Guest Cancellation Policy Update

[Lizzie]

Hello Everyone,

A few weeks ago Airbnb made changes to what guests see when they book and what happens when they cancel a booking, those changes were discussed here on the CC.

You can read more about the changes in this Help Center article. We also want to open a thread here on the Community Center, to continue the conversation. We appreciate how important it is that our host community is informed when changes happen on Airbnb, even when those changes are for your guests.

What changed for guests?

The names of the cancellation policies themselves haven’t changed, so the policy you set—Flexible, Moderate, or Strict—will still show up for your guests. However, now when a guest makes a booking, they’ll see more information explaining the terms and refund cut-off dates for the policy you’ve chosen. We also changed Airbnb’s existing policy so that we now refund Airbnb guest service fees for cancellations, up to 3 times per year. This way, if a guest cancels within a fully-refundable window, the reservation—including guest service fees—will truly be fully refundable.

How will this affect me as a host?

This additional messaging for guests is meant to eliminate confusion about our cancellation policies and, ultimately, to encourage more bookings—especially for more flexible listings. The changes won’t affect refund cut-off dates, your payout, or your host fee. Guest cancellations are rare and we’ll continue to monitor this rate in light of the new changes.

Why did Airbnb make this change?

Through feedback and research, we’ve seen that guests often overlook the cancellation policy terms of the listing they book. This leads to confusion and frustration in the rare event that their plans must change. This added education is meant to help align guest and host expectations going into each booking.

I hope you find this information useful.

Thanks for your time.

Lizzie

[Thomas391]

Sorry to be so tardy on responding. Thanks so much for the info. I was waiting to see the results of my agreeing to refund. I thought that Paypal would refund the money through the AirBnB connection (whatever that is), but very early on I noticed the same amount as the refund was deducted directly from my BOA account. The, a few days later, I saw the same amount paid-out by PayPal. Might I have been double dipped??? Not sure, but I'll be investigating this! Thanks again for your sage advice.

Best always,

TC

[Amy38]

@Thomas391. I am sure you figured this out......they never checked in, you never got paid.  Abnb has their money and it is on them to refund it.

NEVER, EVER cancel.

[Barbara540]

WOW.  Thanks for posting that phone number, Linda  I had a similar cancelation lately (by the guest, who decided last minute he didn't want to stay). He initiated cancellation; and like a fool, I accepted his cancellation. This made it look like I was the one who canceled. It put me on notice and in jeopardy as an inhospitable host, when that is not true at all.  When I tried to follow up with Air BNB, the only resource I could find was a FAQ platform.

[Christine1]

@ @Thomas391, You will be "penalised" in accordance with the online advice which was available to you explaining the consequences of Host cancellations. 

In the end It was your choice to take this course of action in response to your guest communication.

The tools are there to be used by guests and hosts. Hosts will often need to teach guests. Not do these things for them, if you do, you are only making things worse as you are creating misapprehensions about the correct way to do things and your guest has not correctly learnt how to use Airbnb correctly. 

As the Host it would have resulted in a more favourable outcome to you if you had instead chosen to educate your guests about the tools they needed to use in order to formally request a cancellation. [via "My trips] 

You could also have looked up the online advice via Airbnb Help Centre tutorials [dashboard] and copied and pasted this information to your guest. It will retain active links and lead them to read further advice.

If they were still unable to initiate the change they wanted, you could have referred them to Airbnb using the resolution tool email system.

Or you could have sent them an alteration request and minimised their booking, dates and or tariff.

In all these things I "speak" from experience.

I also type all this v-e-r-y slowly for the benefit of others as well.

I hope I have helped someone......

Christine and Wombat. 

[Christine1]

OOps,

When I say I type v-e-r-y slowly, I mean that literally.

Not that others are slow.

I am.

A slow typist.

Interpret that any way you like.

