@Gillian244 The guest has to pay within 24 hours of booking, but hosts don't have any say in whether the guest pays all upfront or chooses the pay half up front option.
(There used to be a "group payment plan" or whatever it was called, whereby a group was given 72 hours to pay, they could each pay their share of the booking separately but that was done away with a couple years ago. It was a real drag for hosts, but I assume Airbnb canned it because lots of those payments fell through and never got confirmed, so Airbnb was losing money on them, when those listings could have been booked by others if it hadn't been blocked for 72 hours.)
It shouldn't make any difference as far as a guest deciding to cancel or not, because whether they paid in full when booking or paid half, they are still subject to the same cancellation and refund policy. If the nightly rate is $100 and they paid in full and are eligible for a 50% refund, they'd get $50 back. If they only paid half when they booked, they wouldn't get anything back, because the refund is based on the total cost of the booking, not on how much they have paid already.
What I have found is that guests who've had past Airbnb stays already have their payment info uploaded to the site, so their payments go through and are confirmed right away. New users often tend to book a place before they've uploaded their payment info and had it verified (I really wish Airbnb wouldn't let them do this, because it ties up a host's calendar for up to 24 hours).
And newer users often don't understand that if they cancel and have only paid half up front, they may not get any refund at all. They often think that 50% refund means 50% of what they paid, not the total reservation cost, so maybe that's why you find that those who are paying half up front are more likely to cancel.
Or they're the kind of people who just don't have their finances or planning very together in a responsible way, so can't afford to pay the whole shot at once and then have a change of plans and cancel.
