Why Airbnb’s new cancelation policies are absolutely wrong

[Andrea374]

Many hosts woke up this morning having received an email from Airbnb informing them that there would be some “minor” changes to the cancellation policies on the website.

As you may know, the world-famous online platform for vacation rentals offers three different policies for guests’ cancellations:

• Flexible: Full refund 24 hours prior to arrival, except fees
• Moderate: Full refund 5 days prior to arrival, except fees
• Strict: 50% refund up to 1 week prior to arrival, except fees

The Airbnb commission for any of those cancellation policies was 3%.

The email received this morning informs us that the commission will change based on the cancellation policy we apply to our listing(s).

If we choose the Flexible one, allowing our guests to cancel with a full refund up to 24 hours before their arrival, the commission will remain the same: 3%, whereas if we choose the Moderate it will be 4% and up to 5% if we choose the strict one.

In addition, guests will no longer have to pay the service fee to Airbnb if they decide to cancel!

It goes without saying, that this unilateral change in the company’s policy is absolutely wrong, and here is why:

Airbnb has once again decided to overprotect guests in damage to the hundreds of thousands of hosts who literally are the backbone of the website and of the industry in general.

Management is clearly forgetting that we, house-owners and managers, are not hotel-like accommodations and that we do not have all the tools, nor the client-base, to have new reservations in a matter of minutes when a guest cancels only 24 hours before.

This new policy will only create damages to the whole system, with guests feeling free to reserve the house and then cancel at the very last minute by choosing another cheaper accommodation, without any consequence.

I, for one, am feeling very frustrated by this sudden change, and consider this only a subtle and not so honest way to simply raise the commission to the hosts, without really considering the consequences.

I do really hope Airbnb’s management will hear our voices, through the feedbacks we are sending to the website and through our social media comments on the official page, and will decide to take a step back and restore the old policy which has led this company the become the world phenomenon it has been for the past five years.

Andrea ***

[Daniela-and-Paolo0]

Sono assolutamente d'accordo e sono pronta a cancellare il mio annuncio su airbnb, che si sta snaturando per diventare, cosí pare, un semplice doppione di booking.com. Noi non siamo hotel, siamo persone che, con un duro lavoro, mettono a disposizione un appartamento o una stanza accogliendo gli ospiti con mille attenzioni. Vi ricordate il motto 'live like a local'?, bene non è cosa da hotel...airbnb ha già superato il limite di decenza mettendo sempre gli hosts in una posizione di assoluto ricatto da parte dei guests. Se un ospite mi fa una brutta recensione, a prescindere dal merito, io ho un gran danno. Se io faccio una recensione negativa ad un guests non gli faccio alcun danno: potrà continuare a prenotare con un nuovo profilo. Io non posso cambiare il mio profilo, il mio appartamento è lí con le sue recensioni, le sue foto, il suo posizionamento stabilito con il 'famoso' algoritmo di airbnb.  È giusto? Non mi pare

[Silvia71]

@Daniela-and-Paolo0 @Andrea374 @Antonia6 @Villa-Rental0 @Dario0 e tutti gli altri che non riescoa taggare...

I commend remember to sign all the petition !!! and SHARE SHARE SHARE !!
Airbnb is making these and other modifications to increase its value, I think to throw in some financial adventure, and / or be bought by someone.
So try to move as possible by attaching money at all, even easy to cancellations, but that does us Host.
Do you think we realized even beyond the Facebook Host Italian group who yesterday telephoned many of us to "get in Airbnb," he does not even not even realize that we are already inside.
Be careful now about this change of course, probably it will be extended to the rest of the world, if we do nothing
Signed, signed.

mi raccomando ricordiamoci di firmare tutti la petizione!!! e SHARE SHARE SHARE!!

Airbnb sta facendo queste ed altre modifiche molto problabilmente per incrementare il suo Valore, credo per buttarsi in qualche avventura finanziaria, e/o farsi comprare da qualcuno.

Quindi cerca di smuovere pià soldi possibili attaccandosi a tutto.

Pensate che ci siamo accorti anche di là nel gurppo Facebook che ieri hanno telefonato a molti di noi per "entrare in Airbnb," non rendendosi neanche conto che siamo già dentro.

Fate attenzione a mollarare adesso su questo cambio di rotta. 

Molto problabilmente verrà esteso anche al resto del mondo.

Firmate, firmate. 

https://www.change.org/p/no-alle-nuove-politiche-di-cancellazione-airbnb-s-new-cancellation-policies...

 I commend remember to sign all the petition !!! and SHARE SHARE SHARE !!
Airbnb is making these and other modifications to increase its value, I think to throw in some financial adventure, and / or be bought by someone.
So try to move as possible by attaching money at all, even easy to cancellations, but that does us Host.
Do you think we realized even beyond the Facebook Host Italian group who yesterday telephoned many of us to "get in Airbnb," he does not even not even realize that we are already inside.
Be careful now about this change of course, probably it will be extended to the rest of the world, if we do nothing
Signed, signed.

https://www.change.org/p/no-alle-nuove-politiche-di-cancellazione-airbnb-s-new-cancellation-policies...

[Edoardo9]

Totally agreeing with this! New cancellation policies will bring just chaos!

[Gina13]

Thanks for sharing. I appreciate your comment and I think it makes sense. I also hope Airbnb acknowledges this issue and give us the right support as hosts and hostess, the backbone of this company.

[Giuliana28]

I totally agree but since airbnb is free to do whatever it wants, I won't sign the petition, cause I find it completely useless.

