Please let's change the COVID-19 refund policy

[Andrew1916]

There have been requests for constructive ideas about the unfair and draconian implementation of a 100% refund policy by Airbnb. Well, here we go.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but in UK we take out travel insurance to cover cancellation, curtailment or medical emergencies. In addition, credit cards also carry significant cover for purchases. Here are examples:

In 2019 the airline Thomas Cook went into administration, I recovered the cost of my future flights from my Mastercard.

A few years earlier my wife's brother died while we were abroad, we cut our vacation short and travelled home at short notice on a very expensive flight, our insurance paid.

In UK right now, if you have to cancel your vacation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, your insurance will pay out.

The Thomas Cook airline example is a good one. We were advised that the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) would get anyone home who was stranded. Also that we should approach our credit card first for refunds of lost payments. Only if we could present evidence of being refused a payout from our credit card would the insurance company step in to refund us. 3 layers of support, logically laid out.

At HomeAway they have decided on offering guests options if they need to cancel. A refund of 50-100% decided by the host, or a 100% credit held against a future booking. They have set up a new credit holding system to handle the new policy. It sounds pretty fair.

So lets look at Airbnb. In "partnership" with us, the hosts, they have chosen a unilateral policy that 100% support to the traveller and 0% support to the host. Doesn't sound too fair. So how about changing the policy? Lets have some layers and choices that share the cost and risk between Host and Guest.

First, let's have a notice on the booking confirmation email that informs travellers to take out insurance as soon as possible.

Then, when a guest chooses to cancel, even through extenuating circumstances, they are advised to claim against their credit card or travel insurance policy. If this is unsuccessful, they should submit evidence of this refusal so that the Host can consider a whole or partial refund. I would suggest somewhere between 50% and 80% refund, sharing the cost and also fair because the traveller chose to take the risk of not to have insurance.

As an alternative, a guest cancelling under the COVID-19 policy should be offered the option to retain a 100% credit with the host for a future booking. (Hey and Airbnb get to keep their cash for another year so there's a win-win.)

I'm sure this is far from perfect and may not even be practical, but it's much closer to a "partnership" than the current policy that will put many of us into debt this year. (Can I just also note that my cottages are in a third world country where three families are dependent on their income from working in our team. I feel obliged to support them through this but reducing my income to zero doesn't help much.)

[Sarah977]

@Andrew1916  While it's certanily a good idea for guests to take out travel insurance in normal circumstances, most travel insurance policies are not paying out for cancelled reservations due to coronavirus. They have clauses which exempt things like global pandemics.

[Jeffery5]

So if insurance companies are not paying, why should we, the hosts, become the insurance company by default?   

[Helen3]

@Andrew1916 as someone who takes out travel insurance you should know pandemics such as this one aren't covered.

You signed up to an EC policy when you joined as a host that covered pandemics. It is not guest centric both hosts and guests can cancel under it free of charge.

This is your business and you can't expect a guest to pay for a service you can no longer provide, particularly as you know that in UK all hotels, B&Bs, self-catering has been banned from operating. @Andrew1916 

[Nanxing0]

We signed up to EC policy but it did not cover coronavirus when we signed for it. Airbnb cannot add terms into our contract the way they want. 

Nobody is asking the guest to pay for a service we are not providing. We are asking something like the way Homeaway and VRBO is doing, like a credit holding system for future bookings. Guests will lose nothing given they travel in the future and hosts will not be torn.

[Frank35]

Dear Sarah977, Dear Helen3,
could you please explain to me an the rest or the community what "Level 10" actually means and why you have posted several thousand posts?
Thanks

[Sarah977]

@Frank35 The levels on this forum are only a reflection of a user's activity on the forum- how often they post or how many thumbs up they get- I have no idea how the algorithm assesses or sorts that. The levels mean nothing- it's just some social media thing like "likes" or "followers". Has nothing whatsoever to do with your hosting account or anything else. If you were to post something here 4 times a day for a week, you'd probably suddenly be level 10, too. It's all rather silly to me. I outgrew gold stars in kindergarten.

As to why I've posted so much- I've been on this forum for a couple of years, and I like the community here. I've learned a lot from other hosts here and also try to offer advice if I happen to know the answer or have an opinion on something people are weighing in on. I don't participate in any other social media-no facebook, no twitter, no instagram, etc, so this is kind of my one stop shop to mouth off :-))

[Frank35]

 @ Sarah977 - 🙂 Fair enough, thanks for explaining

I think the ongoing discussion about the refunds reflect quite well the diversity of hosts in our community. There are host who rent out a room more or less as a hobby, as a means to meet fellow travelers and have a nice chat over a glass of wine sometimes. And that's fine.

But there are also hosts,  who depend on the money they make through hosting for a lot of different reasons. 

So now go figure which group is having a severe problem with AirBnBs 100% refund policy? 😉

E.g.: I need to make 2000 EUR per month to cover part of my rental cost. More than that is cool, less is not. None is a disaster if it should go on for several months or even the whole year. 

Needless to say that both groups of hosts are valid and important but I guess if we as a community want to survive we need to acknowledge the different needs and problems and figure out a way to deal with them.

