I don’t think it is! Currently, under AirBnB’s extenuating circumstances policy, any guest with Covid can cancel a reservation and get a full refund just days before their stay and the host gets nothing, regardless of the host’s cancellation policy. This just happened to me. A guest said they had Covid 2 days before their arrival. I presume they provided documentation of that to AirBnB and the reservation just disappeared from my calendar without so much as a word from AirBnB. Apart from the disrespect that shows to the host, this seems blatantly one sided. The host assumes all the risk in operating in the Covid environment. I generally cannot replace a booking a couple of days in advance and thus am running a loss for those days.
In my opinion, the risk should be shared more evenly by perhaps allowing for a 50% refund. Why should a guest be completely free of responsibility if they get Covid? No other illness is considered an extenuating circumstance by AirBnB. Did the guest behave responsibly prior to their travel to minimize possible exposure? Were they vaccinated? In AirBnB’s own words under their extenuating circumstances policy they state the following: “After the declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, the extenuating circumstances policy no longer applies because COVID-19 and its consequences are no longer unforeseen or unexpected.” Thus they consider any other illness, travel disruption, border closing, etc “no longer unforeseen” but the possibility of getting Covid is still considered unforeseen? That seems quite absurd to me!
What do other hosts think about this?
