We were charged a cancel fee for a virus cancel in march and after 3 weeks of messages still no refund

[Jeff-and-Mary-Anne0]

We are new to AirB&B - two guests before being shut down due to the virus.  Our multiple reservations during March and April / May were canceled due to travel restrictions etc.  One of the many was canceled by us which was for 3/7.  After reopening our first payout was deducted a $50 fee for this cancel.

I have messaged over the past 3 weeks more than 10 times, I've spoken to one lady after trying to call 3 times and waited 3 hours only to be told she would escalate the issue- ( a week ago )

Zero responses other than a computer generated.

If this is the "no customer service" to be expected in the future were pulling out all together.

[Colleen253]

@Jeff-and-Mary-Anne0  Yes, Airbnb CS is not in good shape these days. It isn't likely to improve anytime soon.

When a host cancels a guest reservation, there are penalties, including monetary. As you say you cancelled one yourselves, I would imagine this is the $50 deducted from a payout. Read more here:

https://www.airbnb.ca/help/article/990/as-a-host-what-penalties-apply-if-i-cancel-a-reservation-for-...

However, depending on the dates, you may have been eligible to have the penalty waived due to Covid, so perhaps this penalty was applied in error and you are upset about that? Read more here:

https://www.airbnb.ca/help/article/2701/extenuating-circumstances-policy-and-the-coronavirus-covid19

When trying to sort out an issue with CS, persistence and patience is needed. Just keep trying. 

[Nanxing0]

One general rule of operation is that as hosts we should NEVER do anything we don't need to do, including cancel, change, any reservation, etc. If the guest needs to cancel/change a reservation, ask him/her to do it. The guest's side has those options as well. Some guests might not be very familiar with the system so we can tell them there's such an option and ask them to go look for it or contact the CS for help. 

Cancellations from host side or guest side have completely different results. Basically Airbnb wants to charge a "penalty" so the penalty will be on whichever side that initiated the cancellation. If guest initiated the cancellation then Airbnb will not refund the service fee. If host did, then Airbnb put penalty on host.