Our Main Hosting Concern

[Lisa-and-Mack0]

First I have to say that I am a little gobsmacked by the hosts complaining about not getting full cancellation fees.  Every guest we had reservations for April and May has cancelled.  Why on Earth would I want to charge people a fee for either obeying travel restrictions or just just protecting their health?  We all have skin in this game, and I am sorry if you are heavily leveraged after investing in STR properties.  That's on you.  Hosts with multiple properties are the dark side of this business if you ask me.

So, my biggest concern is to have a guest become ill while in my rental.  I could not in good conscious throw anyone out, not to mention potential liability issues if I tried.  First, I raised the minimum days for a stay, and I allowed three days after for no guests.  I had to turn off instant booking because it became unwieldy to manage my calendar.  I get that the app is still doing what it is programmed to do, but really AirBnB needs to not ding me for turning down guests right now.  I don't want anything from AirBnB in the way of compensation...not their fault, just allow me to manage our property as we see fit to protect our own health.

As usual, YMMV.  Thanks for reading. 

[Ricky-and-Lori0]

I agree with Juan above, we are getting cancelations 2 months out now wanting full refunds because AirBnB wants us to give it to them. We are in a country that doesn’t have a big issue and travel bands ending here in a couple weeks. My god people stop falling for this big media scare that has a mortality rate of less than 2% verses more people dying of Heart disease, Cancer, Diabetes even hunger! This is putting the economy into a depression not a recession  and how many will die from the long term affects of going broke. This whole fear mongering by the media is unbelievable and even to this day I know of no one personally or even friends of friends who have got covid but one, and she told me it was almost identical to the common flu, she recovered in 2 weeks.  Please stop buying into this global panic and being locked up like rats, we even have police shooting at a couple kid surfers out surfing! What you going to kill people to save them...really!

[Nanxing0]

@Ricky-and-Lori0 Don't be too optimistic about this virus. It might be similar than flu but at this moment it's waaaaaay more dangerous than flu since we don't have vaccines against it. A lot of time flu is not considered dangerous that's mainly because we have people getting the vaccines every year so it forms a "herd immunity" that protects us.  If you drop the flu virus to some third world country that doesn't have access or can't afford to massive vaccinate people then it would be a disaster like this. 

One of my workmate's uncle just died of COVID-19 a couple weeks ago and they just had the funeral in the past week. He lived in North Jersey. It's normal that you don't feel it if you live in TN. There are only less than 4000 cases at this moment in TN and people are living further apart in your state. In PA we already have more than 10000 cases and in my county there are more than 800 confirmed cases already. At least 10 out of the >800 confimred cases are people we know.

[Jeffrey85]

Airbnb is a marketing service. That is what we pay them to be. Hosts with strict cancellation policies have lower rates because of those policies in order to safeguard ourselves against situations like this. Guests have the option to purchase travel insurance. That is what it exists for. If a guest booked a strict cancellation policy listing, and chose not to get travel insurance, they are owed nothing! Airbnb, as a marketing service, has a responsibility to protect the brand. They did the correct thing in refunding these guests, even though they were not obligated to do so. It was the correct PR move. But, they broke the contract with the hosts when they refused to pay us for those cancellations. We are legally obligated to 100% of that money. Airbnb is responsible for 100% of the refunds given to these guests. This is the kind of thing that OUR SERVICE FEES PAY FOR! And we're supposed to be OK with only getting 25% of what we are owed? Absolutely not. We are legally owed 100% of that money and Airbnb is stealing from us. Wake up.

[John2654]

Having the option to purchase travel insurance is fine when you travel overseas. Not all travel is overseas travel so you cannot expect every guest to be covered by travel insurance. In my case I have several trips booked over the next few months in Norway where I live and I am now struggling to get the full and somewhat substantial cancellation costs covered.  I post this as both a host and a regular Airbnb guest. 

[Jane2812]

"World Nomads" apparently do travel insurance in your own country. Worth a look as they cover Europe. My guests coming to Nice are all from overseas and booked months ago, so should definitely have arranged for travel insurance to cover their flights, health, accommodation, loss of luggage, loss of job ....you name it!   I have asked them to cancel through their insurance but they have chosen to ignore my email and there is not a **bleep** thing I can do about it.    But the french tax office will still want its 2019 money come September.  A bowl of olives just won't cut it.

