Covid19 Host Support - REALLY??

[Celine303]

Hi Airbnb hosts

It appears to me the $250m Covid19 support from Airbnb only covers a tiny portion of the bookings I had that were cancelled due to Covid19 (for bookings made before March 14 and for stays up to May 31) because of the way Airbnb structure this so called "host support".

Those guests who cancelled their bookings with me cancelled due to Covid19 restrictions, which caused their weddings they were attending to be cancelled.

Up until Covid19, I had very very low cancellation rate. In fact there were only 1 cancellation since I started the Airbnb account since mid October 2019 up to mid March 2020.

The way Airbnb structure this support DOES NOT support ALL cancellations due to Covid19 even those within Airbnb date requirements, as in my case.

Basically, I had a moderate cancellation policy, which allows guest to cancel free up to 5 days before their arrival. Many of my guests who met Airbnb date requirements cancelled more than 5 days before their arrival, I received ZERO support for those cancellations.

I assume those with Flexible cancellation policy would receive ZERO what so ever.

Those with Strict cancellation policy would have received the most.

This is so unfair to provide support to hosts at different levels depending on their cancellation policies.

It would be great if Airbnb could revise your Covid19 host support policy to remove this discrimination.

[Sarah977]

@Celine303  Yes, they are punishing hosts who have Moderate or Flexible policies, which is outrageous considering that Airbnb urges hosts to have those policies rather than Strict. They seem to be assuming that hosts with those policies are used to having guests cancel right and left for full refunds, but like you, I have a moderate policy,. and in 3 years have only had 3 cancellations- one 3 days before check-in, so I did receive 50%, the other two well in advance, so there was no issue with rebooking the space.

But it was the big-earner, multi-property Strict policy hosts who screamed the loudest when Airbnb started giving 100% refund for COVID cancellations, so I guess Airbnb decided it was best for their PR to throw them the bone.

[Huma0]

@Sarah977  maybe, but I always assumed the decision to base the compensation on a percentage of the cancellation fee and not the booking amount, was so Airbnb could limit how much they needed to pay out whilst getting the most PR out of it. Imagine if, instead, they had said they would pay 10% of the booking amount? That would be a lot of cancellations to cover as it would apply to all policies.

It SOUNDS so much better for them to tell guests and the world's media that they are paying hosts 25%, even though in reality we know that is much less. Most media coverage mentioned the 25% but failed to mention that it = 12.5% for some and 0% for many. Guests were also left with the impression that hosts were getting paid 25% of the booking which, to a guest that never stayed, sounds fair enough.