My host will not give me my deposit

[Miranda204]

We cancelled one week before our booking and requested a full refund as we could not travel due to covid . Our host declined the full refund but now will not give us the 50% in line with his own cancellation policy . Air bnb will not intervene and confirm that he is acting against his own policy . How can it be that hosts can decline to repay when the have signed up to a pre agreed policy . What dan I do ? I want to leave a review to warn others but have already cancelled 

[Miranda204]

Yes this is what happened unfortunately . By pressing the covid button ( as we thought this was the correct way to proceed ) the owner had to agree and by the time he responded the deadline for automatic cancellation with 50% refund had passed . What can I do as air bnb seem unable to make the host refund us although clearly we started the process in time and were delayed only by his slow response