@Mike2192 @Alex893 @Emiel1
@Super47
I predict a riot..
Batten down the hatches....
The consequence of expiring travel vouchers is going to be frantic guests wanting to book - something - in order to not lose their credit value.
That - something - is highly likely to be booking dates as 'markers' for temporary reservation, ready for a change in booking to other more suitable dates later when they have a real chance to plan.
As a host, I'm not so sure I want to provide a guest nest whilst they finalise their plans and block out my calendar in the process. In considering this I feel that my 50% strict cancellation policy will be put to good use and change requests will be treated more harshly than have been in the past. We typically have a 3 month lead time for bookings so these nested bookings could cause quite a problem in leaving unbooked dates due to changes..
That being the likelihood or possibility, the encouragement by Airbnb to provide more 'flexible' cancellation options wouldn't serve us well, only Airbnb would benefit here as should a flexible cancellation occur, only a low fee would be incurred on cancellation and passed to the host, no travel credit would be returned to the guest and Airbnb keeps all their service fee plus all the remaining credit value. Alternatively, the host would need to incur booking losses for the nested calendar dates in order to retain the nested booking in the future. The analysis of that is - the host risks a 50% maximum payout averaged across an unfilled changed date booking. Certainly worthy of further consideration.
An option for savvy hosts to recognise will be to open their calendar further ahead than normal in order to accommodate panic bookings by travel credits at what might be more suitable dates for the guests.
This does present potential problems.