I was planning a visit to Tokyo and was looking at accommodations. I found a really nice place and try to book it, but it is pending on host's response. After the first booking, I was keeping looking and found another one that is promising. I tried to book it for the same time and it was accepted immediately. However at this moment I realized that I did not want the second one (I missed something important), so I tried to cancel the second booking. I got refunded for the accommodation fee but not the service fee.
Per Airbnb cancellation policy:
The service fee is refundable up to 3 times per year if you cancel within 48 hours of booking the reservation.
The service fee isn’t refundable if, at the time you cancel your reservation:
- It’s been more than 48 hours since you booked the reservation
- You’ve already cancelled 3 reservations within the last 12 months
- The reservation you're cancelling overlaps with another reservation in your account
I cancelled the booking immediately and I am pretty sure I have not cancelled before this year, so either there is a bug in the system or I fell into the third category.
I do have a pending reservation at the same time, but I did not think it is a valid reservation since it is still pending and not finalized yet. Why does it count?
Think about it: I cancelled a reservation and because I still have a pending reservation at the same period, I cannot get service fee back. However, if I cancel the pending reservation first, I will obviously not get charged for anything because it is still pending. And then I can cancel the finalized reservation to get my service fee back. After that I just need to reserve the first one again, and the result is exactly the same.
So the order of cancellation matters? It does not sounds right to me.