host cancellation-need condo for family issue

[Bonnie331]

How does airbnb take care of cancellations?  I need my condo for an emergency situation with my 91 year old mother.  We will have to cancel 5 reservations.  I'm not sure how to handle this or what I need to do to communicate with Airbnb about it.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Bonnie331 You will need to cancel the reservations. The dates cancelled will be blocked and you will be fined $50-100 per reservation. I assume this money may be used to partially compensate the guests you will be letting down.

You can do this from your account quite easily.

[Alexandra316]

@Bonnie331 Are you permanently closing your Airbnb, or is this a temporary measure?

If it's a permanent closure, I would just let Airbnb know that you're no longer able to operate and ask them to assist your guest in finding other accomodations. They should not penalize you: it would be a similar scenario to selling the property. 

If this is temporary and you will try and host the space again in future, I would contact Airbnb anyways and ask them if they will give you penalty-free cancellations and assist the guests to find new accomodations. Unfortunately, the Extenuating Circumstances policy no longer covers illness (see Extenuating Circumstances Policy - Airbnb Help Center) but you may find a sympathetic customer service person who will work with you. 

Don't do any cancellations without speaking to Airbnb first. If you do, you'll be penalized financially and will have cancellation reviews placed on your profile.

[Christine1081]

If you can tell the guest what's going on and get them to cancel it as long as they get all their money back you don't get dinged. But if you cancel them there are repercussions

[Alexandra316]

@Christine1081 Unless the guests all just booked within the last 48 hours, they would lose money for cancelling. They don't get refunded the service fee if they cancel themselves. 

[John5097]

@Alexandra316  Unless Airbnb changed it again flexible policy guest would get full refund including service fees if they cancel 24 hours in advance. Moderate five days in advance. I’m assuming these were flexible. 

might also try finding some other alternatives for guest to book

[Sarah977]

@John5097  You sure about that? I don't think they get the service fees back- that still carries the 48 hour cancellation window, as far as I'm aware.

[John5097]

@Sarah977 

https://www.airbnb.com/home/cancellation_policies#flexible

[John5097]

@Sarah977 It changed several times the past year. If its flexible guest can cancel 24 hours before check in and get full refund. Moderate is 5 days. BTW I changed mine back to moderate. Well the new moderate. The old moderate a year ago was two weeks before check in and lost service fee after 48 hrs of booking. Changes so fast maybe hasn't been updated to your time zone. 🙂  

[Sarah977]

@John5097  Thanks, I'll check it out. I've been closed, but trying to keep up with changes, so when I reopen, there aren't any nasty surprises.

And yes, changes do seem to come later in my region. When they started hiding profile photos, I could still see them for a couple weeks after other hosts said theirs were blocked.

[Pat271]

Definitely call Airbnb. Recently, they gave me a “courtesy, penalty-free cancellation”, and stressed that it was 1-time and only because I had no history of host cancellations in the past.  My reason was concern about the guest, however, and not a host emergency.

[Christine1081]

Yep. Somebody's going to lose something sounds like it's going to be you. 

[Sarah977]

@Bonnie331  I think you should look at @Christine1081's suggestion- getting the guests to cancel, depending on what they paid in service fees. If Airbnb won't let you cancel penalty-free it might be financially better for you to refund the guests, including covering the service fee they paid, if you are going to get fined $50-$100 for each cancellation. 

[Bonnie331]

Thanks everyone, very very helpful.  My mother needs to move quickly from her situation.  But we would be coming back to the Airbnb community and renting once her accomodations are built.  So I will simply try to find other accomodations for her instead.  I hate we can't use the condo, but sounds like everyone suffers from these cancellations.  Again, thanks so very much! Super insightful and very helpful in making the family decision.