#: )

[Monika64]

@Lizzie @Christine1 @Linda108

I just searched on cancellation policies while loging into my acct and this is what I saw:

https://www.airbnb.com.au/home/cancellation_policies#strict

However, one of the hosts posted here this from a May update:

https://www.airbnb.com/home/updated_cancellation_policies#strict

Completelly different! I was trying to see in this discussion if I saw it somewhere (sorry, 6 pages of postings, couldn't find it).

Is it different on different parts of the world depending on your listing? It seems to come from South Korea.

[Christine1]

@Monika64, Hi Monika, friendly greetings, i took a quick look at both of these for you and they appear to be the same information, just laid out a little differently, The points don't appear in the exact same order so perhaps that makes them appear different. To me they seem matched... what differences are you seeing?

?

Christine.

The updated policy has not really made changes to the application of host cancellation policies. It has mainly centred around allowing guests to have their Airbnb booking fee refunded 3 times per year.

It just took away the sting in the tail that guests had when they made a legit cancellation, often times they felt that when they got their money refunded but it was less than they expected, some guests thought that the host had kept a sneeky bit back, and not returned what they expected. So they got upset.... 

Also, I suspect that Airbnb judged that if a guest had in good faith made a booking, they were going to reconsider Airbnb for future travel if they faced too big a risk of losing money if their plans had to change. So the Airbnb fee refund, was also a way to enable guests to become familiar with the service without too much penalty or risk.

Hope this helps someone....

Cheers Christine.

[Pamela138]

If Airbnb wants guests to ba ale to cancel three times penalty free, why doesn't Airbnb PAY them? Why should the host suffer for Air's policy? Serioulsy. They make plenty and we hustle to get by. 

[Christine1]

@Monika64, Hi Monika,

All cancellation refunds will still be according to your listing and cancellation policy/s. 

Hope this helps someone....

Cheers Christine.

[David969]

I agree with most the hosts here.  My stance is simple - I prefer having a no cancellations allowed policy.

In my opinion here are equitable options for cancellation:

1) Host and guest have symetrical cancellation options and penalties.  Such as same number of days to cancel a host/stay, same payout requirements.

2) Allowing hosts to set a reservation fee that is non-refundable, hosts choice as to amount.

3) Allowing cancellations to be the greater of half the time between the booking and the stay, or five days.  Setting a maximum cancellation window of 30 days.

4) Allowing hosts to filter automatic booking based on how many times a guest has cancelled, or to set an automatic nonrefundable deposit for guests who have cancelled previously.

Clarification on #1: Host cancels on a guest, then host has to pay guest the entire amount for the stay and the guest pays nothing, thereby the guest makes a profit.  Guest cancels on the host and the guest has to pay the entire amount.

I understand AirBnB wants to attract guests and is making policy changes that are less advantageous to hosts.  I lived through this transition on eBay.  At some point you will have AirBnB not allowing hosts to rate guests.  The company makes the most money by getting customers, now that it has enough hosts.  AirBnB has a critical mass of rooms available to rent, only when AirBnB has run out of available rooms will it make a play to attract more inventory, again this is because guests dont' want to try and use AirBnB if they won't be able to find a place to stay.

There are competing sites that give hosts the option to setup a lease and have all sorts of explicit terms that are hostile to guests.  I don't want to mention them, but I understand if you really want to set all sorts of rules then you can use the sites of that competing company.  I really hope AirBnB doesn't cross over like eBay did and really start to use its position to bargain hosts into a corner and give us even less options.

[David969]

Another thought: what does the data show us?  Specifically - what percentage of AirBnB guests make more than three reservations a year?

I am curious about this 3 cancellations per year for guests.  Based solely on my persional experience (and why I want more data) I host on average at least 21 times a month.  I have been hosting for a few months, so let us say 120 hostings this year.  I  have never cancelled on a guest.

