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

[Colleen47]

@Pal1 Now you're a level 4... Haha 

it's important that we give constructive feedback. I have been irritated many times already, with less than a year under my belt, but I feel that if we come up with solutions and voice our opinions then they must be heard. Clearly @Lizzie is following along and can bring what she hears back to team meetings etc. 

[Amy38]

@Pal1.  Please, PLEASE let us know how your regulators decide. I have not had a problem with the company, but it is a matter of time.  I think, from reading this and airhostsforum thoroughly, that most of this refund activity comes from dishonest guests.

i have had 3 cancellations...1 the guys father had a stroke, 2 the people changed their plans a month in advance and 3 a guy booked last minute, paid didn't show up ....actually, I am not sure he even canceled. But I was paid in full. These were all legitimate issues on both sides.  If I were to have one like yours and so many others I have read about, this would be my second course of action.

luck

a

[Pal1]

Hi Amy

Alas I have been very busy with an audit and have not managed to escallate my concerns in Australia very much. I did send a submission to my local federal politician. There are a few other avenues I hopt to pursue and looking forward to my holidays in a week's time. I know Choice Magazine will be eager to hear of the problems we are all encountering.

If AirBNB proves to the community that they cannot protect their hosts then no doubt our lobbying and eventually government will regulate them as they have done with Uber. We can only hope this occurs sooner rather than later.

Pal

[Frances-Ruth0]

I have an email from "Joy", which of course I have saved for documentation. 

Joy M., Apr 30, 21:28 CDT:
Hi Frances,

Apologies for any delay.
This is Joy again and thanks for your time and patience as we further resolve your case. I was out for few days.

As mentioned in out previous conversation, we do not have this feature yet to customize cancellation policy for certain dates or period of time.
The best way to go with this - to have these dates (Sept 1-2; Sept 15-16; Sept 22-23; Oct 13-14; Nov 3-4; Nov 17-18 ) added into your listing description and let the guest/s know that
your policy will be switched from Moderate to Strict. All you have to is to get a confirmation from a guest agreeing to this change via Messages/Inbox.

Just know that we’re always working to improve our products and policies, and even when we aren’t able to accommodate requests, we absolutely value our users’ feedback. As a customer of Airbnb, your voice is both powerful and essential and I’ll be sure to pass your thoughts on to the right team.

Warmest regards,

Joy
www.airbnb.com/help

[Frances-Ruth0]

I was mis-advised by Airbnb, which resulted in hours of frustrating conversation. Further, they advise how to remedy, which ultimately led to a un-happy camper(Guest) who cancelled a premium weekend. Airbnb had actually taken over to fix the booking and this was the resul. I have made several attempts to issue complaint of this " caseworker" with no avail. It really sux a big one. No, my prior post stating you could have guest agree and confirm STRICT CANCEL no longer holds true. They really need to get on our side and give hosts more control

[Cody24]

Well said sir , I agree 100%

[Lucille10]

This policy benefits only Airbnb and guests who might cancel on a whim, knowing they will be refunded.  The person holding the baby is the host, who has lost on other possible bookings because of the blocked dates.  I anticipate income according to a reservation and when this is suddenly cancelled at the last minute, and when I have had to turn others away because of the former reservation, there is no income at all.  I object to then being given the option of giving a 10% discount on any other window-shoppers.

[Linda450]

Jean,

Thank you for the info regarding travel insurance.  I will add that suggestion to my contracts and listing sites!

[Glen10]

Fully in agreement with Jean cannot work on a 7 day cancellation policy for premium dates which are generally booked 9 months in advance. I will stick with my 30 day cancellation policy of refunding 50% of total price and if we manage to relet will refund the guest pro rata. If AIRBNB cannot assist in this matter, I will just block premium dates making them unavailable to BNB potential guests.

[Barbara540]

Jean can change her cancellation policy to Super Strict 30/day or 60/day to protect from last minute cancellations.

[Glen10]

The Super Strict cancellation policy applies to special circumstances and is by invitation only.

Pray tell how you get invited.

Glen

[Marianna53]

Hi there

I am a host and a traveller. This time I have booked a nice little sleep out in Melbourne.

I booked online and I had trouble with the online payments. When I submitted the payment button, I got a message to "due to internet problems", I had to resubmit again. This happened 2 x . Finally the payments went through but to my ashtonishment, Visa charged me 2 x too much. I saw 3 payments went through, all of the same amount. One of them was the amount for the 5 days I was going to stay there. The other 2 amounts are problaby the resubmitted ones.

I am trying to find an email address so I can alert the HQ that they have received too much money from me. I have cancelled the stay and received a refund of the original amount but not the doubling up amount.

Is there an email address? I tried to phone them but that took forever. I haven't got all day to listnen to music. There  MUST BE an email addrees that I can use. To be sent to the same page over and over again( help center) is not helpful!!

GIVE ME AN EMAIL ADDRESS SO I CVAN SEND THEM PROOF OF THE DOUBLE UP PAYMENT.

Thanks everyone.

[Jeanette61]

i been searching Airbnbs forums reagarding what I (as well as other hosts) beleive is Airbnbs  'sneaky' policy on guest cancellations.  For the record I always converse with guests thru the Airbnb system. That way there is no 'he said, she said' when things go awry.  In my most recent 'bad experience'  I was conversing with a guest who had booked for one month and then 2 weeks later wanted to cancel.  I won't bore you with his sob story, but needless to say  - through documented emails - I agreed to cancel his booking with only a 25% cancellation fee as opposed to the 50% that I normally charge.  (My cancellation policy is the 'strict' cancellation policy).  It was the Friday of a long weekend when I sent the email to the guest agreeing to cancel.  Airbnb then sent me an email and asked me to agree to his cancellation , giving me 24hrs to respond, otherwise I would be held responsible for cancelling the guests booking.  WHERE IS THE RATIONALE IN THAT!!!!  Given that it was a long w/end, I was away and never got the email so I did not getback to AIRBNB until the Monday.  By that time the 24hrs had expired and the guest had 100% of his money refunded.  In addition, i was given a sever reprimand by Airbnb stating that any further cancellation of a guest's booking by me would jeprodize my listing with Airbnb!!!!! I REALLY DON'T GET THIS RATIONALE!!!   I did not cancel the booking!!!  I called Airbnb and the support person looked through the emails and stated that this cancellation 'error' was common and that I would get my cancellation fee returned and the 'cancelled by host' taken off the system, however the person I was assigned to correspond with thru email had the opposite opinion and she basically told me that those are the 'rules' and that it was my fault for not getting back to them within the 24 hrs!!!!  This is totallly unacceptable!!!  It would be different if it made sense but it doesn't.  It was all documented!!

I would like others who have similar experiences to respond so that we can get AIRbnb to change this ridiculous policy.

[Barbara540]

This same thing happened to me (except I didn't waste my time chasing after a dead horse for money). I also have a "black mark" on my record and am in jeopardy of losing my AirBnB listing if I don't shape up.  In my case, I accepted the guest's cancelation and it showed that I canceled, so I got dinged for it.  So what? Dont care. Definitely will not entertain the thought of hosting that person again.  THAT I can control. I have tightened my policy to strict on the cancelations AND, have downloaded the app on my phone so I never miss a message.

[Pal1]

If AirBNB covers the cost of the guest cancellation and we still get paid for the total booking then this is fine.

However, if we have to wear the lost income then this is just another reason to leave AirBNB.

AirBNB is heavily in favour of the guest and does little to look after the host. 

I have not hosted for two months for this reason!