[Jane2812]

Ha Ha

I received a bleep for a fairly household word - not what I would have classed as rude.  But hey...

[Gary801]

Very well said, I agree.   I am very disappointed and upset, that Airbnb has extended this virus full refund policy now until May 31st.   This virus is not the Host's fault, nor is it the Guest fault, but it is not right to favor the guest over the host in this decision making.  Both have money invested for the vacation to happen, but the host has a lot more money invested, and stands to loose a lot more than a weeks vacation.  Airbnb is my only source of income, and I only have the one property.  In the last few weeks I have lost around $12,000 in cancellations, and the strict 50% cancellation policy is supposed to be an insurance policy for me, as my bills do not go away.  Airbnb, the host and guest have made a cancellation agreement together, and it is wrong for you to change this!!

[Jane2812]

Absolutely  Jeffrey - I have nothing else to add except my sympathies for all hosts treated badly  in this situation.

[Ali11388]

This is exactly my view and I have said just that to Airbnb, they absolutely are stealing from us hosts with regards to our chosen cancellation policies (offered by Airbnb!!) I am removing my listing and will never book a property via Airbnb again, I asked my daughter of 13 the question “what percentage is a fair and equal percentage (not mentioning Airbnb’s outrageous actions) ?” She replied 50% each... now she’s 13... it’s not rocket science, I’ve three large properties and I was trialling Airbnb with one of them.... big mistake, I’ll stick with my other platforms that know how to fairly treat their hosts .. I’m furious 😡 

[Sharon-and-Andrew0]

what are those other places to market your property? 

[Jeff589]

Sue them, they violated their own TOS. Also, you can't retroactively change a contract without my agreement. AirBnB is going to be sued and they are going to be paying a massive class-action settlement. Give it time. No judge will allow this to happen, especially considering the  guests could have bought trip insurance.  The CEO's also admitted guilt and intent with their latest letter.

[Sandra3840]

Yes, not the Host's fault. But I am sick of being dinged by the system that no one seems to have any control over. I've been dinged for several things that were not my fault and I am always told that no one can undo what the system does?  Is the system in charge of the people or are the people in charge of the system?  And why punish the HOSTS for things that are not right?

[Whitefeather1]

safety first!  We closed due to the pandamic in New York,  city folks wanting to hunker down in the Catskills have depleted resources and puts our community, I mean the community that actually LIVE here at risk.  While we had to jump through our own hoops to refund a couple who wanted to escape the city during their numbers going up..We are responsible people with the foresight to close , if it were up to airbnb they would remain open and conduct business as usual , this is not the case here in NEW YORK, WE ARE STILL UNDER STAY HOME RULE!! wake up airbnb!  we cannot in good faith take guests.  SAFETY FIRST!

[Sally221]

The state of Tennessee has around 1 million people  less than the San Francisco bay area and has reported 65 deaths so far compared to the 84 in the S.F. bay area. (Many parts of the country are lagging in reporting covid deaths as such) You won't know what you don't know until it hits you. I'm glad your friend was lucky, I'm very grateful the governor of my state was smart. Do you think the news out of Spain & Italy is fake?

[Ricky-and-Lori0]

Not sure what TN has to do with SF? But here in Costa Rica we have only just over 400 confirmed cases and that’s for roughly 4 million plus people. As far as fake news I would say 60% fake and 20% worthless information and the rest is true but of course edited so you hear what they want you to hear. For the record I have never had a flu shot and never had the flu and I lived in Los Angeles most of my life, it’s called take responsibility for yourself, what you eat, how you treat your physical body, how you react to stress etc don’t count on big pharma to come up with a vaccine to save you! the recovery rate on covid-19 is good if your healthy and have taken care of yourself enough to build a strong immune system. So when they come up with that big money making vaccine which they will, you won’t see me in that line. All the people loosing their jobs and lively hood will take many lives and will last longer than covid-19. We have 2700 people dying for heart disease everyday! where the pandemic urgency for that? Oh that’s right we have pharma feeding us pills to manage symptoms but not trying to cure us so yes call me a conspiracy theorist and keep swallowing what they feed you.