Giving full refund to guest through resolution centre

[Juha3]

Hi there,

a guest booked my listing on the day of check-in, but he had to cancel it 3 mins after the booking as he found another place. I want to fully refund him, but I have a question if I should consider the host service fee when I issue the payment through resolution centre.. Airbnb will issue the payment to me tomorrow, so this question is a bit urgent. My cancellation policy is strict.

Rental amount: THB 59,411

Airbnb (guest) service fee: THB 5,882

Guest paid in total: THB 65,293

Host service fee: THB 1,785

Payout to host: THB 57,626

I know AirBnB does not refund the guest service fee THB 5,882 to the guest, but should I refund the entire rental amount THB59,411 or the host payout THB 57,626? Will AirBnB held the host service fee from my Airbnb account even if the booking is cancelled and I will never get paid?

Thanks for any advice!

BR, Juha

[Dave-and-Deb0]

Hi @Juha3,

If you want to refund the guest in full, you would refund them 59,411.  The system will not allow you to refund any more anyway and you are correct, the service fee is non-refundable.

[Andrea9]

@Juha3

I recently had a guest who had to cancel her booking because her travel party became 3 instead of 2, and she got at least part of her booking fees as credit towards her new booking.

My present guest cancelled his room because host said they couldn't accommodate and guest got credit when booking my room.

But this all happened when guests called Airbnb and not just by cancelling through the site.

[Liz171]

Airbnb appear to have removed the pre-approve button for a first enquiry, so when I had an enquiry recently it was a choice between Accept or Decline. The potential guest wanted 8 nights but I only had 4 available, so rather than decline, I approved, Airbnb then charged the guest the whole amount.

I then panicked and changed the reservation dates my end to 4 dates only being available, this was changed to 4 nights on the airbnb info, but was not acknowledged by email. I only got an email from Airbnb saying the 8 nights had been paid.

So I then cancelled the whole reservation. This action has now penalised me, in that all 8 nights are blocked on my calendar and I cannot change them. So I now have 4 nights available but I cannot show this on the Airbnb calendar. Why dont they allow for mistakingly hitting buttons when they've made navigation changes and not informed user how to work them?

[Wendy-and-Frank0]

@Liz171,

The pre-approve button shows up when someone sends an INQUIRY.

Sounds like your guest booked.

How was your guest able to book eight nights.  Was your calendar up to date?

Why would you approve what you couldn't approve when you had the choice to Decline?

Once you cancel a reservation, your dates are blocked, you get hit with financial penalties, and you get downgraded.  Cancellations are worse than cockroaches in ABB Land.

I don't know how you can fix this but it's certainly a mess that I think could have been avoided had you simply declined and given a reason.

Good luck - others may be able to help you.  As a last resort, throw yourself at the mercy of ABB via Twitter and see what they'll do for you.

[Andrea9]

@Liz171

And to what @Wendy-and-Frank0 has explained it occurs to me that if the guest was able to book 8 days while you say you were only able to give them 4, it would mean that you didn't keep your calendar up to date. This is important, because it's not fair to guests to see a number of free days and then to hear a guests lame reason that they aren't available because they have other plans or whatever. As soon as you know dates are or might be taken due to personal plans, block them on your calendar.

This also because too many declines will lower your visability.

Instead of cancelling your reservation by yourself and risking the high penalties, it's better to call/contact Airbnb and do this together with them. 

[Liz171]

Thanks Andrea, 

yes I freely admit I had not updated my calendar, beacuse I had received the booking from my own website. However I would suggest that there was a pop up box that asks " do you really want to approve/decline?" just to give a minute's thought to the boutton-pusher.

I wish I could call/contact Airbnb as you suggest, but that appears to be nigh on impossible via the website. I will have to sign up to twitter as previously suggested by Wendy,

thanks for your helpful comments.

Liz

[Liz171]

Thanks Wendy, 

yes you’re right re hitting the decline button, but because it was half approve and half decline I chose approve, so I won’t do that again! 

I don’t  know how the guest was able to book so immediately, as I’ve never had this problem in the past. Airbnb have made it possible for a guest to book immediately and I was unaware of this.

This all happened in a space of a few minutes so I feel they shouldn’t downgrade immediately, because the booking is just under 6 months ahead, I would understand if it was cancelled weeks later, but not within a few minutes, for surely this would suggest an error was made by host or guest? This is a homeowners platform, and I thought perhaps some sort of understanding of possible errors being made would be covered. 

Maybe cockroaches would be better!

Thanks anyway

Liz