My guests are mostly infrequent users of AirBnB, I have asked some of my guests if they have used AirBnB and the usage rates are lower than 1 per month.  I have the least amount of actual data on this.  Let me just say that my guests use AirBnB 2 times a year, very few guests use the service many times a year, there is a big difference between my chi squared groups (average of 0 and 100 is 50, but there are no actual 50s, so 98 guests with 2 stays and 2 guests with 300 stays is about 8 stays on average but really 2 stays is what 98% of guests actual).  Allowing a guest 3 cancellations is the same as allowing 98% of all AirBnB guests to cancel every reservation they make ever, according to my hypothetical.  I believe that this is true for 90% of actual guests on AirBnB.  I base this on Americans getting 2-3 weeks vacation of average and the few guests I have asked this very question.

For emphasis: in my experience the majority of AirBnB guests have 3 or less stays and with AirBnB's policy for cancellations - the majority of guests can cancel every reservation they make once.

In my experience the host is handling over 100 reservations a year, and faces severe penalties for any cancellation.  Add on top of this that AirBnB won't feature you if you don't have the instant booking feature turned on.

To add insult to injury - as AirBnB grows, more and more people see it as a commodity and don't bother reading the instructions.  When I started everyone read how to use the keypad to enter my listings.  Now I have about half my guests calling me or ringing the doorbell so I can read to them the checkin instructions.  These users who think AirBnB is like a hotel service will want midnight or 1AM checkins for reservations made at 11:30PM, they will expect cancellations to be made with impunity, and if they didn't read something but turns out what they would have read would disdappoint them - they let you know in the review or demand a refund.

[Deb22]

David, excellent observations!

[Robin129]

@Lizzie I've had 8 cancellations since June 1. That isn't rare.

The only thing they have in common is they book my listing and cancel within a week. I get the impression they are "holding" the listing while they work out their travel plans. While they hold the listing I can't book it. I've just about had enough of it. Changing my cancellation policy and requiring more than one night may cost me bookings, but this is crazy. I rent the extra bedroom in my house so accepting guest requires me to adjust personal plans. 

To echo others, the guest doesn't bother to read and the host has to pay? Should we just toss out our house rules as well? They don't bother to read those either.

[Linda450]

I just tried to add some descriptions, etc. to my listing per Airbnb's prompts.  Apparently Airbnb's algorithm didn't like some of my info (even if they were entirely correct) and said they couldn't save them.  In addition, I would like Super Strict not Strict as my choice.  I do NOT want guests calling a week in advance to cancel--not unlike others commenting here.  They can call a month in advance and discuss if they have a problem.  If I can get another booking, I'll be glad to have their money refunded. 

If at the end of this discussion on Guest Cancellation Policy Update I don't see the Hosts being honored, I'll decide if I wish to continue listing on Airbnb.

[Robin129]

I can't get back in to my earlier comment to revise the number. It should read 5 cancellations since May. In my frustration I must have counted some twice. 

I went into my dashboard and pulled this information regarding cancellations:

1. Yang - Hi Robin I have to cancel this reservation. I am really sorry. There's a sudden change of plan that I won't stop at your city any more. Thanks for your time. Best, Yang

Confirmed July 9 Cancelled July 11.

2. Jennifer - Hey Robin! I ended up finding a road trip partner so will no longer need to stop for the night. I hope this is enough notice that it doesn't cause you any trouble. Thanks for being so prompt and kind! -Jennifer Jun 21, 2017 · Jennifer

Confirmed June 13 Cancelled June 21.

3. Marcus - Hey robin we had car trouble in Winston Salem North Carolina so we aren't going to be able to make it tonight

Jun 20, 2017 · Marcus

Confirmed June 14 Cancelled June 20

4. Robert - job layoff don't require room. Jun 9, 2017 · Robert 

Confirmed June 6 Cancelled June 9

5. Ana - Hi Robin! I'm so sorry I had to cancel my reservation. I was looking forward to meeting you, but my plans changed and I'm no longer traveling through WV. I really do apologize for the change of plans - I feel badly. I hope you have a good weekend and can rent the room out again soon! May 31, 2017 · Ana 

Confirmed May 15 Cancelled May 31.

A job layoff and auto trouble are not the same as "change of plans." I change my "plans" to accomodate people staying in my home.