cancellations and refund advice!

[Audrey592]

Folks

Hoping someone can help me here - one of my guests cancelled a reservation for October and it has come through as an option to pay out 50% of the total which must have been to Airbnb already. normally in the past if someone cancelled there was no such request and the funds were sorted with Airbnb directly. Any ideas why as with that option I am told that the funds will be subtracted from my next statement which seems ridiculous given nobody has stayed and it is a clean cancellation. Any ideas would be appreciated as there is no way of contacting Airbnb directly thanks

[Ashley588]

Can't help directly but to say Airbnb seem to change their rules every day to make sure they hang on to our money or dole it out to guests. I am sick of these duplicitous people. They throw us hosts under the bus on a daily basis. I was told my remaining reservations were protected on strict cancellations terms now that their Covid policy ended on May 15. But they keep refunding guests 100% and now have removed the cancelled listings from my home page so I cannot even complain to them!! I have asked them repeatedly if they checked whether guests were claiming on their travel insurance, for example, but they have simply stopped answering me. I am planning to de-list from Airbnb in a few months and I recommend every other host to do so. They are utter crooks and we should all force them to go bust. 

Just tried to post this but got "unrecognised error". In other words, their big bother algorithms are blocking my free speech. Typical!

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Audrey592 I am guessing that this is Airbnb Kindly giving you the option to over ride your cancellation policy and return the 50% that the guest would otherwise be charged. My suggestion, if you want to refund, is to tell the guest that you will do so if the property is rebooked for that specific time period and hence any payout from you should match the payment to you for the original booking.

Hope that makes sense.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Ashley588 Do the cancelled bookings not show up in the reservations section - 'cancelled' tab.

[Áine-And-Ralf0]

AirBnBs explanation about the Relief Fund is quite unbelievable. We do not qualify for the Superhost Relief Fund because we have a moderate cancellation policy. Only hosts with a strict cancellation policy profit from the fund. This is ridiculous. All our guests who cancelled explicitly stated the virus as a reason. AirBnB punish hosts for their good will towards guests, while hosts who don’t offer any concessions to guests regarding cancellation get refunds? Really? I suspect the Relief Fund is nothing more than a PR stunt. They have wasted my time by sending tons of emails, although they knew from the start that they weren’t going to pay us a Cent – because we have a moderate cancellation policy. What a silly explanation.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Audrey592 

Who knows what game Airbnb are playing? 😉

It would seem as though your guests have cancelled a booking for October without discussing with you prior. What sort of guest would do that? And for what reason? Your cancellation policy is strict, you are due 50% so why and for what purpose would you ever want to override it? 

Whether the guest has paid in full, or only the deposit, there's enough funds already there to cover all the contracted cancellation fees. Even the deposit would be equal to the Airbnb Service Fees plus 50% of the accommodation fees (due to you). Airbnb already have all that money, they would be unlikely to get the second payment until August in normal circumstances if there was one due (but not at all now), so the guest will - right now - only get £15-30 back if they only paid a deposit, which would have been the service fee charged to YOU by Airbnb. Your guest won't be getting the Airbnb service fees back from Airbnb, at all so why should you be pressured in any way to override your cancellation policy?

If you accept to override your cancellation policy for this October booking you won't get that 50% payout until after the guest stays in October, BUT, if you have a guest stay in July, with your account being 'in debit' it will leave you without that July payment, and it will go to pay your cancellation debit created for October instead.

Having your cake and eating it, the saying goes. It's not your cake and it won't be you eating it.

I would not accept the request, but stick by your contract. I believe that you are under no obligation to even answer the email you have received and it will lapse.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Audrey592 

I may be able to help more if you could post a screenshot?

If you prefer not to post here, I'll DM you my email address.

North Atlantic Way - that's on my bucket list.

[Sarah977]

@Audrey592  Of course there are ways to contact Airbnb directly. That information is given in a large pinned post on the first page of this Help forum. Phoning, messaging, contacting through Twitter, are all ways of contacting CS. Response times are slow right now, though, as they have recently laid off 1900 employees and are swamped with COVID cancellations.