I've offered full refunds to anyone who booked my summer cottage, regardless of when they booked. I just had someone cancel a July reservation: no problem, I said I'd go ahead and refund in full. They weren't entitled to a full refund automatically when they cancelled because they booked after March 15th and my cancellation policy is strict: the system was only giving them 50% back.
So I went to the cancellation email and clicked the button that said Refund guest in full. No problem, or so I thought. However, I got an email shortly after saying that I had refunded the guest and about $826 would be taken from my next payout. Again, I haven't received a payout from this reservation because it doesn't start until July.
I was pretty worried, so I sent Airbnb a message on Twitter, asking them to confirm that the guest was just being fully refunded my portion of the payout and that no money was being taken from my next payout: I just wouldn't receive the payout in July. I would have thought that was a straightforward question: apparently, not the case. The Airbnb rep said that they couldn't tell me how much of a refund the guest was going to get, because it would violate guest confidentiality. I tried to explain that I didn't care specifically how much they were being refunded, just that the amount wasn't being deducted from my next payout. Absolutely no dice: the rep just kept repeating that they couldn't disclose that information because it violated guest privacy. "Computer says no." It would have been laughable if it wasn't so frustrating.
So I called the Airbnb Superhost support line, and I was told that no, the money would not be taken from my next payout. I also got that in writing from them, and I took a screenshot to CMA. However, I'm nervous that it's going to come out of my next payout anyways. Has anyone else experienced this?