I made a reservation in November 2019 for August 2020. Host had strict cancel policy. When covid reared its ugly head, ABB was very slow to react as far as cancellations were concerned. Our flights to Europe were cancelled, our cruise was cancelled, there was no way we could stay in Edinburgh this August. The host was wonderfully understanding and did a full refund. ABB, however, said the cancel was not within their policy and would not refund service fee. Since their newest policy says they will refund for my original stay dates, it does appear that ABB has been just a step behind all along and will continue to keep service fees even though their policy changes. We missed it by not waiting on ABB to update the policy. Can you imagine how many people in the US would actually wait till July to cancel an August reservation in Europe, especially with flights cancelled? Europe is not letting us in anyway. I just think ABB is not treating this as they should. I’m almost certain that they spent more than the amount of my service fee on the message personnel that fed the company line to me since June 7. It’s amazing the amount of scripting that goes on. See the final and shortest message I received (July 3 quoted below) and note that ABB closed the case with a false reason, that my check-in date was not in the approved period. Since my check-in date was Aug 5, that is clearly within the current extenuating circumstances policy; however, of course they mean it wasn’t within their policy on the date it was actually cancelled. Again, I guess ABB expected us to wait just in case the travel was on again? I can’t really figure what they’re doing except not the right thing.
“Jul 3, 2020 Airbnb Support10:37 PM
Hi Sally,
This is Jennifer again from Airbnb. I trust you are well.
After gathering and carefully reviewing all related documentation, we decided to uphold with our COVID-19 extenuating circumstances policy, and we're unable to issue further refund because your check-in date does not fall within the approved period.
We consider this decision final. We appreciate your utmost understanding on this matter.
Best regards,
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