New strict cancellation policy update

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

New strict cancellation policy update

Hello everyone,

 

The Airbnb team heard feedback from you and the host community about the upcoming change to our Strict cancellation policy. In order to address your concerns, we’re delaying the change until May 1, 2018.

 

Before the change goes into effect, we’ll share more about what we’re doing to address your concerns, particularly around protecting your listing details from being shared with guests who cancel. But for now, we’d like to clear up some confusion and help you better understand the new policy and how it will benefit the whole community:

 

Here’s how the new grace period policy will work—and some of the protections we have in place for hosts:

 

Limited-time refund within 48 hours after booking when the check-in date is at least 14 days away

Guests must cancel within 48 hours after booking and can only cancel if their check-in date is 14+ days away. This means that no matter how far out your guests book, they only have 48 hours from the time they book to cancel for free. We want to make sure that if guests change their mind, you have enough time to get another booking.

 

Three refunds per year per guest

To prevent abuse, guests are limited to three fully refunded cancellations a year.

 

No full refunds for overlapping bookings

To make sure guests are not making multiple bookings and then cancelling, any booking made by a guest when they already have an active booking for those dates will not be covered under our grace period policy.

 

Your hosting success is top of mind for us, and tests of this policy—including among hosts with strict cancellation policies in place—strongly suggest the change will result in increased bookings and successful stays. With this grace period, not only do guests book with more confidence, but they also have the ability to resolve booking mistakes without requiring your valuable time and intervention.

 

We value your feedback, and will follow up shortly with more insight into how your ideas are shaping this policy.

 

Thanks,

Lizzie

 

----------Update April 24th, 2018----------

 

Hello everyone,

 

Just to let you know there is now an update regarding protecting your listing details, as mentioned above. 

 

Here is the link to take a look: An update on the Strict Cancellation Policy

 

Thanks,

Lizzie


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1,325 Replies 1,325
Pilar1
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Well, @Mark3227  I was just trying to help but now realise I may have sound a bit patronising, sorry about that. The policy you have pasted  in your post is definitely two years old and there’s nothing new about it, and of course when anyone comments on it the thread will go up again. There are other much recent threads that allude to the Extenuating Circumstances clause and the impact to our cancellation policies, the most critical update was on March 13th this year. I’m sure if you have a look you’ll be even more outraged than you seemed to be in your first post. So I’m afraid that no, maybe you won’t even get 50% of your original booking, depending on when that booking was made and the dates of the trip. There are many variables to know exactly what will apply to you but you will probably get 12.5% in most cases if COVID clause applies. And there have been a couple of extensions to the initial amendment, it’s all really complicated because guests and hosts seem to be getting different messages, so good luck with it all.

In case it helps you can see the most recent policy here:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2701/extenuating-circumstances-policy-and-the-coronavirus-covid1...

 

 

Pilar1
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Luckily I had saved my reply as I wrote it separately to avoid the time out issue, so here it goes again:

Well,  @Mark3227   I was just trying to help but now realise I may have sound a bit patronising, sorry about that. The policy you have pasted  in your post is definitely two years old and there’s nothing new about it, and of course when anyone comments on it the thread will go up again. There are other much recent threads that allude to the Extenuating Circumstances clause and the impact to our cancellation policies, the most critical update was on March 13th this year. I’m sure if you have a look you’ll be even more outraged than you seemed to be in your first post. So I’m afraid that no, maybe you won’t even get 50% of your original booking, depending on when that booking was made and the dates of the trip. There are many variables to know exactly what will apply to you but you will probably get 12.5% in most cases if COVID clause applies. And there have been a couple of extensions to the initial amendment, it’s all really complicated because guests and hosts seem to be getting different messages, so good luck with it all. In case it helps, this is the latest update I know of:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2701/extenuating-circumstances-policy-and-the-coronavirus-covid1...

Lack or transparency....not lake of transparency.....sorry. Tiem to close my eyes. Thank you again Pilar

Hi Lizzie,

 

If AirBNB is listening,  we hosts have built up the property with our money and labor, not AirBNB's. Therefore, the more restrictions you bring in for the Owners, the more we will be tempted to just dump short term renting and go for long term rentals.

 

The guests have it far too easy already. You continue to bring in more anti-owner "policies". I hope AirBnB realizes that owners do not appreciate being pushed like this.

 

Regards,

Gautam.

Thanks for the info. I appreciate.

Thanks for the info.

Many thanks for the info.

I booked a place in Slovenia to stay for late June. I cancelled it and she already has half the funds. I explained as she advised to say as reason Covid 19. My country has banned all uneccessary travel. I then wrote to her asking for the full refund also as i cannot be quarantined for two weeks due to my job as a carer. I did so and Air bnb did not engage with me properly. They simply emailed 0 refund on your cancellation. There is nowhere to complain on the site is there? I cannot speak to anyone and am upset the host does not reply either.

Anna2021
Level 1
London, United Kingdom

Thanks for the information. I personally don't think 14 days is enough to get new guests. 

Hi Lizzy, I'm Emil, I have a bed and breakfast in Barcelona, since the beginning of my business I have registered my b & b with Airb & b. Now I have had, like all hosts, cancellations due to Covid. I have applied for a refund of 25% of the amount, as you kindly granted to us host. The request was rejected on the grounds that the cancellation terms are not strict. There is evidence from customer conversations that customers canceled because of Covid. I think it is shameful that Airb & b has this behavior. I have always worked well, bringing benefits to you too, to become superhost. On the site you are advised to use flexible cancellation and then do not reimburse your hosts because they do not have rigid cancellation. I hope you can solve the problem, otherwise I will have to make a complaint

Best regards,

Emil

Pilar1
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Emil2407  Maybe the person you spoke with in Customer Services did not explain to you why you don’t qualify or you didn’t understand their explanation but you only have to apply a bit of logic to realise why. If your cancellations took place outside of whatever window applies to your policy you would not have received any percentage of the booking anyway. Only those with a strict policy stand to get something (12.5% in the majority of cases) and they are not happy either. No matter how much it was suggested to you to go for the most flexible (for example to benefit from more bookings as a result) it was ultimately your choice to select the policy you thought better suited your type of property. Complaining costs nothing but a legal  battle will be a lost cause in my view, I agree with @Mike-And-Jane0. If you know someone that can give you legal advice in this respect, especially if it’s free, go for it, maybe you’ll sleep better afterwards.

hi i have a booking from The Nederlands /Holland but so fare there can not get into Denmark to Denmark. Do i get my money for the week anyway, the booking is week 29 from 11 to 18 of July?

 Flemming

Helen427
Level 10
Auckland, New Zealand

hello @Flemming11 from across the other side of the world in Auckland, New Zealand and welcome to CC from a fellow host.

 

Hang in there with your reservation as things are changing with borders opening, thankfully, in Europe in the next few weeks from what I've read.

 

Keep open communication with your guests and ask them to keep you uptodate & vice versa.

 

All the best and can't wait to see Europeans back visiting New Zealand to., when our borders finally reopen.

 

Central To All Home & Location

Remuera, New Zealand 

Thank you.

Airbnb please refund my Paris airbnb stay as airline cancelled my flight

Booking.com made us refund customers at our guest house in March even with flights not cancelled.

Why cannot airbnb do the same? 

Best Regards Scott 

Scottwalker10@gmail.com