Cancellation policies changed after booking

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Cancellation policies changed after booking

Hey together,

I just booked an accomondation one week ago with full cancellation possible until Oct 11th. Today I wanted to cancel that booking because I found a better accomondation. When I pressed "Cancel booking", I saw, that the cancellation policy changed. Now it's free cancellation but I still have to pay the service fee (I'm from Germany, maybe the translations are not 100% correct).

 

I have evidence for this, in my first reciept it says "free total cancellation". I just contacted the support but they did not answer yet -  and probably they won't in the next days. I want to cancel the booking now so the host can find a new guest but if I cancel now I wll lose the service fee. What can I do?

 

Thanks for your help in advance!

1 Best Answer

@Kolja4 Go ahead and cancel the booking with the host now, so you can quickly get refunded for the room charge. But if you have evidence that the policy you booked under allows for a refund of Airbnb's service fee (generally that would be the grace period of 48 hours after booking) you can press your case for that to be refunded separately,whenever Airbnb eventually responds to your query.

 

For what it's worth, hosts can choose from a few options for their own degree of cancellation flexibility, but they have no influence over Airbnb's service fees. I don't think there's any change a host could make to their cancellation policy that would affect whether Airbnb's fee is refundable. 

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6 Replies 6
Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

@Kolja4 

 

When you cancel a reservation before check-in (amount of days prior depending on policy attached), you get the Guest Service Fee refunded max. three times a year when the flexible or moderate cancellation policy is attached.

 

https://www.airbnb.com/home/cancellation_policies#flexible

 

Best regards,

Emiel

@Kolja4 Go ahead and cancel the booking with the host now, so you can quickly get refunded for the room charge. But if you have evidence that the policy you booked under allows for a refund of Airbnb's service fee (generally that would be the grace period of 48 hours after booking) you can press your case for that to be refunded separately,whenever Airbnb eventually responds to your query.

 

For what it's worth, hosts can choose from a few options for their own degree of cancellation flexibility, but they have no influence over Airbnb's service fees. I don't think there's any change a host could make to their cancellation policy that would affect whether Airbnb's fee is refundable. 

@Kolja4 

Airbnb's basic definition of a full refund has always been a full refund MINUS SERVICE FEES.  And if certain criteria is met, then Airbnb *might* refund service fees too - as @Anonymous @Emiel1 have mentioned above. 

Kolja4_0-1600786704930.png

Thank you for your answer. That is what it looked like (it is another booking, but it was the same green bar at the top saying full refund until Oct 11. If it's minus the service fee, it normally says "full refund, minus the service fee".

Robyn435
Level 1
Kuluin, Australia

If I buy an Airbnb gift voucher can you change the date - I know you can't cancel but it doesn't say you change the date......I am buy for a very ill person therefore they may need some flexibility