Airbnb penalizing hosts with vaccination requirements in house rules.

[Kim937]

I’m issuing a word of warning to other host’s who have a requirement that guests be vaccinated. Even though I have a vaccine requirement in my house rules, that it’s stated in the first paragraph of my listing description and that it’s reiterated in the automated message guests receive at booking, a guest auto-booked who’s not vaccinated. We’re now within my moderate cancellation policy window, but they want to cancel and get a full refund. I contacted Airbnb. I received false information with the first customer service agent which isn’t surprising as it’s a common occurrence. (i.e. I’m not allowed to have a vaccine requirement per Airbnb rules because it’s discriminatory). Here is Airbnb’s own language regarding vaccine requirements.

"Hosts can set their own house rules, including specifying in their listing description if they require guests to be vaccinated or recently tested for COVID-19, unless prohibited under applicable laws or regulations."

I then spoke with a manager who informed me he would grant an exception and cancel the reservation penalty free to ME. That in typical situations Airbnb would consider it a cancellation by host with the penalties attached to a host cancellation. I was dumbfounded by this and asked repeatedly for clarification. He insists that if guests indicate they intend to break house rules in relation to vaccinations, we as hosts are subject to Airbnb penalties if we don’t want the reservation to go through. I countered that I consider this a “cancellation by guest” and that I should receive a payout, that this is akin to guests reserving with the intention of bringing pets or children to a rental with a no children or pet policy. Not only do they get off evading a cancellation policy, but we as hosts get hurt in the process. I asked him to reference the Terms of Service (TOS)) in regard to this, but he said there wasn’t any such language, that this was in the information customer service reps have on hand and not listed in the TOS. The convoluted message I received from this manager follows at the end of the post. I asked to speak with his supervisor but I’m not holding my breath.

To remedy this with further reservations, I’ve turned off auto-book. I don’t know how else to make sure that guests will adhere to my house rules. I am hopping mad at this point. Airbnb is penalizing hosts who are trying to protect themselves and the community from this dread disease, especially the highly contagious Omicron variant. I wonder if a local paper would be interested in hearing about it?

"Airbnb Support5:23 PM

Hi Kim,

This is Nickoyan, a Manager, from the Airbnb Community Support Team. As I told you on the phone, whenever a host would like to cancel a reservation because of a vaccination status, the reservation would have to be cancelled by host. This means all hosting penalties would be attracted to that cancellation (https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/990/). Please note, however, that I told you regarding your reservation (HMMYH5PJJP) with Hailee, that I would be willing to remove all penalties from this cancellation.

Regarding house rules, if it is that a guest breaks a house rule and the host no longer wants to host them, and the reservation has already started then we would alter the reservation and assist the host with removing the guests from their listing. However, if it is a guest who would want to violate a host's house rule and the host indicates this too us, and would want to cancel the reservation, we would be able to cancel the reservation penalty free for them. With that being said, we do not consider one's vaccination status as a house rule. Instead, it is a separate entity in which there is another policy, that guides how Airbnb agents are supposed to operate.

Based off of what I said, as I typed above, you are unhappy with Airbnb's policies and you informed me that you wanted my supervisor to call you because you wanted this exact information shown to you in the terms of service. I then explained to you that the information that agents would work from, is expounded from the terms of service and we would not be able to share this document with you.

To be clear, I agreed with you in that you may have it as a requirement to have your guests be vaccinated. However, where we disagree is how the cancellation of this type of reservation would work (because you view it as a cancellation by guest and I told you that this was a cancellation by host). Also, you would like to receive a payout from this cancellation, and you would want the guest to face financial penalties from this cancellation. In conclusion, I told you that I would be placing on the ticket, the policy in which I followed so that all may see the policy which refers to a situation like this."

[Betsy60]

Does the "auto-booking" you refer to mean Instant Booking? If so, when you choose to use Instant Booking, anyone, including people with bad reviews, can book your place with no vetting and no conditions. Just turn off Instant Booking to place the "Covid vaccination requirement" on your listing. On mine, I included a picture of the statement (since pictures are the first things a potential guest goes to), a statement in the description, and one in the house  rules. 

[Debra300]

@Betsy60,

With Intent Booking hosts have ability to choose additional requirements, such as government ID and a positive review.  If guests don't meet the requirements they will be given the option to submit a booking request.

[Betsy60]

I stand corrected. We started out in late 2018, and used instant booking at the get go. We lucked out with good guests.

[Huma0]

@Betsy60 

It's not true that IB means anyone can book your listing. There are filters that you can apply, e.g. requiring good reviews. I'm not saying that will weed out all bad guests, but I know I have been saved from a few by using this filter, e.g. they contact me asking, "Why can't I book your listing?" and then I see that they have a bad review/rating from another host.

However, I do like your idea about including this information in a picture, just to make it crystal clear.

[Betsy60]

That’s a big change since we opened up our unit to guests, and in a good way! We were anxious to get business at first, so we used IB, and 4 guests into it (all lovely guests I might add) we decided to not press our luck …so far, so good!