And as I stated in my post (100% refund for guest - perfect solution or threat to the community?): sharing the burden can very well be seen as a way to deal with the crisis.

[Sarah977]

@Frank35  I hear what you're saying, but I also think you're trivializing hosts who just rent a private room in their home by suggesting that it's a "hobby" simply because they don't derive the major part of their income from it. I don't consider cleaning every nook and cranny in my guest room and guest bathroom before every guest arrival, pulling other peoples' hair and soap scum out of the shower drain, washing piles of sheets and towels, trying to determine what the guest might have dripped across the floor so I can figure out what to use to remove the stain, or scrubbing out the guest toilet to be what I would call a "hobby", just because I enjoy my guests and sit around and share a coffee or glass of wine with them.

For sure there's a big difference in the focus and meaning of Airbnb depending on whether one uses it as a supplemental income or as a full-time job. But using Airbnb income as one's sole source of income such that if there is no money coming in from it for a few months, a person won't be able to pay their bills seems to me an awfully big gamble. It's one thing to be a landlord and rent to full-time tenants, or even run a hostel and collect the rents yourself, but to rely on a company that has shown itself for a long time now to not give a hoot about their hosts seems quite foolish.

Sharing the burden in a pandemic situation is certainly a nobel idea and works among family and friends and in many communities. People need to pull together in times of adversity. But it seems naive to think that upcoming guests, who are complete strangers to us, would readily share the financial burden and take a 50% hit on a reservation that couldn't be kept through no fault of their own. Some guests would certainly be understanding and be willing to take a bit of a loss, but I don't think the majority would be. That's been pretty evident over the past couple weeks reading posts from guests- even guests who are also hosts themselves are feeling they should be refunded in full.

It would have been nice if Airbnb had let guests know that the refunds are not being given by Airbnb, as many guests have indicated they mistakenly assumed, and are totally the hosts' loss, but of course they didn't. 

 I honestly don't think that Airbnb is a company that hosts can ever work "with" unless things drastically change from the top down- they refuse to give us any voice. It's suited them well so far- it will be interesting to see if they survive this.

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

I agree with pretty much everything you are saying. It's very likely that the vast majority of future guests would not be in the least bit concerned about our loss of income, especially as the impression I have always gotten, from talking to friends and acquaintances, is that people who do not host think it is easy money - or rather money for nothing - and we are all sitting on a huge pot of gold. Despite the massive incentives for referring new hosts, I have discouraged every single person who asked me about hosting from doing it as they no idea what it involved. 

However, Airbnb are massively contributing to this problem. I am a small time host, with long-term guests, so I am currently only dealing with four cases of mishandled refunds (all outside of the current COVID-19 EC policy). Two concern guests who already checked in (one had already been here two months) and two were for future bookings.

Of these four, three WANTED to pay me as per the normal long-term cancellation policy. In fact, for the two already staying, it was their suggestion, not mine. The third, whom I have never met, understood she was not covered by the policy and wanted to pay me something even though Airbnb kept prompting her to request a full refund. The fourth was perfect civil and offered to cancel under the long-term policy, understanding the payment/refund, until she spoke to Airbnb who told her to hang onto the booking she knew she was going cancel until the last minute. That is the only one out of the four who could not understand why it was unfair to me, because she said, in this scenario, the host 'loses nothing'.

In my cases, it has been Airbnb every time that has caused the issues. Just to reiterate again, NONE of these cases fall within the current EC policy. In some cases, the guest does actually care about the host and their livelihood. However, Airbnb seems to be doing its utmost to whittle away at these good intentions. It has happened too many times to me. It has happened countless times to other hosts. This is clearly a STRATEGY on Airbnb's behalf. 

[Frank35]

Thanks for your post Sarah! All very true, I wouldn't know what more to add 😉

Ok... two things: I was talking about the two different groups of hosts. There is a third one, and this is where I see myself. The hosting income is important for me. If I loose my business would not go down but I needed to look for a smaller place and then travelers would loose one of the most popular locations in my town. In the same token I very much enjoy the social and cultural aspect of it all. I love traveling and I also love having people from all over the world "chez moi". People I would never have met if it wasn't for hosting. And I enjoy giving them the best possible service and support, so I definitely can relate to what you wrote 🙂
I love hosting and found a business model that suits me both financially and socially, hence it would hurt me a lot if it were to be destroyed by wrong decisions from the top.

And I did not by any means want to trivialize "the other group" at all. 

Peace & Love

[Nanxing0]

I have been always suggesting, that to change it to a 50% refund plus 50% credit towards future bookings. I think this should make everyone happy.

[Frank35]

Even this is quite difficult as AirBnB keeps the money until a day after check-in. 
So if a guest gets a 50% refund and holds the rest for some day in the future, still the money is not necessarily ending up in our account ever. They might not ever book at all or book some other place...

[Regina205]

Has anyone received the Covid-19 25% refunds? I have 4 Airbnbs here in Augusta, GA. This has been DEVASTATING to our business! A bloodbath!!! Airbnb keeps saying its going to help but show me the proof. I haven't seen a dime. Meanwhile all the mortgages and bills are piling up like crazy. Please help!!!!!!!