Let me tell you a little story about Airbnb support messages...
On Friday last, my friend got a booking for a family of 5, for July, followed by a million questions from the guest, which he duly answered.
Monday lunchtime, guest cancels - well outside the 48hr Grace Period (strict canx policy) - and requests full refund, stating that she'd been repeatedly trying to cancel within the 48hr period, but the system was malfunctioning. Only problem with that story is that she'd been messaging the host late on Sunday night - already outside the 48hrs - about arrival details for their stay. All documented on the Airbnb messaging system.
My friend pointed this little anomaly out to the guest, but before he could say yea or nay to the refund, the emails and calls started coming from Airbnb CX, along with a relentless onslaught of messages from the guest, trying to put pressure on him to issue a full refund.
The irony is, the host was initially considering refunding in full, but the constant pressure from both the guest and from Airbnb - which veered into bullying and harrassment territory as tme went on - put his back up, and he dug his heels in.
Late last night, he took another call from CX, during which he pointed out that Airbnb had issued dubious refunds to several of his guests in recent times, under the Extenuating Circumstances policy, while refusing to give him any information on what those circumstances were, so he'd decided to adhere to the exact terms of his strict cancellation policy too. He did however make one concession, and offered to refund only on condition that Airbnb would make a donation of the same amount to a local homeless shelter. The CX agent said he'd "take the proposal upstairs"
Fast forward to this morning. Yet another call from Airbnb saying that the guest now wanted to reinstate booking. Understandably, host refused as it was crystal clear from the barrage of messages she'd been sending over the past 3 days that she wouldn't think twice about destroying him in a review. Cue another flurry of calls and emails trying to force host to take the booking.
Then this evening, host goes to reply to last message and realises that the entire message thread between the guest and himself had vanished into thin air. As had the entire conversation with the support agent. Every word gone, along with the corresponding payment in Future Transactions. Three full days of communication, disappeared without a trace. As if the whole debacle had never happened.
Moral of the story - any time there's even a hint of a dispute with a guest, get into the habit of screenshotting every single message from both the guest, and from Airbnb support. You never know when you might need them.
