I am curious if hosts and guests actually received reimbursement for the cancellations from inauguration weekend like AirBnB had publicly committed to.
Instead of reimbursing us, they redesignated our booking to 'exigent circumstances' so that they did not have to pay us on the very day the guests were supposed to check in. AirBnB made themselves whole and left us with nothing.
We had a strict cancellation policy and had been extra clear with our guests about the importance of knowing in advance that they were for sure coming. On December 29th the guests asked us to go off the books and push their reservation to another date because they realized the inauguration wasn't go to be what they had envisioned. While the guests were generous about fulfilling their financial obligations to us in full, we recommended a cancellation so that we were not going outside of AirBnB etc. We were set to receive half the price of the reservation on January 17th when the guests were initially supposed to check in. This date was after the January 13th commitment AirBnB made to guests and hosts about cancelling all reservations surrounding the inauguration. On the morning of the 17th, a full three weeks after the guests cancelled and agreed to pay half the price of the booking, AirBnB notifies us that they are changing the booking cancellation to 'exigent circumstances' so that they were not obligated to reimburse us. We were left with $0 after the commitment they made to guests and hosts. The guests actually relayed to me that they only petitioned AirBnB to refund the company's fees to them after the January 13th announcement. They found a technicality to leave a 7-year super host with nothing.
