Yet another retroactively refunded cancellation

[Brenda328]

Yet another guest who cancelled about 6 weeks ago outside of the EC policy.  Their stay was supposed to be two weeks ago at one of my most expensive properties.  The area is fully open for travel and they were coming from in-state.  My cancellation policy is set to strict and so I was paid the 50% cancellation fee on the day after their stay was supposed to begin.  Today that amount was taken back out of one of my new payments.

When does this end?  There are supposed to be no retroactive adjustments.  Does customer service look at my upcoming bookings and decide that since I finally have some paying guests they can now take that money back and give it to guests who cancelled even though they are not due a refund?  It's bad enough not getting paid on cancelled bookings that I should have gotten paid 50% on, but now the one or two that cancelled outside the policy that I did get paid on are being pulled back out of my subsequent payments weeks later?  How long will this go on?

And most of these are guests that I already offered a credit in the amount of the cancellation penalty which they happily accepted.  My sister had a guest who cancelled under the strict cancellation policy outside of the EC policy.  My sister offered the guest a credit for the 50% cancellation fee for a later booking.  The guest then requested a full refund from Airbnb which they provided to her so the 50% cancellation amount that my sister was supposed to receive was refunded to the guest.  The guest then came back to my sister demanding her 50% credit after having received a full refund!!!

[Huma0]

@Brenda328 

You need to fight this, but it will be slow and painful.

I also had guests who were refunded outside of the EC policy and I don't even mean because they cancelled before the policy covered their stay, but that the policy never covered them in the first place. They were even refunded for some, or all, of the nights they stayed!

I got every penny back but it was quite a battle and took about a month of constant going back and forth with CS. Only you can decide if it's worth the time and stress to do this. If you do, just keep quoting back their own policy, in the exact words that it is written. A lot of the nonsense responses I got were along the lines of, "I don't understand what the problem is. The refund was according to our policy." My response: "No, sorry it was not. Your policy states XYZ."

[Debra300]

@Brenda328, @Huma0,

These out of policy cancellations are a way for Airbnb to keep funds.  They are issuing guests coupons for future stays/experiences, and not paying the hosts, while holding onto the money.  Airbnb is fully aware that there is a high probability that guests will not use the coupons before they expire.

[Huma0]

@Debra300  yes, for sure, but if the cancelation falls outside of the COVID-19 EC policy AND the normal EC policy, what justification is there for Airbnb to fully refund the guest and give the host nothing?

The way I got my money back was to repeatedly go back to them saying, "It is against your own policy, which states XYZ." I'm not saying this worked the first time, or the second, or the third, but I just kept going back telling the reps that this decision was in breach of Airbnb policy, quoting that policy. Seemed to work in the end...

[Huma0]

PS sometimes the rep just closed the case, so then I opened a new one. I was relentless!

[Brenda328]

@Huma0   I have tried the same in the past with limited success.  In one case last year a guest no-showed and did not cancel.  They then cancelled and asked for a refund the day after they were scheduled to check out so I didn't even have the opportunity to rent their days to anyone else.  

The customer service rep gave them a full refund based on the fact 'the weather forecast was for snow at the ski resort'.   Yes, actually we want it to snow every day at the ski resort, that is why people are going there!  The customer service representative also admitted to me that he had never actually seen snow.

After hours and hours of calls, messages, and sitting on hold, I finally received payment for one night of their stay which came nowhere near to compensating me for my time spent.   😡

[Huma0]

@Brenda328 

WOW.

That is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard.

I would have gone nuts in that situation and never given in until I got a full payment.

I guess I am like a pitbull when it comes to these things. Even if it is not worth the time or money involved, I won't give in when I think it something is wrong in principle.

So, I didn't necessarily agree with Airbnb's blanket 100% refund for all COVID cancellations regardless of circumstances and I don't agree with the current policy of saying guests are required to produce evidence when all they have to do is 'attest' to the facts, i.e. say they have a valid reason and Airbnb goes, "Hey presto. Have a full refund on us! (Well, actually not on us, but on the host)." BUT, I never contested any of these. I only contested the ones that were clearly outside of Airbnb's own COVID policy.

[Sarah977]

@Huma0   I think hosts need to, indeed, be relentless when it comes to Airbnb not honoring their own policies at the expense of the host.  They seem to bank on being so diffucult to deal with that hosts will just give up. The more that hosts refuse to stand for this nonsense, the more chance there is that they will stop doing this to hosts.

@Brenda328  The "never seen snow so thinks a weather forecast for snow is an valid EC"  reminds me of the useless 45 minute call I had with a CS rep when I first listed. Was trying to understand how to send my hand drawn map to my guests. The CS rep couldn't get it through his head that my guests wouldn't ever be able to find my house, which is down a little dirt road, off another dirt road, with no street signs, and house numbers that go in no discernible order, with the GPS co-ordinates, nor understand that many of my guests arrive without a phone that works here or wouldn't necessarily get a cell signal everywhere in this area. He just kept insisting that they could find it with GPS. He obviously has never been in a rural area or anywhere his phone didn't work. 

[Michelle53]

@Sarah977    Reminds me of the time I got roundly admonished by CS for not attending to a guest's issue right away. 

Cliff Notes: Guests checked in sometime in the night, after I went to bed.   I woke up at 5.30am to find guests had cancelled. My first cancellation.

