Cancellation policy if it is illegal for us to accept guests.

[Rob238]

I'm sure this is answered somewhere, but I can't seem to find it, but we have an 8 bedroom property in the UK that accommodates groups of up to 16 people. When the 'rule of 6' came in most of our guests cancelled, which was all very straight forward. We still have some guests though that haven't cancelled. If we have to tell them they're not allowed to stay, and we in effect initiate the cancellation procedure, will we have to pay the service fee, and also lose our superhost status.

Apologies if I'm being thick and the answer is staring me in the face somewhere.

Rob

[Keith559]

I have the same problem.  Airbnb penalises the host for cancelling even though the law forbids more than 6 people.  So I just ask them to re-schedule or cancel and I give them their money back. Though I remind them that Airbnb will take their fee.  I think its appalling that Airbnb actively sanctions hosts who have to obey the law.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Keith559 @Rob238 We had a similar problem where both us and the guest wanted to cancel but neither wanted the penalties to apply. It was simple to talk to customer services, explain that we would both be breaking the law to host and requested a full refund for the guest at no penalty to ourselves. First rep said no but we tried again when I was more articulate and the second happily looked at the messages and cancelled as we requested.

Try to call in UK daytime as Irish call centre seems to be the most sensible.

Hope this helps

[Rob238]

When you say it's simple to talk to customer services @Keith559 it would help if I could see a phone number anywhere. It's probably staring me right in the face, but I've hunted all over the site for it. Do you know what it is - for the Irish call centre?

Thanks for your help by the way.

[Rob238]

It's possible I replied to the wrong person there too. I'm just a bit thick.

[Helen350]

@Rob238 I had a guest book at the beginning of the 2nd lockdown. I explained why it would be wrong for both of us & she was happy to cancel. I MESSAGED Airbnb using the 'Help' feature, & asked for AIRBNB to do a penalty free cancelation, because we would be breaking the law to continue with the booking. The CS rep who answered the message - post bot - understood & replied she would cancel, without penalty to either party & issue a full refund to the guest - which I was happy with. It was all sorted in 20 mins. 

[Rob238]

Thanks Helen350 - it was getting past the bots and finding a number to ring them on that I was struggling with, but all sorted now.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Rob238 if you go to the help section of this forum there is a post pinned at the top with contact numbers for each country in the World. the call centres pick up based on their working times so if you ring during UK day you should get Ireland.

[Rob238]

That's exactly the info I needed - thanks so much.

[Robbie54]

 @Rob238 I thought Airbnb are allowing hosts to cancel penalty free if its covid related, I'm sure I got an email about it. I'm starting to get tough with guests from now on. If they're happy to make a booking in the middle of a pandemic it's up to them, but my strict cancellation policy applies if they're unable to come because of covid, although I'm still offering guests to be able to move their dates foc. A potential problem could arise where a guest refuses or forgets to cancel, realises they can't stay and lose all of their money then leaves a retaliatory review, which is my worst nightmare. 

[Rob238]

Thanks @Robbie54. I understand your point of view. So far we've been lucky and it's generally been the guest cancelling and so we're not penalised. We have had to cancel two bookings recently though and one came with a message that neither guest nor host would be penalised, the other said we could cancel up to 10 times without penalty - I think because we're superhosts - but I'm not sure why the cancellations were treated differently.