Guest cancellation due to Corona Virus

[Jennifer2342]

Hi fellow hosts, 

I just wanted to pick your brains on the following. I host my villa in Bali while I am away. I use the strict cancellation policy. I was expecting a Chinese guest in 2 days time. This morning they told me they were cancelling because they wanted to go back to China because of the Corona virus.  I  replied that my strict cancellation policy applies. A few hours later I found out Airbnb China gave them a full refund because of special circumstances. What I do not understand is, why a virus in China is a good reason to cancel your reservation in Bali, when there are no family members directly involved. There is also no confirmed case in Bali of the Corona virus. This would  mean that all Chinese in the world can cancel their bookings and get a full refund.  Maybe I am missing something, or just not well enough informed ? Please let me know your experiences with similar situations. Thanks in advance. 

[Olga6]

I refunded guests from China in January. Full refund. But as the year is progressing, I don't have reservations, just cancellations. The new Airbnb policy is to fully refund guests. Jet, no single guest will be massively financially affected if they are charged as usual per cancellation while hosts with no guests will have a problem, no income and bills to pay. For some the problem may be even existential. I don't think this is a fair policy. 

[Jane1049]

Travel insurance should be the 1st port of call. 

No other budget business model refunds the ‘strict’ advance purchase. It is a risk that the customer signs up to. 

I the meantime we’ve been hung out to dry.

Advance Purchase / Cheapest / Strict = Value purchase with personal risk accepted by customer

Fully Flexible - Expensive: risk taken by provider. The risk ameliorated by the higher price. 

this is the same for BUDGET VS Premier TRAVEL be it by airplane, rail, car hire or budget hotel.

Without considering this AIRBNB  itself could fail

[Stan-and-Sherry0]

I am a super host and have always really liked Airbnb as my favorite platform, because I thought they were trying their best  to be fair. But this new statement for allowing blanket refunds to everyone is devastating to us.  My husband and I are retired with no pensions and depend on our vacation rentals for our income.  I am so sorry guests risks are losing a vacation. Mine are losing my livelihood. This hits us at a time we are stretched financially and I think the loses should have been split 50/50 with guests paying half and the hosts paying half. As it is I end up the big loser. 

[Joseph25]

Dear AirBnB

I hope you are well.

Due the Corona Virus Issues, AirBnB has started to cancel our bookings, the first being today.

As hosts, please allow us to offer client alternative dates before cancelling the bookings. It is unfair that the clients receive a refund when they are covered by travel insurance and we are not protected at all.

At least give us the chance to resolve the situation with clients otehrwise your hosts will not survive the season.

Kind Regards

Joseph Smith
JJSmith Property Consultants Ltd
Director
00357 96715860

[Maria-Jose45]

Hi Joseph,

By saying "It is unfair that the clients receive a refund when they are covered by travel insurance and we are not protected at all."

What travel insurance do you mean? Is this travel insurance paid by guests to Airbnb? If that's so why they didn't applied it and instead of affecting us, do you have this information?

[Veronica348]

Unfortunately, this happens to every host - AIRBNB is cancelling the reservations under their extenuating circumstances policy without even contacting the hosts! I have listed 3 properties with them, and all these forced cancellations is a very huge lost for us! I also noticed that every guest who canceled the reservation used the similar wording which was prepared by AIRBNB " Unfortunately, I won’t be able to stay at your place after all because of the incident affecting your town name".  Which absolutely was not the truth for our location - we don't have confirmed cases of coronavirus. And yes, AIRBNB is taking all credits for being so nice to guests at our expense, as for our guests it looks like that AIRBNB is doing that out of their own pocket (not out of our pockets).

I also listed one of our properties on different online booking website (which is also one of the major players on the vacation rentals market) and their approach is completely different - they are not automatically cancel the reservation (unless the host has flexible cancellation policy which allows guests to cancel the booking but mine policy is strict) and the hosts cancellation policy is applied! We do require all our guests to buy travel insurance which will cover last min cancellation or cancellations for unforeseen reasons and guests should use their travel insurance to cover cancellations rather have the hosts to incur the lost. Also, a few guests who booked our property from that website rebooked for later dates instead cancelling their reservations (and I’m absolutely fine to do it considering today’s situation w/coronavirus). But, this was totally my decision!

