Alternatives to airbnb - complete mis management of covid cancellations

Richard512
Level 2
United Kingdom

Alternatives to airbnb - complete mis management of covid cancellations

Following the complete disregard of what I see as its business partners (airbnb hosts) with policy changes that favour guests over hosts leaving many if not all of us losing income i am interested to see what other options are available.  I am ready to jump ship after the dust has settled!

Homeaway seems to have a fairly level headed refund policy on the situation, suggesting a 50% refund, see below.

 

 

Homeaway-

What we're doing as part of our COVID-19 emergency policy
To help ease uncertainty during this time, we have rolled out a policy that strikes the best balance of protecting travellers, property owners, property managers, and the public. 
 


For reservations booked before March 13, with a stay night between March 13 and April 30, there are two possible options:

  • Offer the traveller a full credit for the amount they’ve already paid if they are outside of your cancellation window. This credit can be applied to future bookings at your property within the next year. We understand seasonality may affect your rates. However, we encourage you to be as flexible as possible with affected travellers when arranging a future stay date.
  • If the traveller is unable to accept a credit, we strongly encourage you to issue at least a 50 % refund. Our intent is to reward property owners and managers who offer flexibility to travellers during this time of uncertainty with additional visibility in traveller searches on our platform. The idea is that the more you do now for travellers, the more we will reward you moving forward (so a 100 % credit/refund will count more than 50 % refund and so on). 
7 Replies 7

@Richard512   I prefer the approach HomeAway/VRBO has taken here, but I wonder how sustainable it is. Airbnb really dropped a nuclear bomb on the STR market when it made hosts' cancellation policies effectively null and void.  In doing so, they established a new norm in the industry that may well have a lasting impact on customer expectations after the pandemic. Airbnb's competitors will all be under added pressure to make bookings fully refundable - even the ones that sold cancellation protection policies to guests that are now all but meaningless. Several HomeAway hosts have already reported being threatened with de-listing if they stood their ground on the cancellation policy, so in practice that insistence on refunds is not just a "suggestion."

 

Outside of the hosting bubble, public opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of 100% refunds, even though this level of flexibility makes home-sharing a losing game for the typical small-time or seasonal host. Beyond alternatives to Airbnb, in the longer term I'd be looking at alternatives to holiday rentals in general. 

Thanks Andrew. 
I agree it’s a controversial topic, I think at least for those of us with a strict cancellation policy the refund should have been more in line with a 50% refund. 

 

@Richard512   Personally, I feel that Airbnb should have honored the cancellation policies of hosts who were fully able to fulfill the bookings as advertised, but as time goes by and more of the world goes under lockdown, that's going to account for an ever decreasing percentage of the cancelled bookings. 

 

There seems to be a notion among some hosts that either their guests or Airbnb owes them money for cancelled bookings even when their location is under lockdown and tourism is generally verboten. I don't agree with this at all - it's a grave misfortune for all the small businesses losing income on this, but in my opinion if you're not realistically able to host under the advertised conditions, you don't get paid for it. 

 

I'm not aware of a platform that disagrees with me on this. Generally, host policies don't apply when the host can't host.

.

@Anonymous 

 

Here's how another platform handles the situation:

 

 

Homeaway

 

What we're doing as part of our COVID-19 emergency policy

 

To help ease uncertainty during this time, we have rolled out a policy that strikes the best balance of protecting travellers, property owners, property managers, and the public.

 

For reservations booked before March 13, with a stay night between March 13 and April 30, there are two possible options:

 

  • Offer the traveller a full credit for the amount they’ve already paid if they are outside of your cancellation window. This credit can be applied to future bookings at your property within the next year. We understand seasonality may affect your rates. However, we encourage you to be as flexible as possible with affected travellers when arranging a future stay date.

  • If the traveller is unable to accept a credit, we strongly encourage you to issue at least a 50 % refund. Our intent is to reward property owners and managers who offer flexibility to travellers during this time of uncertainty with additional visibility in traveller searches on our platform. The idea is that the more you do now for travellers, the more we will reward you moving forward (so a 100 % credit/refund will count more than 50 % refund and so on).

 

They not only care about the guests, they also care about the other parties involved in this situationl.

 

I definitely don't agree with HOW Airbnb went about handling covid-19 cancellations under the extenuating circumstances clause.... the communication and execution was sloppy, inconsistent and completely irresponsible.

Still, I am of the minority that the basic decision to allow full refunds/no penalty cancellations under the covid-19 EC was the right move. When 80~90% of flights around the world are being cancelled, people are being told to refrain from any nonessential travel and stay home, some countries are no longer issuing visas and a mandatory 2-wk quarantine is necessary for anyone coming off an international flight regardless of what country they are coming from..... and like @Anonymous  points out, when the country/region/city the host and their listing is located is under lock down, it's not just the traveler that cannot travel, the host is just as unable to host - which is a fact many hosts seem to conveniently ignore. 

 

And IMHO, credit with 1-yr validity will be useless to a lot of people. Like it or not, covid-19 isn't going away anytime soon, and a lot of people won't be in a position immediately re-book/re-schedule travel plans as soon as WHO *officially* announces that the covid-19 pandemic is over (which no one has a clue when it will be). 

 

All things considered, I think eventually, I'll start hosting again after all this is over, but I don't think I'll be using Airbnb/Homeaway or any other home-sharing platform to book future trips or vacations as a guest user. The way cancellations were handled by the platforms and how many hosts reacted to cancellations was a real eye-opener. 

@Jessica-and-Henry0 

 

There don't seem to be many STR platforms here that cater to live in hosts, so I am trying to think out of the box and look at other options. This is all just research right now for what I might do in probably many months time. There is no short-term solution available during the current crisis.

 

I believe you mostly host long-term foreign students? I have also hosted many of these, so I am looking into the options of doing this by dealing directly with language schools and the agencies that some of them use. I would be paid a fair bit less than I would normally get via Airbnb as my rooms are a bit fancy for student accommodation! However, if I am to be treated farily. One agency greatly impressed me with its FAQ for students, which was basically a detailed list of house rules that ticked almost every box for me.

 

When I first decided to switch entirely to long-term hosting, I posted here in the CC asking for advice. You and some other hosts had some very helpful suggestions, which I didn't end up trying out because very soon, the Airbnb bookings came in and my rooms were fully occupied until now. However, I'm going to try to find that thread and revisit those suggestions if I can do so later this year.

 

 

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

I found it.

 

Here it is: https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Attracting-Long-Term-Guests/m-p/697467#M164398

 

May be useful to others thinking of going this route in future.