Got charged cancellation fee wrongfully

[Henry513]

Hi, 

I recently made a book for a monthly stay. Here's the booking detail: 

** at Easy 1 BR Apartment for business/travel (you originally paid $508.11 (USD)). 

The host contacted me on the chat app that I should reached her on her Whatsapp number and asked that I made the book through a different app (travelio). Said that I'm uncomfortable with this and wanted to just cancel  full reservation.  She said that she couldn't. I tried to contact AirBnb to make the cancelation on my behalf. In the process, I suddenly got a notification that the cancellation has been processed and it's due to the guest asking for it. Because of this, I'm only getting only a very small fraction from the amount i had paid. This whole process is frustrating and I can't see why it's me that needs to bear the cost of the host using AirBnb to only direct the booker to another app. Please find the screenshot of my chat for your perusal: 

**

Translation in case needed but you can crosscheck with your team: 

"You can send me a message on my WhatsApp" 

"You need to book from other application" 

Please help resolve this as soon as possible because not I'm in a limbo as to where I'm going to stay and I need to make a reservation as soon as possible. 

Thank you. 

Best, 

Henry 

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[Elena87]

@Henry513 

Henry, you've posted in the community forum, so you should go back to phoning up the helpdesk to try again to resolve.

It does appear the cancellation has fallen on you though if you only received a token sum of a refund, for bookings over 28 days, you would lose out on the first 30 paid days if you initiate a cancellation.

Your host could have cancelled this booking from her side easily despite what she told you, predictably to avoid penalties I'd assume.

Also you could have followed this process in the link

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1250/if-your-host-needs-to-cancel

Hopefully a helpdesk agent should reassess the case.