@Haiyan7
Yes Haiyan, I too was almost caught out by this ploy.
You would be fairly typical for this sort of ‘catch’. Just an otherwise loyal Airbnb Host who has no axe to grind and is happy trusting your trading partner to not screw you over. Eventually all hosts get stung this way or another, more often its the ‘accepting’ of a guest initiated cancellation. Who wouldn’t ‘accept’ their cancellation request for some legitimate reason? Only a host ready to be made a fool of and taken advantage of will do that. ‘Accepting’ makes the cancellation the hosts' responsibility. Add to that the host takes the penalties, the host gets charged a cancellation fee, the host gets a SuperHost penalty if it applies, if it doesn’t - achievement of SH takes so much longer whilst your averages work themselves out.. and the guest will be refunded. Just because you wanted to ACCEPT the guests legitimate cancellation.
Accepting or Declining a cancellation is just devious, and there is no explanation of the consequences of the two options when selecting the options. During Covid EC cancellations, another twist was added to thwart hosts further.
You need to be astute in any action you take on the Airbnb platform. Nothing is straightforward. Ever.
You do not specify whether your cancellation was Covid related, or not. Nor any date of cancellation. Nor any date of booking. Without that information no advice can be satisfactorily be provided unless the hosts giving it have crystal balls or they want to chastise you for not knowing the Terms Inside Out.
Ignore ALL the previous advice wanting you to revise the Terms. This is completely useless and the cancellation you made is not your fault.
In marketing this cancellation procedure of "Hosts can cancel for free" It should be remembered that nothing comes for free. Obviously, the marketing didn’t mention calendars remaining blocked - the negatives never are, especially here.
You may not have intended a Covid cancellation, but the system is set so that you cannot avoid a Covid cancellation. Why does this matter? It matters, because a cancellation during an the Covid Extenuating Circumstances policy has a different cancellation procedure than normal and penalties attached to it vary. This is how it has changed over the last few months:
- Up to April 30th, Hosts could cancel “penalty free”, you wouldn’t have your SuperHost status affected, or have your calendar blocked.
- Up to May 15th Hosts could cancel “penalty free”, and “charge free”, you wouldn’t have your SuperHost status affected, or have your calendar blocked
- Up to July 31st Airbnb were advising Hosts that they could cancel guests “for free”, and not have their SuperHost status affected. (Calendars were blocked).
- Today, Up until September 15th… You have no other cancellation option other than a ‘Covid’ cancellation, but you do have the option of keeping your calendar open or blocking it.
- After September 15th (at the moment) the regular cancellation options and penalties return.
You see, your cancellation dates are important, and for other reasons so too the dates of your booking, as to what terms apply.
Since your guest had already made an application to Customer Services for a cancellation, you would think it sensible that you might be able to help things along -wouldn’t you? Alas not.
If you wanted to cancel NOW up until September 15th. This is your cancellation option:
No other option apart from a Covid "incident in your area” cancellation.
No other option apart from a Covid "incident in your area” cancellation.
After September 15th. These are your options:
The regular cancellation options you would expect.
The regular cancellation options you would expect.
You may have wanted to cancel because “My guest needs to cancel” but you were possibly never even offered that type of cancellation. You were naturally trying to be helpful and it backfired. Not getting involved as other hosts have mentioned would have perhaps been the best course of action, but when you need your calendar clearing for a stalling cancellation, then there is another urgency in getting that cancellation concluded.
I will doubt very much that you even thought about screenshotting your cancellation options or process? Such is the distrust on this platform, learning to copy every screen as you go along would be beneficial for you. Not just in your last experience, but in future ones too.
There is a high possibility, like many hosts before - you have simply been taken advantage of and cancellation fees, refund amounts, plus any penalties - will be heading your way. This for no other reason than to switch any burden onto the host.