Unfair Service Fee Charge

[Karen286]

Hi,

I booked a place for two days in Montreal to visit my daughter over Christmas and then realised I needed to change it to one night as it was too far from where we are scheduled to spend Christmas day with her partners family. I put in a request to alter the booking, I also emailed Paul and Anastasia apologising and explaining why I needed to change it to one night. They never replied. I emailed again. No reply again. With needing somewhere to stay the night before Christmas which is a busy time for all, I was getting a litle frantic at their failure to reply. At the same time, I was now feeling uncomfortable. Having your potential host ignore you before you have even arrived does not bode well for the future. I decided at that point since they still had not replied, I should cancel and try and find somewhere else. Airbnb refunded me - except the service fees which on a two night stay was $16. This hardly seems fair since the whole reason I have been through this unpleasant waste of time, was to change it to a one night stay. I cannot find where to report this on Airbnb, no contact number, and when I try to open a dispute, it won't bring up the right reservation as its cancelled. I've been a host myself for 4 years - and travelled with airbnb - this is the first time I have found, to my surprise, Airbnb extremely 'elusive' and the help system - totally unhelpful. Really puts me off for the future. PS. I did explain via email to the hosts I cancelled with why I was cancelling, and that I would like to be refunded in full including the service fees........... to date they continue to ignore my messages.

[Marit-Anne0]

Hosts are not in a position to refund anything beyond the refund from airbnb.  Hosts do not receive payment until 24 hours after check-in. Any refund from the host's part would be out of their own pocket - that hardly seems fair either.  

When booking through airbnb you agree to the terms and conditions - this includes the cancellation policy.  You will be refunded whatever you are owed according to the host's cancellation policy - less airbnb charges.  

Hosts are in a position to decline booking changes - especially if there is a minimum stay involved and the change will result in a stay below their minimum.  

You could have kept the booking and stayed one night only.

[Karen286]

I'm not sure I understand the last part of your comment. Are you saying I should have gone ahead and been allowed to be charged for two nights and then only stay for one?

By the way, I hosted for four years so I do understand re payment and service fees. Hosts were negligent in response and so they should have taken responsibility and asked on my behalf that Airbnb not charge a service fee. I did find an alternative place to stay - Airbnb's take in service fees between the two bookings is $28. That is, $28 to book one night of accommodation!  'Policy' resulted in me 'paying' to avoid staying somewhere that clearly was going to be problematic and/or a safety issue! I'll just stick with hotels in future - less work, less stress and less expensive in the long run.

[Babs0]

Hi @Karen286,

Sorry to hear you were surprised about the service fee being non-refundable! Not really nice for a host to not reply to any of your messages, even if they had just let you know that they weren't going to agree with a shorter stay. 

Personally I would not bother to get the $16 back, I'll just charge it to a learning experience. But you can certainly find all sorts of posts here on how to reach out to Airbnb. I think the second pinned post is a very good one, three different ways and phone numbers for a lot of countries.

Good luck!

Babs

[Karen286]

Thanks Barb.

I did find an alternative place to stay - but Airbnb's take in service fees between the two bookings is $28 for one nights accommodation.  I'll just stick with hotels in future - less work and less expensive in the long run.

[Ange2]

@Karen286   "I would like to be refunded in full including the service fees" .

The service fee is a fee charged by Airbnb for their service, they keep it. The host does not receive it. You need to talk to Airbnb.

[Cynthia-and-Chris1]

Unfair?  You agreed to the cancellation policy when you booked your reservation.  It's not the host or Airbnb's fault you didn't learn ahead the service fee would be held should you cancel.

[City-Limits-Ranch0]

The host really should reply to the guest promptly.  The host not replying to several emails was a red flag to the guest.  Now the guest may feel uncomfortable about the stay.  Are the hosts real?  Will my housing be there even if the guest pays for two nights but only stays for one.  The host is partially at fault here, unless there was an error in transmission of messages.

The guest should have called and texted the host in addition to electronically communicating.

The host should have replied.

I would contact Airbnb because of this issue, not to get my $16 back.

[Karen286]

Thank you for summarising the issue. You are right. And its actually not about the $16. It's because after what happened, I feel like its a case of insult of injury.

[Karen286]

I was forced to cancel because of a non-responsive host. Where is the policy that adequately deals with that.

Note: Airbnb made $28 out of me. $16 on the first reservation, and $12 on the second one where I had to find alternative accommodation. I have no problem with the $12 since service has been provided. The fact that overall  it costs me $28 for one booking of one night with Airbnb seems there are no savings and higher risks than hotels. I will stick with hotels in future.

[David126]

If I wanted to speak to someone urgently I would call them first.

I am reasonably good at checking email but I do not consider it to be a good way of dealing with an urgent matter.

[Eugene1]

Hi Karen, 

Personally, I think the correct course of action would have been to call Airbnb telephone support and explain that the host is unresponsive to an amendment request. Airbnb will usually then make contact with the host directly, giving them a fixed amount of time to respond. In the event the host does not respond, Airbnb will likely allow you to transfer your booking to a new host, carrying your service fee over with you to the new booking. 

As a host, I've been contacted by Airbnb in the past because guests have been let down by other hosts and they've needed to find new accommodation with me. In urgent situations like yours it's always best to call telephone support directly and engage them to resolve the issue. 

Save the national number for Airbnb support into your phone for ease of reference in the future. 

I hope that helps. 

[Karen286]

Hi Eugene,

Thanks for the reply and I think you are right. I missed the step in calling the host directly. However, I still can't find a phone number in Canada for airbnb support - and at the time, that was what I was trying to do to get this resolved right away. I was frustrated that the website kept trying to answer my questions, but no telephone contact info for them! I'd like an email address so I can write to Airbnb directly about this or a number in Canada I can all - preferably Ontario, but if not Ontario, the email address for them would be great. I can't find it anywhere!

[Helen3]

Hi @Karen286

I am sorry your host was unresponsive.

However as a previous host you should have a good understanding of how things work and how to contact BNB. It is also easy to see where somewhere is located before you book and how close it would be to where you were attending your Christmas celebrations.

If you had called BNB and told them what had happened and that the host wasn't responding they would in all likelihood have helped you transfer to somewhere new for one set of fees.

How to contact BNB is the most popular question on this forum - asked and answered over 500 times in addtion the first post under Community Help outlines all the ways to contact them.....so hardly difficult to find.

A two second search via Google would also have brought up the Canada helpline number.

If you do want to take things up with BNB in terms of your fees you can contact them through these routes.