Airbnb took my money! Any advice?

[Pete3238]

Back in July, I cancelled a reservation for covid reasons and was refunded $299.01 in the form of credit.

I finally got to planning my next trip and booked a room in April. I applied the credit and made the reservation. My group decided to switch to a different listing so we cancelled the reservation within the full refund window (it was the next day) and made a different reservation.

To my surprise, Airbnb kept my $299.01 credit that I had applied. I reached out to them, but they are unwilling to do anything about it. I was just sent the policy regarding coupons and credit. They basically said that when I cancel a reservation, they will keep the portion that was in the form of credit even if the host has a full refund policy.

I think this is a terrible policy and I wished I had looked up the fine print before it was too late. A warning or something in the system to notify me that I would be losing my own hard-earned money would have kept me from cancelling. I just thought it was going to be fine because the host's refund policy said that I would get a full refund. Little did I know, this doesn't include coupons/credit.

Am I at the end of the road here? I don't think Airbnb will do anything to help me but hopefully this information can prevent others from getting into this situation.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Pete3238 A small claims court approach might work. I think it might depend on whether you could have got a refund for your original cancellation.

You could also try a Twitter approach as Airbnb tend not to like bad publicity.

[Sarah977]

@Pete3238 "think this is a terrible policy and I wished I had looked up the fine print before it was too late."

I agree that it's a bad policy- very greedy on the part of Airbnb. A credit voucher should be honored regardless of whether a booking is cancelled or not.

However, as you say, you wished you had read the fine print. It is always up to a user to read the terms of anything, regardless of whether you're dealing with Airbnb, an airline, buying a new car, or any other entity.

You also need to read the fine print on the host's cancellation policy. "Full refund" only refers to the host's nightly rate, cleaning fee and any taxes. It doesn't include a refund on Airbnb's service fee in most cases.

[Olivia580]

Hi @Pete3238 - Any resolution? I'm sorry this happened to you. It wasn't clear to me that our credits were a one time use either, thus Airbnb kept about $100 of my money when booking a place at a lesser value than my credit. No warning or resolution as of yet. They just send me the fine print. Big bummer and feels illegal considering this is my money.

Thanks!