WARNING - AIrbnb Backdated the new Cancellation COVID19 cancellation policy to a booking that cancelled before it went into effect

[Helen213]

I had guests due to arrive March 30 - April 5th  to rent my entire apartment. In the beginning of March the guest was nervous about travelling and asked his options.  I explained the strict cancellation policy.  I also offered if he cancelled within 3 days I would give him the deposit back if I got another booking.  He choose not to cancel.  He waited until 3/10 and finally cancelled.  I was supposed to keep my deposit.  Airbnb just contacted me and they are giving it back to him.  The  new policy was not in effect when he cancelled.  They were not sick and there was no ban when he cancelled. 

I am now out the $500 which was my lifeline after the new policy went into effect and I lost all the rest of my bookings for 8 weeks.  This is completely unfair and I now I am going to get a bull**bleep** reply from customer service about this too.  So Airbnb looks like a hero and I may end up homeless!

[Rose123]

It’s almost like they are waging a war of attrition with their hosts and seeing who will give up first from sheer fatigue. Let’s not let that happen!

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Rose123 

Great News! 

Your story is precisely the same as a post on here about 10 days ago. The situation with the reps is identical. They're trying to work a scam which is plainly wrong.

Your persistence paid off. Well done.

[Rose123]

Thanks guys!!! 🙂 #smallwins

[Helen213]

I am still fighting for my refund.  We can only speak to a supervisor via messenger now and I am waiting for one to reach out to me.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Helen213 

Do persist Helen. Airbnb wrote the rules, they broken them. They stole your money.

The web they weave is purely for their own financial gain and does not support hospitality, nor its contractors who provide the service.

[Rose123]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  ok so now this has happened again, with a different reservation! They just keep closing the thread. I'm going to keep at it, but it's nuts that hosts have to deal with this on top of everything else. 

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Rose123 

If your cancellation was in the same circumstances as your previous cancellation then you should have exactly the same refund and outcome, so its worth pursuing.

If the cancellation was within the Corvid-19 EC and the applicable dates, then those rules will apply. If later, and you rightly 'declined' the cancellation what will probably happen is that the reservation will stay 'Pending' blocking your dates, until such time those dates are extended and your guest gets the opportunity to 're-cancel'.

Just what your circumstances exactly are, or all those other examples you have of contracted accommodation nobody can predict unless you have @Helen350 's crystal ball!

[Rose123]

Thanks @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  🙂 always great thoughts. Sadly no crystal ball, but a lot of determination! The outcome here is almost comical... in raising the issue the customer service agent actually docked me twice! Basically the first support ticket I raised querying the deduction the agent completely misread the enquiry, and deducted the amount again. So I was down 2 sums for the original error if that makes sense. Now I'm at loggerheads because the current agent who admits the error (scenario A, in your example) can't quite understand what I mean and insists everything is fine, even though I'm still hundreds of dollars down. I just wonder who they are employing in these call centers... are their agents literate? Is there an ESL barrier with outsourced call centers? Are they just getting some hearty LOLs at our expense?

I know that I can, and will, spend a lot of time resolving this. For sure, the rules are clear cut and someone, somewhere in the murky swamp of outsourced customer service will attend to this correctly. 

But I wonder about the burden on hosts who are grappling with this - hosts who, like me, have had to cop astonishing losses in the tens of thousands, and who are at a loss as to how to cover overheads for an indefinate period. There's some serious salt in the wound in the way their call centers are handling all of this. 

[Helen213]

I have now had four separate refusals to reverse their decision.  Airbnb wins.

[Rose123]

Oh @Helen213 I am sorry to read this. It seems that also with their more or less fake attempt to soften this for hosts, they are doing whatever they want behind the scenes.

[Thomas977]

Message to Airbnb management: I expect, demand and plan on the basis that Airbnb will honor the current Covid-19 policy !!! :

«The host’s cancellation policy will apply as usual to reservations made after March 14, 2020, and to reservations made on or before March 14, 2020 with check-in dates after April 14, 2020.»

[Christine1]

@Helen213  why would the guest decision to cancel their travel result in you becoming homeless? What's the connection?

[Rose123]

Hey Christine, not speaking for @Helen123  but if you check out, for instance, the Airbnb instagram/twitter/Brian Chesky's IG/Twitter and various media articles you'll see that in some metropolitan areas with high overheads, many hosts risk defaulting on their rents and mortgages on April 3. This is due to suffering a 100% cancel rate, which seems to be the norm now for major cities in the northern hemisphere at least, and also the compounded problems of losing work as a secondary form of income. This may not apply to you, but there are hundreds- if not thousands- of people who are in that boat at present.

[Helen213]

This is my exact situation. I rent out a room in my home due to not being able to work because of sickness.  My disability does not even begin to cover rent never and expenses. 

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Christine1 

Further to @Rose123 reply, @Helen213 situation is that a refund was given for extenuating circumstances when those circumstances were not applicable. Because the extenuating circumstances were not in place when the guest cancelled, her existing cancellation policy needs to apply. 

The 'applicable dates' of the EC directive were  14 March 2020 to 14 April 2020. Helen's cancellation was March 10. This was before the policy was in force.

@Helen213 's earnings were robbed.