I recently booked a five-night reservation in Barcelona during the first week of June 2019 for myself and a group of seven friends, only to discover three days after the 48-hour period within the host's Strict cancellation policy that the wrong dates had been used. Panicked, I sadly confirmed that the dates I actually needed were not available for that property and immediately contacted the host, who got back to me the next morning saying that he could not cancel himself and that a refund would not be possible. I wrote him back stating that I would have no problem cancelling, admitting my dumb error and basically groveling throughout the entire message, appealing to his sense of fairness. He again stated that he had to stand behind the policy and denied my request. In the meantime, I researched this post that reveals full refunds are possible according to the host's discretion:
https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Full-Refund-for-Strict-Cancellation-Policy-TIPS/td-p/456...
At that point, I engaged customer service and was turned over to a Case Manager, who basically informed me that I didn't have a leg to stand on and that I was essentially at the mercy of the host to decide about a refund. I wrote back to the host, letting him know that I understood his situation, informed him that I had even looked at his other two properties on the dates I actually needed (which were unfortunately not large enough to accomodate my group), let him know I would be out $1,700 (the first half of the rental fee) and now without a place to stay at present, and once again essentially begged for mercy while appealing to his sense of humanity and compassion. I then formally canceled my reservation and requested a full refund through the system. His reply this morning was the same: he did not agree to a refund (seemed a little ticked off, which was obviously not my intention), the policy is as stated, I had time to review the dates and he finds my story hard to believe.
I called Airbnb back this morning and got another Case Manager, to whom I explained that I thought this was an awful and unsustainable business model that hides behind policy while ignoring common sense and allows me to lose $1,700 for a rental six months out that I won't even be in the country for. She said that she understood and would contact the host to appeal to him again. I am not hopeful at all and, based on a lot of what I've been reading, actually expect to get the runaround and/or possibly get ignored from here on out.
Let me state that I don't expect most hosts on here to feel any sympathy for me, and I understand that viewpoint to a small degree -- I'm sure you deal with all manner of things from guests. I should also state that, in addition to the reservation being a full six months out, the host's property only had two five-day spans blocked out of his entire calendar during May and June. I highly doubt that the few days I had reserved his property cost him any business, and those dates are now fully unblocked for him to rent again over the next six months due to me canceling.
Thoughts on this? Am I completely full of it or is he being unreasonable and attempting a money grab? While it won't help my situation at all, I am genuinely interested in other's viewpoints on this. Lastly, do I have any other recourse at this point? Is arbitration a possibility if I am once again denied? The possibility of losing $1700 for no services rendered/no actual stay due to an honest yet dumb error that was noticed a few days after an allowable cancellation just seems completely insane to me.