Refund request with non-refundable cancellation policy

[Nanxing0]

Since the beginning of the pandemic I have changed all my listings to flexible/non-refundable or moderate/non-refundable policy. Non-refundable gives 10% off. Now I have a guest who booked on 4/23 for a stay of late May. She chose the non-refundable option but now she's asking me for a full refund because her plan changed due to COVID-19, actually that's an internship being rescheduled to June/July. I told her I can arrange a change of reservation to the new date with no charge, but not cancellation because she picked up the non-refundable option not me. What do you guys feel about such situation? Should I honor the full refund or not?

I think this can be expanded to a more general topic that if we have the non-refundable option in the policy, and guest pick it for the 10% off incentive but later request a refund, it's a hard decision to honor it or not. If we honor it, what's the point of having the non-refundable policy? If we don't, there might be guest retaliation somehow...

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Nanxing0 I absolutely would not refund if they chose the non-refundable cheaper option.I think it does make some sense to allow a date change as bookings may be hard to come by this year but I guess the price may well be higher as we move towards Summer.

[Sarah977]

@Nanxing0  As you said, there is no point in having a non-refundabe policy if you are going to refund. The guest got the benefit of 10% off, the trade-off is that it's non-refundable. 

But personally I'd be inclined to refund this one if she won't go for a date change, just because it doesn't seem like she just changed her mind- she was coming for an internship that's been rescheduled. I wouldn't give a full refund, though- I'd keep at least something, (maybe 10%, since that's the discount she received) because I think guests need to understand that the time hosts spend on each reservation, just in messaging back and forth with guests, shouldn't be assumed to be free.

[Nanxing0]

@Sarah977 This is a good thought. The guest actually told me the internship has changed date and has discussed with me about changing the date to the rescheduled internship date that's why I offered the change. But there are still issues like my current price in July is my regular pricing and it's almost twice the price she booked with originally. I explained to her that we are currently running on a discounted price due to pandemic but we are not reducing price for later this year. She's apparently not quite happy about that. I'll probably ask her if this works that I'll allow her to cancel but will only refund 90%.

[David3267]

"she's not quite happy" !!! I personally wouldn't refund her anything as she chose the non refundable option. I'd offer her the non refundable amount she's destined to lose as a credit against a future booking and leave it at that.

[Susan17]

Let's be clear here - pandemic or no pandemic - as long as the Extenuating Circumstances clause exists, there is no such thing as a Non-Refundable policy on Airbnb, as EC trumps all others, rendering any and all non-refundable policies redundant, and utterly worthless. 

[Gordon0]

Even if the booking was made after 14 March, @Susan17, as this one was? I get that the would-be guest could come up with another EC ruse, but for CV19...  

[Susan17]

Yeah, it's company policy, @Gordon0. Regardless of the circumstances, EC always over-rides non-refundable (unless you're lucky enough to get a CX agent who's unaware of that!)

Additionally, agents are routinely going back now and clawing back payouts already awarded to hosts that didn't qualify under the CV-19 policy, with the excuse that the guest has now suddenly come up with some spurious reason why they do qualify under the regular EC. By all accounts - hosts, guests and CX agents - it sounds as if the requirements for the provision of proof for all EC refunds by the guest have been severely relaxed, if not almost abandoned altogether, for the duration of this crisis. It's a jungle out there.. 

[David3267]

Repeat the Airbnb mantra...The guest is king...