[Updated: March 13th] Coronavirus outbreak: Information on Airbnb’s extenuating circumstances policy coverage

[Airbnb]

Last updated: March 13th, 2020

As more information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak becomes available, Airbnb continues to prioritize the safety and well-being of our community of hosts, guests and employees around the world. 

As this situation evolves, we strongly urge you to review your local government’s travel guidance and health advisories and take necessary precautions to protect yourself and your guests when hosting or traveling. 

Following governmental and health authorities guidance and recommendations, Airbnb is offering impacted hosts and guests with eligible reservations the option to cancel their reservations without charges through our extenuating circumstances policy. We’ll continue to evaluate and update this policy in line with official guidance. 

Airbnb understands that you may have concerns, and we’d like to encourage impacted hosts and guests to reach out to our customer support team (https://www.airbnb.com/help/home) with questions or to get help with canceling reservations.

More details about our extenuating circumstances policy can be found here. 

Read the FAQs here: Answers to your hosting questions about coronavirus

[Courtney103]

Agreed. Airbnb is leaving hosts out to dry. I am now left to cover all of my holding costs and my guests are free to walk away with every penny, even though they knowingly booked a property that had a strict cancellation policy. 

[Cindy854]

WHAT IS WORSE is that airbnb keeps thier fees. Host pay refunds they keep fees.

I am still waiting for my refund of AirBNB service fee of $122.58. This was a cancellation due to quarantine of coronavirus persons from seattle, and covered under AirBNBs stated policy of full refund. I did not get a full refund, because AIRBNB did not return my service fee. I called support and they said someone would handle my credit and contact me. Nobody from AirBNB has handled this. Full refund means full refund and not to be AirBNB refunds none of the fees. This was a national and state emergency. Please handle the refund due me. At least respond. Been a week since I began trying to get my full refund and AIRBNB chooses to ignore all request. Please respond. At least respond. Please tell me why full refund to airbnb means less their own fees. Why are you holding my fees???

[Jennifer2398]

WHILE I APPRECIATE AIRBNB TRYING TO HELP THE GUESTS WITH THE NEW POLICY FOR CONV-19 THEY ARE DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FOR THE HOSTS OTHER THAN WAIVING FEES. THOSE OF US WHO ARE SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS ARE THE ONES WHO SUFFER. WE STILL HAVE MORTGAGES, MAINTENANCE, TAXES, STATE FEES, HOA FEES ETC AND NONE OF THAT GETS WAIVED BECAUSE OF THIS HYPED UP VIRUS. YOU ARE BASICALLY TRYING TO CONTROL OUR BUSINESS. DICTATING WHAT WE MUST DO AND NOT OFFERING HOSTS ANYTHING BUT WAIVING A FEE. HERE IS A THOUGHT, HOW ABOUT OFFER GUESTS TRIP INSURANCE LIKE VRBO DOES. AFTER 4 YEARS OF BEING A SUPER HOST I AM SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING LEAVING THIS PLATFORM AND JUST GOING FULL TIME TO VRBO AND TRIPADVISOR AFTER THIS. I PLAN ON VOICING THIS AT OUR NEXT SHORT TERM RENTAL ASSOCIATION MEETINGS AND ON THEIR SOCIAL PAGES HERE IN NASHVILLE WHERE WE HAVE MANY. THIS IS TOTAL BS THAT I WORK OUT SOMETHING TO REBOOK AND DO PARTIAL REFUNDS WITH THE GUEST ONE AND AIRBNB OVERRIDES IT. 

[Anja39]

Hi I am a host in NY-I am also done with airbnb. I am looking for a new platform, are there any other than vrbo and tripadvisor?  I am just renting my guestroom in my NY apartment and my summer house when I don’t use it. 

[Lisa1222]

Flip key

Booking.com

were other ones I saw mentioned. I use VRBO and they are not mandating hosts to refund everything.

[Jeff589]

Does Airbnb plan to suspend accounts of people who cancel two days before a reservation is set to begin while at the same time telling the host that they have truck insurance and that's going to reimburse them for the stay as well?

Are hosts going to be told that they have to just sit around and watch people cancel and also collect insurance reimbursements? 

What is Airbnb planning on doing about that because it's happening to me I even have it in writing from the lady and it just seems like I'm out of luck.

I know this virus or whatever is a big deal but Airbnb needs to make sure that they are not complicit in abuse.

Airbnb should also suspend collecting their fees from people until they make sure that everybody is treated fairly. I have mortgages to pay I rely on this income and I can't just sit by and watch guests potentially abuse this stuff.

