Our Main Hosting Concern

[Lisa-and-Mack0]

First I have to say that I am a little gobsmacked by the hosts complaining about not getting full cancellation fees.  Every guest we had reservations for April and May has cancelled.  Why on Earth would I want to charge people a fee for either obeying travel restrictions or just just protecting their health?  We all have skin in this game, and I am sorry if you are heavily leveraged after investing in STR properties.  That's on you.  Hosts with multiple properties are the dark side of this business if you ask me.

So, my biggest concern is to have a guest become ill while in my rental.  I could not in good conscious throw anyone out, not to mention potential liability issues if I tried.  First, I raised the minimum days for a stay, and I allowed three days after for no guests.  I had to turn off instant booking because it became unwieldy to manage my calendar.  I get that the app is still doing what it is programmed to do, but really AirBnB needs to not ding me for turning down guests right now.  I don't want anything from AirBnB in the way of compensation...not their fault, just allow me to manage our property as we see fit to protect our own health.

As usual, YMMV.  Thanks for reading. 

[Sarah977]

@Ricky-and-Lori0 Heart disease isn't contagious.

Sally referred to Tennessee because that is what your profile states, not Costa Rica. Check out the stats for COVID cases and deaths in Mexico a week ago, compared to today. That's what you can expect, and climbing, if people where you are aren't social distancing, isolating and taking ther precautions.

Yes, a strong immune system can get you through a lot of things. I'm not a flu shot or pill-taker myself. But this isn't the flu.

[Nanxing0]

@Ricky-and-Lori0 I guess you need to really learn some basics about the COVID-19. The R0 of COVID-19 is currently estimated to be at least 2-3, while that of flu is only 1.3. The death rate of the COVID-19 is also significantly higher than that of flu. It's definitely not something comparable to heart disease where the death rate remains the same no matter how you control it.

The problem with those highly contageous disease is that if you don't manage to contain it, situation can get worse or even out of control. The problem resides whether the number of people in need of hospitalization exceeds the capacity of the medical system. If it does, even if locally, it would result in a big increase in death rate. Look at NYC, that currently is suffering from this problem and the death rate is much higher than other area. Wuhan had this problem earlier as well and the highest death rate was close to 10% at some time, due to that some medium-to-severe patients are not receiving adequate medical care. If the disease is not controlled by social distancing, the 2-3 R0 will make large number of people infected and it will easily exceed the medical system capacity. That will make it out of control. 

If you think your immune system is strong, then go ahead do whatever you want to do. A lot of people recovered from COVID-19 have permanent lung damage that cannot be reverted and they will have reduced lung performance for the rest of their lives. If you have no knowledge in some basic biology you never going to believe how weak and fragile our immune system is.

The reason you never had flu shot and never had flu is not about how strong you are or how excellent your immune system is, but please learn some basic science about the term "herd immunity" or "community immunity". As long as the percentage of people receiving the flu shot reaches a threshold (varies depending on a lot of factors), then it's safe for everyone. However you shouldn't rely on it unless you are not able to get vaccined due to reasons like allergy (my wife is allergic to flu shots so she has to rely on it anyway).

[Ricky-and-Lori0]

So your saying 2700 people a day is no concern even though It kills more everyday because it’s not contagious? A death is a death but the media feeds the you fear to everyone and then buys up all the toilet paper and creates panic and stress. The heart disease is only one of the big ones and I’m not even counting cancer, diabetes, strokes etc kills way more than covid-19 but yet we all sit like rats in a cage and yell at each other to stay home. You need to do more research on covid-19 virus, it is almost identical to the flu but has another mutated gene that effects the respiratory system and can spread easier so yes keep your distance but locking yourself in the house is going overboard as far as I’m concerned. 

[Sarah977]

@Ricky-and-Lori0  I'm saying it's an idiotic and pointless thing to compare it to. You can't catch heart disease from standing next to someone. 

But hey, you are free to bury your head in the sand, I just hope you don't end up being responsible for infecting other people who could very well die.

[Ricky-and-Lori0]

And I’m saying You can’t argue with stupid because they will drag you down and beat you with experience. Why don’t you be a little more concerned about everything else going on around you and pull your head out of the sand! And I live in the real jungle for your information, not in a concrete jungle around others thank god!

[Sarah977]

@Ricky-and-Lori0  Why don't I be a little more concerned about everything else going on around me?  How do you have any idea what I'm concerned about? I live in the jungle, too. If you think that rural or remote areas are somehow immune from coronavirus, you're living in a bubble. All it takes is for one infected outsider, who may or may not be symptomatic,  to come into your community, and within days the entire small community could be infected and within a week or two, people will start dying.

[Ricky-and-Lori0]

Lol...nobody’s coming! borders are CLOSED, did you not get the memo, maybe you should crawl out of you little panic room and take a peak.

[Simon2566]

Hi Lisa,

Superhost in Hong Kong, they allowed full refunds for my strict booking guest cancellations based on EC since protests last year since July and now the Coronavirus.

The application of EC is inconsistent and dependent on the guest country of origin and regional call center.

I've lost hundreds of thousands USD since 2019 and 2020.  I've been able to survive because we made some money in prior years.

Airbnb collects 12%+ service charge on all the bookings for the last 4 years +. How can they collect this fee and provide no assurances on these cancellations even though its all strict cancellation policy apartments.  Some guests are cancelling but still re-booking other accommodation, the customer representatives are not vetting these requests, its all inconsistent and have been happening for months here. 

Now as it affects the US market, is there a big commotion and guidance. 

[Michael4892]

We also choose to refund any guests during at risk or lockdown times, but we do need something, just a little, air BnB have given full cancellation and refunded... also backdated to guest who cancelled before this on the basis they may have been sffected

[Sally221]

Costa Rica has just over 500 confirmed cases, 29 hospitalized & 2 deaths at present. They have a national health plan, I dearly hope it can hold up to what's coming.

[Annette4]

My rentals are my only income and I am very worried ...