the guests sees a few days later that the dates are blocked, so thinks the hosts just rebooked them at a higher price or was making an untrue excuse.. But the host may have blocked the dates because they had friends or family coming to stay, or have to have a medical procedure.

I'm not saying this is what happened in your case, just that you can't always jump to conclusions about why dates might be blocked or prices show differently, because there's not necesarily just one explanation.