Host cancelled but didn't cancel - urgent help needed!

[Nikolaus23]

Our host informed me that they could not host us (extended family)

Which is fine, I think they're not ready and just haven't had a booking in a while

But then they asked me to cancel, rather than them, they promised me a full refund

I read up about this and Airbnb has some very clear guidelines that state that I as the guest should never cancel on behalf of the host as I am then no longer eligible for a refund. 

The refund policy is no refund. So I didn't want to take the risk to be at the mercy of the host and followed the guidelines, sent them to the host, sent the case to Airbnb support. 

Host is no longer responding and neither is Airbnb support (maybe it's the weekend?)

But I need my cash back so I can book another place, I have a whole family who needs shelter tomorrow! 

This is a mess!

What to do in this case? Why does the host not want to cancel? Does that incur cost for them? 

I don't want to blame them, they offered me an instant booking on my inquiry... then I asked a few questions, they were all positive answers... then I said, yeah ok Cool I am coming, and I hit the "book now" button. And the next minute they sent me a message saying they can't host us, they're not ready, and they also only want to do monthly. 

I understand this but I need my money back right now. 

Anyone has tips as to how to resolve this? I believe that they are willing to return the money, and in any case, I can also get it back via the credit card, it just takes a few months. Should I cancel on my end and hope for the best now? I need this resolved. 

It's $1600 for the whole booking.

[Sarah977]

The host doesn't want to cancel because there are heavy penalties for hosts when they cancel- they get fined, their calendar gets blocked for those dates so no one else can book them, if they have Superhost status they will lose that, and a message appears on their review page saying they cancelled a reservation, which makes future guests reluctant to book with them.

But you are quite correct- you shouldn't cancel from your end- this host shouldn't have agreed to take your booking if they couldn't host you or were holding out for a long-term reservation. Quite unprofessional of them as well as rude. 

Maybe the host doesn't know, though, that they have 3 penalty-free cancellations on IB bookings. They just have to call Airbnb and say they are uncomfortable with the reservation.

You should keep trying to get a hold of Airbnb. You could also try to cancel payment with your credit card company- you have no assurance the host will refund and the fact that they are not answering your messages isn't a good sign. But if you ask your credit card co. to reverse the charges, you really do need to talk to Airbnb, or they might prevent you from ever booking anything again.

@Nikolaus23 

[Nikolaus23]

Thanks for your response, very helpful!

I just wonder if you know what the recourse is should they not refund me - and if they do refund me, whether or not that is immediate.

I never cancelled and asked for a refund even though the policy of that booking says no refund...

The entire interaction with host is on AirBnB chat so I assume that if it comes to that they could always check what was said there. 

[Elena87]

@Nikolaus23 

You can follow the instructions below when a host doesn't want to take responsibility to cancel.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1250/what-should-i-do-if-my-host-needs-to-cancel

The host has 24 hours to respond to your request.

Getting a refund back can take some time - usual quote is 5-15 business days via credit card.

If the booking starts within 24 hours, it's too late in the day for a host to cancel an instant booking penalty free now, as suggested  and would need a call to airbnb.

You can perhaps keep trying to contact airbnb yourself, supposedly they give priority to bookings within 72 hours of starting.

Another way as a workaround is to rapidly request to move the dates of the booking in to the future via an alteration request, a host can make a penalty free cancellation, but with a non savvy host it doesn't fill me with confidence to go this way. It might actually give the host a good shake if they did incur some penalties for letting you down. Best wishes to you.

[Nikolaus23]

Thanks for all your help, I am very grateful. 

Ultimately, what happened is I did what they suggested, I cancelled, taking the risk, and they refunded me immediately. 

I am really disappointed in AirBnB for making this so difficult.

Because in reality, they wanted to cancel, I wanted to cancel - and nobody should be the wiser, or be penalized for this.

It was a small inconvenience to me that the host wanted to cancel - OK! 

But it was a much bigger inconvenience for me that the host was unable to cancel without incurring penalties, bad marks on their profile, etc, because that made them not want to cancel. And I don't want to spend 2 weeks going through a recovery process to get my funds back. 

AirBnB was not responding - maybe they take weekends off???!!! - they still haven't responded, radio silence for 48 hours now. 

And my booking was coming up, so I had to do something. 

I got together with them, and trusted them to refund me, and they did. So we solved this without Airbnb. But really lame. 

By way of explanation of course it was the host's "fault" to invite me to book, but then change their mind last minute. 

But to be fair they sent me a note saying they can't host me pretty much the same time I hit the book button - nothing lost, nothing gained, AirBnb should just make it easy to get the money back in this situation. 

I know there's probably other considerations, but for the record it was a mess, and I blame 90% AirBnB misaligned incentives for this. 

Also - amazing community here, thank you so much for jumping in and helping! That's fantastic.