Hey Alex! Hope you are well. I think the key is to have plenty of advanced notice for your guests and then Airbnb may be more willing to help. Also we had very good ratings all along so, again, I think the Airbnb folks were more understanding. We even offered to have our landlords send a letter to Airbnb to explain situation but they said it was not needed. I think we only for charged one cancellation fee. In my case, I think we were lucky, but I also think they are so eager to please, so long as there's an okay backup for the guests, you'll be okay. See below what happened. Hope this helps. And... I love Brussels by the way! Take care, Melissa
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Hey there, it was a lot easier than I'd expected. I called up Airbnb (sorry don't know which exact number, but it was a real person I spoke to) and explained that our landlords insurance policy had changed up. We worked on a plan where we kept reservations within 4 wk time block (hesitant ok from landlord), notified all the future guests of the change and heads up on us canceling their reservation, along with a suggestion of another listing in same neighborhood (a trusted friend) and this very message which I've copied and pasted in from our original messages (shows action Airbnb took on guests' behalf). Most folks were really understanding. Airbnb basically paused our host status (sorry I forget the actual term but essentially or listing no longer appeared on the site) and told us this would not hurt our ability to host in the future should we want to. Good luck!!!
-Melissa
"I have already contacted Airbnb and they are processing the cancellation. You will not incur any penalties whatsoever. In fact your money will be available on the site, to either apply towards a new booking or request a full refund. You should be receiving an email from Airbnb soon."
