I had a guest cancel their reservation on the day of the reservation. Since I am a new host and it was only for 1 night and had only been made the day before, I decided to give the guest a full refund. I received an email from Airbnb regarding the cancellation that included a link for refunding the guest. When I went to the page, it does not have an option to make full refund but rather requires me to enter an amount. However, I could not tell from the reservation summary page what amount refund I should make. I contacted support (via chat and then phone) and was told that in order for them to receive the full refund, I should refund them my full "payout". So that's the amount I used. However, shortly there after I received another email saying that I had still had a payout of a couple of dollars and change and that the guest would not receive full refund if I don't refund the full payout. So I went back again and entered this new amount I was given in the form to make refund and submitted it. Once again, a short time later I received email that I still had a payout of $.07!
At this point I was getting really frustrated with Airbnb for their lack of clarify or support in resolving the situation. I contacted them again and after listening to them explain basic stuff about service fees etc (but not answering my basic question about where I find the correct amount to use for refund), I agreed to authorize them to make the full refund. I've receive a message saying that I will not get any payout for the reservation (as I would expect) but the reservation still shows I'm to get .07. Confusing but I guess it will get sorted out.
I'm still curious if anyone can clarify for me how I should go about making a full refund and how to figure out the correct amount to refund. Support has been of no help in answering this for me. I've seen some mention in response to other questions about waiting until I received the payout before making the refund. I'd like some clarity about that also since I can't find any mention of that in the official help about refunds. What is the implication of the fact that I have made a full refund prior to receiving the payout?
If we are suppose to wait until we've received payout before making the refund, then Airbnb should provide an option to do this automatic. I.e. I approve full refund and then it automatically gets distributed at the time of payout.
I am a new host so perhaps someone can point me to information that clarifies all of this. Thanks for any help!