[Anja39]

What if you just cancel on the guest now? I am also a host and this is so unfair by airbnb (is it legal if them even?) we loose out on money essential to pay rent etc while the guest gets back some leisure spending. I think half cut would be fair enough. 

[Jeff589]

I don't want to get into the bigger picture things. I agree at what is being said 100%, though.

My peeve is with a guest cancelling after telling me she had travel insurance. There is no reason why AirBnB can't leave the reservation on the schedule and payout like normal. Now my guest got a refund on money she didn't even spend.

I have already emailed AirBnB and asked them to review this. I know they won't care but at least it will be on the record for any class-action lawsuits that may be filed from this.

[Piotr48]

ABB is ruining my business big time.

[Serafina2]

@Airbnb This is a horrible policy and it puts me out of business rapidly.  Guests now have the opportunity to cancel last minute as well and i have no way to have any amount of certainty. In this current situation a lot of guests cancel at a very last minute and don't bother informing me that they intend not to travel. Today i lost a booking for tomorrow, from a guest who lives 2 hours from my listing and we have 30 cases of COVID-19 in our country in total. She had no objective reason to not travel as traffic is normal but she decided that it is the wrong time to have this trip. 

I urge airbnb to withdraw this policy.

[Kris105]

NO one of airbnb contacted us about how to handle the refund for coronavirus. Someone just decided it and ran with it. 33 nights canceled now. The best option was to follow suit from the airline industry. they don't give NO refund. Everyone gets a credit voucher for the next trip. The airlines keep all the money and can cover expenses and the cost of this is faded out over 1 year. Not for us though we are hit with it without thought or consideration. The credits that airbnb then gives out to the guests or future booking could have enabled us to get paid with. so we get paid for the cancelation and pay back the amount owed over a couple of months. the funds would be available to do this due to the credits given to guests and we could fase the vouchers back in in the future. making it able for us to stay open. Maybe even 50% of original booking would help. NO we got nothing and the hotel industry will reap its profits by all the airbnb's that are closing down. Bad management i call this. If i would have organised this scheme for airbnb i would have been fired. 

[Jane1049]

Well said 

Travel insurance should be the 1st port of call. 

No other budget business model refunds the ‘strict’ advance purchase. It is a risk that the customer signs up to. 

I the meantime we’ve been hung out to dry.

Advance Purchase / Cheapest / Strict = Value purchase with personal risk accepted by customer

Fully Flexible - Expensive: risk taken by provider. The risk ameliorated by the higher price. 

this is the same for BUDGET VS Premier TRAVEL be it by airplane, rail, car hire or budget hotel.

Without considering this AIRBNB  itself could fail

[Donald194]

The way hosts are being treated by AirBnB defies reason.  Who will continue to work with an organisation which treats its partners like this?  Booking.com, Expedia, HomeAway and all the others treat their hosts with respect.

[Alison693]

I have a small property that is on the budget end of the scale and due to its size usually only gets booked for 2-4 nights at a time. If each guest cancels (which they are doing) then all each one has lost is a small amount of money that they were willing to spend anyway. However, if each guest cancels the accumulative loss to me is much greater and I lose the means to pay my mortgage, bills, etc. In addition, many of my guests opt for the non-refundable policy in order to save themselves 10%, so surely this means that they accepted that they had waived any right to a refund at the time of booking? AirBnB has already refunded people that I had denied a refund to without me having any recourse. I strongly request that they rethink their "extenuating circumstances" policy before too many hosts go under!

[Donald194]

Good day

I'm afraid I can not continue to do business with an organisation which so totally disregards the interests of its partners. In the morning I will examine the cost implications of this disastrous policy.  Clearly, I can have no confidence in an organisation which treats its partners with such shameful contempt.  I would expose my business to even greater risk if I continue in a relationship knowing that you are likely to make similar policy changes indiscriminately relating to reservations covering a different time frame in the future.

I'd be very surprised if most, if not all, of your host partners do not feel likewise, and choose to cancel all reservations made with Airbnb.   

Will you not stress to the guests affected that you are obliged, both morally and legally, to stand by the agreements you have made with your partner hosts, and offer assistance to these guests to provide evidence to assist them with claims against their travel insurance companies?

Clearly, if you were applying this change of policy when hosts had agreed to it because they were unable to accept guests due to the virus, that would be very different, but to unilaterally and indiscriminately apply this policy, knowing that your hosts will have no resort to an insurance claim, and may well be put out of business, is morally obscene.

It would be much more sensible for me to cancel all resetvations made through AirBnB and rely on other OTAs, such as Expedia, Booking.com, HomeAway to take up the slack.  They all treat their hosts fairly.

Kind Regards