I will rather add some reason airbnb should listen to us and our worries.

We are the heart of airbnb, happy hosts make happy guests and an happy website. This new politics will make us very unhappy and here is why:

--Without fees we'll be like booking, I often booked there "just in case" and erased it most of the time, but we are not on booking, we are loyal to airbnb because it isn't booking. If people erase their reservation and go on "booking" for lastminute offer or even couchsurfing, we and airbnb lose money

--I often plan my little trips and vacation during days I have a booking for my whole apartment, I guess I'm not the only freelance who does it, frequently changes will ruin all my plans and make me stop rent the whole apartment, hence airbnb loses money.

--I personally got so ansious about people erasing without any fee (it's a small fee but makes a big difference about the quality and affidability of reservations) that I was going to switch into rigid terms, and now I have a mix of flexible and moderate ads. I think also other superhost will do the same. So results is the opposit of the one airbnb expected... and will probably lose money.

--If we stop being loyal to airbnb, cause it doesn't protect like before, airbnb will definitely lose lot's of money.

I think airbnb is a very smart company and doesn't want to lose money... nor us. So I think and hope they won't need an external petition to change their mind. Who thought about this, is probably an expert of finance and economics without any host experience, who will now have the "whole picture". 

Alternative useful changes:

--Possibility to erase without fees when host and guest agree... or send reservation to a friend host (of course if guests agree), so we can accept more interesting reservations and pass less interesting one to our friends who recently started and motivate them more.... so double more money for airbnb!!!! It would be great to have the possibility to propose a link of my referenced friend even when I refuse... to help and motivate trustworthy hosts who recently started

--If you really want to do these changes (of no fee for erasing reservation) at least make guest responsible, like they can erase just once every 6 months with no fee, like us, in order to avoid useless not trustworthy reservation "just in case", that would destroy our community. Erasing should be also written authomatically in their feedback wall. Anyway this will make me even less open to guests with no references.

Thanks for your attention guys!!! 

-

[Alessandro64]

@Giuliana28

You are both right and wrong when you say they can do whatever they want, Right cos we can hardly compel the third or fourth economic group on Earth to do our bidding, wrong cos that statement appllies to a monopoly, and they are not in that condition.

We are trying to oppose something which is completely wrong and that will probably make abb lose money too, as you correctly state, we cannot force our viewpoint but if the numbers are big enough they might reconsider.

Besides, they didn't ask for our advice or permission and even if your advices and many others are good i doubt they will consider them.Had they been interested in our opinion they might have made a poll.

I beg you to reconsider on the petition, it is in your own interest too.

[Giuliana28]

I think what we can do, in case they don't listen to us, is to stop accepting booking in advance, since they will have no value for us anymore, just a duty without rights... I personally will accept maximum 1-2 weeks in advance.

and noone should put flexible, unless he/she wants many many fake useless reservations.

[Villa-Rental0]

@Giuliana28Yep already done so Giuliana! Will take no chances specially when you manage more tan one property and have signed agreements with different owners - agreements with cancellation fees which do not match AirBnb !!!!

[Stefania0]

how sad, airbnb discovered the profit .... but their sharing economy what happened?

[Federico69]

Does not matter what we say or write, airbnb could not care less...I have been asking to revive the review policy for guests for months suggesting airbnb employs a reward system to curb single-serving guest accounts ( no point in leaving reviews for guests the way it is now), plus other many betterments, but what do they come up to? Increased cut for themselves and less guarantees for us, their suppliers.
Without us airbnb would be in the gutter, therefore I am talking with wimdu reps plus other sites to transfer there, and so should everyone else not agreeing with this sleight of hand. Shame on airbnb.

[Villa-Rental0]

@Federico69  Fully agree with you !!!  We are also moving to Windu ! It seems that AirBnB now want to a lower class market so they suppose they deserve not Luxury !

[Gary-and-Katia0]

    Andrea,

    You make absolute sense and this will probably fall on deaf ears.  It is all about money at the top.  Yes the hosts are what make Airbnb possible.  Instead of making things better they are now coming up with more ways for bookings and more money in their pockets.  What side of the fence are you on Airbnb? 

[Sue153]

I am a complete newbie but after having a potential (first) guest cancel I thought I'd better revisit the cancellation policies - and am horrified! I have my own very simple policy that I've been using for the past 10 years for my small holiday let. As many people have said already, there are two sides to the airbnb issue. After seemingly spent hours setting up my page and many more trying to set a fair base rental (impossible!) I'm loathe to just pull out.........but I'm  not sure I have any choice as these policies are ludicrously biased in either extreme.

Just venting - I appreciate this has been said before, but there does need to be an option for the host's own cancellation policy perhaps.

[Carlos-and-Anita0]

I have to agree with you. We are getting stung by this as we speak. If we did not have CHristmas bookings coming up we would be taking all our listings down. We are continously paying for guest's lies and cancellations at the last minute. It's really not cool. Sadly, guests know this now and are taking full advantage. Watch out fellow hosts Airbnb is not so safe to work with any longer. We will be out as soon as possible and I am sure we are not the only ones.

[Marina-and-Stefano0]

All this is very sad. We manage two houses on the seaside. We rent them just in the summer season. We cannot have a last minute cancellation. Even 30 days in advance is not enough for us. On October 18 we cancelled our 2 ad from airbnb and we put as a reason that "we do not agree with a new cancellation policy". In case we re-activate the advertisements, we will not accept any reservation for the summer season. We will rent with other websites.

Very sad of Airbnb.

Marina & Stefano