Hi everyone,
I have been hosting in Berlin in two different apartments for 7 to 8 years. Airbnb has been good to me overall - but in recent years one can really feel a decline in custome service to hosts, and they have tightened their grip on hosts and tend to fogive less and demand more.
Nothing prepared me to the following situation. Of course I suffered a lot of Covid 19 related cancellations, like any other host, and one of them was by an American guest called Kelsey who was supposed to stay with me on Mar. 13th. Obviously, she cancelled, but since her stay wasn't covered by the extenhuating circumstances plan, I still got most of her payment on Mar. 14th - around 300 Euros. She did NOT like this - and texted and wrote some direct threats about suing me.
Three weeks later AIrbnb changed their minds for some reason, and gave her the 300.- back. NOW AIRBNB WANTS 309.- BACK from me, the host. I've had close to zero income from Airbnb in past weeks. And I'm only suppoed to receive a few low payments at the end of April. i've had a long back and fourth with the Airbnb's infamous cancellation department, explaning that this is a really bad time to charge me 300.-, that i still have to pay mortgage, bills, despite having no income, but they stand by their decision. they will decrease 300.-- from my next payment no matter what. Crazy, but true.
This morning I finally got a reservation request for one of the apartments - two weeks for 511 euros. A very low payment for an apartment that is usually offered for 80-90 euros a night. If I accept this today, airbnb will deduct the 309.- euros from the 511.-, leaving me with 202.- euros for two weeks, before tax.This doesn't make any sense. It's way too little money and won't even cover the costs. I don't know what to do and where to turn - Does anyone know who in Airbnb I can turn to in order to ask them to stop this madness and forgive this payment, or at least postpone it until things are a little better?
Airbnb wasn't so rude and mean a few years ago - my feeling is that back in the day it really WAS about community. Now it's about the money, about commission, and about trying to be pretend there's any sense of community left. THAT WE ARE PARTNERS. A community with millions of people, isn't a community anymore, it's a country. And a country has institutions. Talking to Airbnb feels more and more like talking to the IRS or to Social Security, and less like talking to a privately owned company. I'm slowly starting to realize, I deserve better than this. I deserve better than what Airbnb is giving me. Not only on the finanacial level, but on the humane one.
