Hi everyone, first time poster here!
I am a host in Edinburgh, Scotland and I have been using Airbnb for 5 years now to take bookings for the 2 apartments I have in the city (I offer both as “entire home”). The viability of my business is centred around my August bookings, which attract net payouts of up to £300 per night because of the Edinburgh festival. Many of the other months are loss making and I only do Airbnb all year round so that I can build my reputation as a host and because it’s slightly more tax effective.
I have spent much of my time since March negotiating with my August guests because the festival was cancelled at a very early stage due to covid-19. If the festival had been cancelled for other reasons then the net payout per night would probably be about £125 as in July) but, because of covid the net August payout is now averaging around £50 a night – so pretty much worthless.
The stance I have taken with my August guests is that I set my cancellation policy to “strict” in order to mitigate against circumstances such as the one we are in just now and I feel that the 50/50 split that comes with that is fair because the global pandemic is neither the guests nor the host’s fault. There are obviously many factors that mean one party may be affected more than the other, but my general feeling is that each guest takes this hit once, where as I have to take it many times, therefore my overall situation is a lot worse and, because this is my only source of income, it’s more likely that I will be suffering more (some guests may also be covered by travel insurance as well).
Anyway, it appears that the most of the guests I have been “negotiating” with, have really just been biding their time until Airbnb will allow their reservations to be covered by the extenuating circumstances policy. I’ve read a lot of comments on this forum about how guests seem to have success whether they qualify or not but, in my case, everyone who has cancelled had booked before 14th March 2020 (which is normal for August bookings because of the ridiculously high demand). So, the only thing I have to cling on to in terms of disputing all of the successful claims that have been made against me is that the extenuating circumstances says that guests need to “attest to the facts of and/or provide supporting documentation for your extenuating circumstance”. In each case I have asked Airbnb what the circumstance was and (in most cases) I have pointed out all of the inconstancies in the guest’s story during my own negotiations. In most cases, the first thing they said was “the festival has been cancelled can I have a full refund?”. It then turns to more covid related reasons but they are still saying stuff like “my flights have been cancelled”, which I don’t believe is covered by the extenuating circumstances policy so long as there are no travel restrictions between the 2 countries concerned. Consistent with what everyone else is saying on this forum, Airbnb just ignore me (or send a standard reply that doesn’t fit with what I am asking).
The other strange thing about how Airbnb have dealt with this is that, in all cases I have been advised that I will be receiving zero payout. If I go to the “payout” details in the Airbnb website, however, there are many different scenarios. In one case the guest seems to have received a 50% refund less their Airbnb service fee and I have received nothing (bear in mind my cancellation policy is set to “strict”, which is 50% to the guest less Airbnb service charge and 50% to me). In most other cases the guest seems to have received a full refund less the Airbnb service charge. Obviously, they either qualify under the extenuating circumstances policy or they don’t, so, if they do then the Airbnb service charges should have been refunded to them as well.
My main problem is that all of these refund requests are handled behind my back and without any consultation with me so what I really want to know is whether or not I have the right (or any legal right) to demand that I see evidence that the guest meets the criteria of the extenuating circumstances policy. It seems to me (and is backed up from many many comments on this forum) that Airbnb just negotiate something with the guest that results in some money going to Airbnb, some to the guest and none to me. The extenuating circumstances policy says though that 100% should go back to the guest if they quality.
On the back of all of what I have described, I had a guest contact me last night to ask about a full refund. By this time, I had formed the view that they would get one anyway no matter how much I tried to negotiate so I just told them that if they followed the usual cancellation policy on the Airbnb website then it will probably offer them a 100% refund. This method, however, resulted in me receiving an email asking if I agreed to the refund. This was the first time I had been consulted but was probably because it was done online and not through a Customer Services rep. I said yes and the guest received a full refund including his Airbnb service fees (again, first time I have seen the guest get their own service fees back but presumably only because they had done it online). This booking was worth £1,000 and I now think I have unwittingly agreed to something that the guest wasn’t entitled to because of how I had been misled previously.
Many people have said on this forum that perseverance is the key so any general advice on how I can fight this would be appreciated. As I have mentioned, I would like to see the guest’s “evidence” as to why they can’t travel but I doubt Airbnb would agree to it. But if they aren’t willing to prove that the guest has a genuine reason then how can they justify cancelling the reservation at the hosts expense?