On going down to the space, guests were still in there, sleeping. I had called CS and had a rep on the phone while I did that, so they could hear it all.  No communication from guests.

CS passed me to a "Case Manager".  Case Manager called me around 8am, roundly chided me for having no clue what the issue was. Apparently, guests had sent photos to Airbnb, but I was not made aware of the specific complaint.  I said they checked in while I was asleep. Apparently, it then dawned on said Case Manager that I was in a different time zone.  Likely a completely different continent. 

Finally, after some back and forth, it was made apparent that the complaint was a spider in the listing. It was, however, not in any of the beds, so they spent the night. 

I did get paid for one night, though, but they left the place in a mess. 

[David2905]

(Sorry - this was meant to be a reply to another post so I have edited it out)

[David2905]

Hi @Huma0  - I read your posts with interest and wondered if you'd be willing to give any advice you think you give to me. I host in Edinburgh. A guest due to travel from London told me some time ago that she wanted to cancel and get a full refund because the wedding she would be attending had been cancelled and because the financial circumstances of some members of her party had changed due to coronavirus. There was no suggestion she couldn't travel. We operate a strict cancellation policy meaning she'd only get back 50% but I said I'd also pay over any profit I made if we got another booking for the dates she was wanting to cancel - I didn't want to profit at her expense. I heard nothing but then saw AirBnB had cancelled the booking and said that the reasons given by the guest did fall under their EC policy. I know that there are no restrictions on travel within the UK and believe that the reasons given to me don't fall within the policy. The problem is that AirBnB won't tell me what reasons were given - I can't even get to the stage of disputing that the reasons fall within the policy, even though I have (I think) very fair grounds for suspecting that the guest may have been untruthful if she gave reasons which do. AirBnB say that to tell me why the booking was cancelled would breach the guest's right to confidentiality.

How can I even dispute a claim that the reasons given for cancellation fall within the EC policy if I am not told what the reasons given were? 

I now this is not your problem but if you had any advice it would be much appreciated.

[Huma0]

@David2905 

I am sorry to tell you that I don't really have advice in this scenario if the guest's dates fall within the EC policy. The cases that I fought were when the guest clearly fell outside of that policy, in terms of dates or because they had already stayed!!

The problem with the current policy is that guests do NOT have to provide evidence that they qualify unless they want a monetary refund. They can still get a coupon, which they don't have to use with you, by just 'attesting' that they qualify. Having read the policy, any guests that don't qualify can simply lie and get their coupon, which most will prefer to only getting 50% back. I am sure you already know all of this.

I had the exact same situation with a guest who told me his reasons for wanting to cancel, so I knew they didn't fall within the EC policy. He was also coming from the UK and there were no travel restrictions. I told him this and offered to reimburse him further if I could book some or all of the nights, but he was determined to get the full refund. As soon as his trip dates qualified, he contacted Airbnb and was refunded in full. I didn't bother to fight this one as I knew that he must have simply 'attested' and got his coupon and Airbnb weren't going to share any information.

You could try to fight it, but I'm sad to say, I doubt you'll have much luck. This system of attestation = coupon works very much in Airbnb's favour. The guest is pacified and doesn't trash them on social media, Airbnb not only keeps their fees and continues to make interest on the guest's payment but, given that many, many people never end up using coupons or credit, they will end up keeping a lot of the accommodation fees that should have gone to hosts. The hosts can't even fight it because they are in the dark as to whether evidence was provided or not.

Let's face it, saying that guests can qualify for EC without any evidence seems ludicrous, but I am sure this decision was made to line Airbnb's coffers.

[David2905]

@Huma0 Ah right, I see - thanks for taking the time to leave such a helpful post anyway. I'll try to set aside an hour or so to read over AirBnB's terms and conditions and see if the option of court action might be open to me - I'm a litigation lawyer so I've got the advantage over most people who I suspect wouldn't want to go to the cost of getting a lawyer involved. There may be some bar on taking court action in terms of the contract but if not that might be the only route available. 

Thanks again. 

[Huma0]

@David2905 

It would be very useful to know what you find out.

I find it highly suspect that Airbnb get to keep the accommodation fees should a host not use the coupon as those fees were never due to them in the first place, but to the host. Furthermore, as @Brenda328 mentioned on the thread you started (where I have also left more detail), in some cases, these coupons include local taxes. Seems that Airbnb keeps them too if the guest never uses the coupon. That doesn't sound very legal to me, but then I am not at all trained/involved in any legal matters so I really don't know.

[Brenda328]

@Debra300   Exactly.  Someone challenged me when I made a similar statement not too long ago and asked me to provide a link so I fortunately have this handy:

https://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/travel-wise-donrsquot-take-that-airline-voucher-mdash-go-fo...

"Redemption rates on vouchers hover somewhere between 5 percent and 8 percent, so there’s little cost to the company."

Only 5-8% of airline vouchers are ever redeemed.  I would assume the rate will be slightly higher for Airbnb, but for every voucher that never gets redeemed Airbnb gets not only their share of the booking fee but also the entire fee that the host was entitled to.

Also it now appears that the entire voucher must be used on a single booking.  So if a guest with a $2000 voucher books a $300 stay their entire voucher gets 'used up'.  How long until guests start realizing that?