New strict cancellation policy update

[Lizzie]

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

[Patt6]

Hi Lizzi, 

thank you for your message, 

To be honest i do not understand the objective of this new airbnb policy. Once you book a room or a flat, you read first the host's cancellation policy. if you like it, you book it. If you do not like it, you look for another flat. I would go even further and say that even when the cancellation policy is strict, the host has always the possibility of refunding the guest. I had a cancellation for this weekend and I will complety refund the guest because of his situation and of course  because I have found another guest ...but what if had not found another person?

[Sophie122]

I honestly feel this grace period is being forced on the owners. We did opt for a strict cancellation policy for a reason.

[Patt6]

and this is without mentioning the problem of sharing your contac details with someone who will then cancel the reservation

[Patt6]

@Sophie122 completly agree with you!

[Martin280]

I'm in agreement with other superhosts that giving guests 3! cancellations a year is incredibly unfair to us hosts, who get ZERO. I think that should be 1 and we should also get 1 without penalty. 

[Paul782]

Decided join the conversation, but I will essentially be repeating the majority here.

I don't see the advantage to giving the guests a 48h cancelation window, in general. As mentioned before, guests look at the host cancellation policies and if they are not agreeable to the guest, they would move on and look for a more agreeable booking. Whenever I travel using Airbnb, I looks specifically for cancelation policies that are less strict, so that if I need to make a change, I am able to and it is alright with cet host.

With that being said, this does not personally affect me/my listing even though I have a strict cancelation policy. Where I am located, I never have an issue booking, regardless of the time of the year. If I had a guest cancel on me 2 weeks in advance, it would not make a difference, but I understand the issue coming from other hosts. 

Where I have the problem is the information for the listing being given during that period, after the booking but before they cancel (if they choose to do so). That information should be withheld, at the very least, until that grace period is over to protect the host and the property. 

[Lawrence1]

Why 3 refunds per year per guest?  That is a lot IMHO.  Why not just 1 time?  When I travel, I might be staying up to 3 places at most for 2 weeks travel.  So that would mean, I would be fully refunded for that entire trip for basically no reason.  Bad.  IMHO.

[Kate286]

I agree with many hosts here. A 48h grace period seems to be too long, In my experience, I have always been able to work it out with guests who legitimately had an unexpected change of plan but managed to advise of the cancelation a month of several months away. I think it is up to us host to be fair and sort it out in a case by case basis.

I Also share the uneasy feeling of false guests obtaining specific details and location of my home... if there will be a change in the grace period it should apply both ways, so hosts who need to cancel can fairly take the same window.

[Rene17]

I don't put any "sensitive" information in my listing. I have a Welcome Package I made up, with ALL needed info about my place and surrounding areas, and I send it via email, to the guest, when I feel it is a "safe" time to do so. I also have my property managers (I live in Ca and my place is in Mexico) change the door code after each guest leaves and I do not give the new one out until right before the guest is to arrive. I haven't had any safety issues, yet, and don't foresee any by doing things this way. So far it's worked out great!

I also did everything to be "business traveler ready" then they took it away because I wouldn't change my strict cancellation policy. I didn't think that was very fair! 

My property managers handle everything at the property but I take care of everything to do with the guests inquiries and bookings. I also have a strict cancellation policy and have only had 1 person say they wouldn't book because of it. Their choice. That is my time, energy and money that I would throw away and I just can't afford to do that. Why mess with something when no one wants to have it messed with? I don't get it. Obviously this isn't a "thing" that everyone agrees with. Just leave it as it is!

[John1414]

I think that guests should be made aware that the hosts do not receive any money from a booking until after their arrival. Some guests are booking a year in advance and are paying the full amount. We have had guests who after cancelling and we presumed eligible for gaining a full refund who have then tried to get their booking fee back from us despite us having received no payment. My opinion is that we would not gain by this policy as:-

 1. Even if given and eligible for a full refund hosts are not aware of the amount of booking fee deductions still charged until we as hosts receive a complaint that their money, as they see it,  has been retained by us.
2. As the vast amount of our bookings are made within a few days of arrival a delay whilst the booking is theoretically in a grace period would not be of benefit and would cause us to be more likely to lose bookings because the availability would be delayed for release back into the system.

In all other respects the booking system is excellent and we greatly appreciate the care and attention given to the process by AirBnB.

[Ann10]

@Rene17-If they cared if we agreed or not, they would have asked our opinion before doing it. Instead of rolling back the implementation, they would say due to host dissatisfaction w this change we have decided to leave the strict policy as is. Those of you who want to have your calendar blocked for 48 hours, with only 12 days left to fill it up if the guest cancels for free, have at it.

[Ann10]

@Kate0- In my experience, ABB has policies that tend to bring criminals, con-artists, extortionist, crazy people who know how to work the 24 hour complaint period because they know the "mediators" don't know what the "Guest Refund Policy" says or are told to ignore it. This is another one of those policies, as is the new SH criteria.

[Cody24]

From a host point of view, I don’t see any problems with these changes.

[Amanda473]

I also agree with Jeremy and Helen and others on not having our details disclosed to the potential guest. Upon booking, I immediately send my guests a welcome message with a welcome packet that has my phone number and address on it. Obviously I can hold my own welcome message back from the guest until after the grace period, but our details on the platform should not be disclosed until the booking is confirmed. 

Also, it feels like the grace period shouldn't be allowed for those who are new to Airbnb - if a guest comes recommended by other Airbnb hosts, then I have no problem with it: the grace period could be a benefit to repeat users. Some guests who are new to the whole platform don't really understand how it works, and have been problematic for me (i.e. not following the house manual and/or didn't read the listing description). Their expectations are clearly that of a hotel, and I feel this cancellation policy is in line with that. 

[Cody24]

Let me start by saying I love Airbnb, However I am very upset about the change to  Business travel ready, I complied completely  with all of my properties previously , now with the new change of (Accepting a moderate Cancelation policy)  which I won’t do, none of my properties are business travel ready my views per month has been cut in HALF,  so they took HALF of my potential bookings because I won’t switch to a moderate policy. I think to

A. Force us into being more flexible and

      Taking less profit.

B. Distribute more bookings to less senior hosts.