cancellation

[Donna1018]

please can I have some advice?

I have recently turn 50 and what to share this my 7 of my school friends...

I live in the UK and as of 14.09.2020 we have been told that we can t not meet up with groups bigger than  6 people. I don't want to break the law.

To be honest I thought this would be taken away from me and that the Air bnb would say sorry due to current guidelines this is now cancelled! 

how do I tell one of my friends that she cant come, however they have put it back on us to choose a person to say don't come... 

help me please?

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Donna1018 If you have 7 friends then you'll have to disappoint 2 of them to stay at or below 6. Alternatively you could ask the host to reschedule later in the year. They should be willing to do so as it would be equally illegal for them to host your original party.

[Helen3]

Can’t two of your friends stay in a nearby hotel or airbnb? 

Good friends will understand @Donna1018  

[Helen350]

If 2 out of 7/8 have got to stay in a different building, then they are not part of the celebrations, & there is no point in them staying in that different place........ 

[Sarah977]

@Donna1018  Draw straws? Then it's a matter of luck, rather than you having to select. Sure, someone's going to be disappointed, but you're all big girls now,  and this is about public health, it's not like being 5 years old and not understanding why you can't come along.

[Super47]

 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Super47 Clearly only a court of law (well actually the high court) can give definitive interpretations of the law but given the case law around frustrated contracts if over 6 people are key to the booking (as they  seem to be if its a celebration for All of the friends) then I think any court will side with the guest. Also I think Airbnb will tend to allow fully refunded cancellations or they would be complicit in encouraging guests (and hosts) to break the law.

[Super47]

@Mike-And-Jane0

Over the past decade, Airbnb has spent hundreds of millions of dollars/pounds/euros fighting legal battles to ensure that they don't have to hand over data to governments and local authorities that would immediately identify the countless thousands of illegal hosts on their platform, that are making huge fortunes for themselves and for Airbnb by breaking the law.

They regularly turn a blind eye to hosts that are breaking the law even when those hosts have been reported to them by guests, neighbours and the media. 

For the past 6/7 months, they've allowed hosts all over the world to accept bookings on their platform, even in regions where it was against the law for hosts to be taking guests.

Airbnb are huge proponents of plausible deniability, and couldn't care less about who or what breaks the law on their platform - as long as they can disassociate themselves from any culpability, which they're masters at.

When Airbnb issues refunds, it's to suit their own purposes and is generally for one reason, and one reason only - to beef up their coffers (and currently, their pre-IPO financials) either through hefty service charges, or through the distribution of single-use vouchers. Abiding by the law rarely - if ever - comes into it. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Super47 Your post is not quite true. In the UK Airbnb blocked calendars during lockdown and have refunded people for any trip booked prior to March 14th (although they are drip feeding this). Based on many posts now they are also, rightly in my opinion, refunding guests who are more than 6 when requested to do so.

[Super47]

@Mike-And-Jane0

Yes, they blocked the calendars of hosts in the UK for a time, but not so in many other parts of the world (and they were still advertising certain UK apartments on their HotelTonight portal during lockdown anyway. These typically claimed to be "serviced apartments", including one particular block in London that I'm personally familiar with, that could never come under the auspices of serviced apartments, by any stretch of the imagination)

Other hosts were even receiving emails during lockdown in their countries, advising them how to get more bookings on restricted dates. (Automated, obviously, but still..)

I think we're all acutely aware at this stage from the thousands of posts from furious guests online and from various MSM articles, that the pre-March 14th "full refund for all" claims didn't exactly pan out as promised - or anywhere even remotely close to it. 

And of course they're refunding guests when requested to do so. Perfect timing, with Q3 coming to a close. Give it a week or two though, and if the early Covid refund debacle is anything to go by, we'll be hearing about all sorts of "glitches" and anomalies in relation to this latest refund batch. 

And let's hope none of the guests cancelling due to Rule of 6 booked their stays with vouchers they received from cancelled Covid bookings earlier during the year, because they may very well be in for a shock or two.