Guest hospitalized

[John921]

I'm wondering how Airbnb's extenuating circumstances policies will apply to my current guest, a trusted repeat customer who was supposed to check in 3 nights ago for a 1-week stay but sent me a message on check-in day saying he was hospitalized 60 miles away starting that day. As far as I know, he's still in the hospital and will be for an indeterminate number of days. Once the dust has settled and it becomes clear how many nights of his reservation he missed, I'm guessing he won't cancel but will request a partial or full refund. Should he deal directly with Airbnb about this extenuating circumstance as it relates to a refund, or should I work it out directly with him? If it's the former and Airbnb agrees to a full refund, will I have to pay for that refund, or does Airbnb foot the bill? I have a moderate cancellation policy whereby, if the guest cancels less than 5 days before check-in, they get a 50% refund for all unspent nights; however, as I've mentioned, I don't think he'll be canceling. I appreciate any help in understanding the extenuating circumstances landscape in advance of the inevitable refund conversation that I'll eventually be having with this guest. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@John921 If he is 'a trusted repeat customer' you should surely be ignoring the rules and doing the right thing by him.

[Helen3]

If you look at Airbnb's EC policy @John921  you will see illness is now not covered. There is an expectation that guests take out travel insurance to cover this sort of circumstances.

You could of course choose to voluntarily refund some or all of the days the guest isn't able to stay if you wish. 

[Alexandra316]

@John921 As @Helen3 says, illness is no longer covered by EC. However, even if it was covered, EC refunds are always paid for by the host. So wheter you choose to offer a refund or for some reason Airbnb deemed it an EC, it would be coming out of your payout.

Extenuating Circumstances Policy - Airbnb Help Center

You need to decide whether or not you wish to offer a refund in this specific situation. If the guest does call Airbnb, it's always possible they will be refunded regardless of what the policy states. I would try to avoid that and work it out with your trusted repeat guest before they decide to involve the company. It will probably make it even more likely that they will book with you in future also, plus my feeling is that if you have a relationship with this person, it would be the right thing to do (if you're able to do so). 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@John921 I agree with @Alexandra316 . The other thing to add though is that if you do not involve Airbnb then the guest will be down about 20% even if you refund him the full amount. You/he might be able to persuade Airbnb to refund their service fees but only if you involve them.

[Ute42]

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@John921 

I agree with @Mike-And-Jane0 . If this is a trusted repeat customer for me there is only one way to go and that is a full refund no matter what the airbnb regulations say.

You could contact airbnb and ask them to cancel the reservation penalty free, tell them that You agree to a full refund and ask them to waive the service fee as an exception.

• „will I have to pay for that refund, or does Airbnb foot the bill?“

You will have to pay for it.

You could also wait untill You get the payout from airbnb and then refund Your guest directely to his or her bankaccount. In this case the guest loses the service fee though.

Tell Your guest proactively that You will make sure a refund will be processed.

Do not cancel the stay from Your side!

[Anonymous]

@John921   This has happened to me before (back when the EC policy still covered health emergencies). The guest's girlfriend, who could not access his account, contacted me to say he had been hospitalized. This did not leave him in a position to process the cancellation from his end. So I contacted Airbnb to do a back-end cancellation on his behalf and refund what would have been my payout, with the girlfriend's message as evidence that this was not a host cancellation subject to penalties. This enabled me to re-open my calendar as quickly as possible without the guest having to take any action. What I don't know is whether Airbnb refunded its service fee to the guest.

Under different circumstances, if you had a long-standing arrangement with the guest, I'd suggest kicking the can down the road and offering to shift the booking to different dates, so nothing is lost in fees. But if a guest is having a health emergency, I wouldn't be bothering them with that stuff.