On another note - we also have the same travel insurance requirements for AIRBNB guests, however, AIRBNB overrides our policy with their extenuating circumstances policy and cancels the reservations left and right with full refund without even contacting us. I feel very frustrated with AIRBNB way of doing business and feel that they are NOT good business partner for the hosts at all. Very disappointed!

[David501]

Airbnb's policy of full refunds for current cancellations is an utter disgrace. If they wish to use THEIR funds to refund guests that is of course their prerogative but to use hosts funds, without so much as consulting the host is little short of theft. We are very reasonable hosts and are prepared to refund amounts far in excess of our cancellation policy but to receive nothing for bookings that we have already processed and prepared for is grossly unfair and totally unacceptable.

The current crisis is no more of our making than it is the guests', so why we should be expected to take the full brunt of the cost defeats me.

Most guests are very understanding and would be more than happy to pay a small admin fee (perhaps 20%) to contribute to our costs and loss of earnings but Airbnb's cavalier attitude will cost the very people that helped make Airbnb what it is today (hosts) dearly.

This total lack of respect by Airbnb has angered us immensely and we are very interested to hear what other hosts have to say.

We look forward to hearing from you.

[Maria-Jose45]

Hi David,

I totally agree we've been the most affected in this situation. We work with Airbnb, they are AIRBNB because of us hosts (they charge a service fee and we put our properties) and they are not responding at us whatsoever. I think it's time to consider moving to another platform if they will only be taking care of guests.

[Daria83]

David, well said!  As per many earlier comments, we all signed an agreement that gives Airbnb this power, and it is time to rethink that.  I think we need some type of petition or even a class action lawsuit, to change that.  As you said, the Airbnb wants to use THEIR money, go ahead, refund the guests.  But I personally had two different airlines canceling my flights in April and providing a CREDIT towards a next flight to be used in 24 months.  My deposits for a rental property in Europe is gone because it was non-refundable. Other travel companies clearly took a different approach.

Yet, Airbnb generously sends back all the money without so much as a consideration of an impact on hosts, their PARTNERS!  

Airbnb wants to look like a hero to their guests, but they do it at our expense.  That is not right.  I think we need to fight back.  They cannot have this kind of power over OUR MONEY.  We hired Airbnb to collect money from our guests on our behalf. We pay them for that service. The least they should do, is to give us the power to decide.  We all value our guests and we would try to make it work, but sending all the money for a strict policy, non-refundable reservation is simply wrong. 

[Paulo754]

They will most likely get some kind of government fund which will cover the fees that they’re Losing when refunding the guests. But we as hosts will be left with nothing!! We should all change to vrbo! 

[Jason1356]

Clearly Airbnb doesn't give a crap about hosts. They don't even bother to give a deadline for cancellation these days, nor tried to reach hosts.  I received 2 last-day cancellations, simply because that guests now have leverages to cancel without penalties and would leave the decision to the last minute. 

Guests also cancel their existing reservations and make a last-minute booking (much cheaper now due to most hosts got cancelled). 

Hope all hosts can learn from this, and shift their businesses to other platforms in the future. 

[Piotr48]

And now moderators close uncomfortable for ABB threads.

[Cristina814]

All of us should changed our houses to other platforms. 
the behaviour of Airbnb isn’t legal. They are a link between guests and hosts and for this they have their fees , they can’t decided about our business, money and cancellation policy. It isn’t legal 

[Robert4667]

1. Can anyone tell me by what legal authority Airbnb changed the contract between me and the guest, under which we each agreed to bear 50% of the loss if something required a cancellation?  

2. If Airbnb wants to make guests whole, despite the contractual agreement between the guest and the owner, shouldn't Airbnb have to bear the cost?  What right does Airbnb have to transfer the cost to owners?

[Belinda152]

I seem to have lost my Superhost status (held for 4 years) because I had to help a guest, who could not get hold of air bnb, to cancel her booking due to the virus.  She is in lock-down abroad.  Air bnb have not answered either of my messages.  Can anyone help me?