Neither guest nor host can cancel

[Joe2662]

I'm a guest. I rented a place. The place was not a fit and the host agreed to simply cancel and refund.
I was next to her as she tried to cancel it. The button was grayed out for her. If I cancel, there is no refund.
The host never received the money from Airbnb, but it was deducted from my bank account.
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I wrote support figuring it takes a while and rented something without Airbnb.
Since the host wanted to rent the room out to someone else, we tried to improvise by changing the date to 1 day. Another error.

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I opened the support ticket again, still not having received any response, and added the pictures. Upon that, the case was suddenly closed.

I opened a new ticket in good faith. I figured perhaps the many pictures were an issue, so this time I used linked uploads on the Airbnb site itself.

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I got an automatic "we'll get in touch soon" response. Days passed.

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I opened another ticket. We were unable to change the dates or cancel in a refundable way. The money is still neither with the host nor me, but with Airbnb. I added the prior transcripts to the new ticket. Instead of chat messages (no response) and phone (no response/dead rings) I would try email this time

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I then came across this rather hard-to-find subpage via a random Reddit comment and figured I'd relay my story here. The headaches and effort put into this are already more costly than the rent, but I'm afraid of something similar happening again in the future and hoped I'd learn how to quickly deal with issues like this for future Airbnb use.

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[Sarah977]

@Joe2662  This sounds like a somewhat inexperienced host? A host can't simply cancel a guest reservation without penalties which are quite extensive and it seems she wasn't aware of that when trying to cancel your booking. The host would get a $50-$100 fine, the dates she cancelled would be blocked by Airbnb so she, in fact, would not be able to rebook them, a notice would appear on her review page saying "Host cancelled this booking", which makes future guests wary of booking with her, and she would be ineligible to acheive Superhost status for a year, or lose it if she was already a Superhost.

If the place wasn't a good fit as far as you were concerned, it is up to you to cancel. The host can authorize a full refund or partial, as she sees fit.

If it not being a good fit was mutual, then you should have called Airbnb to explain this, and they would do a "neutral" cancellation, where you get refunded and the host isn't penalized.

Also, if you guys were trying to do all this on the app, the desktop version has functionalities that the app doesn't. If something isn't working correctly, you should try on a laptop.

I can't advise as far as altering booking dates, as I've never had to do that.

Guest payments are charged when a guest books and the funds are only released to the host 24 hours after the guest checks in, and it can be up to a week after that before the money appears in the host's bank account. So that you were charged and the host hadn't been paid yet is normal. For that reason, it's not really fair for a guest to expect a host to refund them immediately if they cancel, even if the host is amenable to refunding. You can't refund money you haven't received yet.

Was this place not a good fit because you weren't clear on what you had booked, or because the host's listing wasn't clear as to what she was offering? Just curious.

[Joe2662]

"If it not being a good fit was mutual, then you should have called Airbnb to explain this, and they would do a "neutral" cancellation, where you get refunded and the host isn't penalized."

This is what I tried and am still trying to do.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Joe2662 I would call Airbnb - phone numbers for most countries are in a contact details post pinned to the Help section of this community centre. It will help if you have a message from the host agreeing to a mutual cancellation.

[Joe2662]

I tried calling with 2 numbers and got nothing but infinite hold-the-lines. Kyrgyzstan is not a place where you can easily call anyone. The Host, now days later, will likely no longer be cooperative since it will mean free money for them

[Joe2662]

I forgot to mention that I did try the calling part multiple times and was referring to additional attempts

Edit: Didn't see the edit function at first as it was hidden beneath a tiny arrow only revealed after flipping my phone.

How come every chat and email only gets one automated response and is then closed. Did I break some rules for trying to reach support? There is 0 help. It didn't use to be so bad, right?

[Sarah977]

@Joe2662  You're right. Customer service has fallen off a cliff. Staff is outsourced, ill-trained, and most hosts, as well as some guests, are more knowledgable about policy than they are. There are constant tech glitches. It's quite inexusable, really. And no, it wasn't always like that. 

Another way of contacting CS is through their Twitter account. Said to get better responses, but YMMV. Try that.

[Joe2662]

Still no reply from Airbnb in 2 support chats & emails. Tried the phone again. It rang for half an hour in the background then suddenly ended. 

[Joe2662]

Still not able to get through. Tried phone again. Chats still empty, should I open another one?

(I'm mostly just documenting my journey at this point..)

[Joe2662]

another day another failed attempt

[Liv]

Hi @Joe2662, I'm really sorry to hear about that situation.

I have checked with the Support team and they told me you've already got an open case. Please bear with them a little longer, they'll get in touch with you as soon as possible.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Liv

[Sarah977]

@Liv  It's absurd that this guest should still have an open case and be receiving no responses from CS for a simple situation of a mutually agreed upon cancellation.

[Joe2662]

I finally got a response from the team which was that they are now on vacation and have completely ignored all of the documentation I provided. In all seriousness, what am I doing wrong?

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I'm asked to email - but no email is given to me,
I'm asked to give documentation - I already have,
I'm being apologized to for late response - responder immediately goes on vacation after saying that

This is devoid of logic from top to bottom

**[Private conversation hidden - Community Center Guidelines]

[Joe2662]

Apologies for the small font, I tried to fit everything into one screenshot.

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**[Personal information and private conversations hidden - Community Center Guidelines]

[Joe2662]

Update: Support still silent after getting back to me to tell me that they are now on holiday