a cancellation by a guest

[Pat360]

I recenty was contacted by a guest who wished to cancel a booking from the 28/8/19 to 2//9 19. I considered the guest was a reasonable person . I explained that I had forfeited an alternative booking and if I failed to secure a further booking then I was agreeable to the guest receiving a refund of 50% of what she paid, the other 50% to bepaid to me which would cover my full loss. The guest was happy with the arrangement.Subsequently the guest cancelled the booking and was advised that Airbnb were unwilling to refund the original fee. Airbnb ignored the mutual agreement between the host and guest, eventhough Airbnb would not be at any loss by the cancellation, however they set out to make a killing by refusing the guests refund.

[Sarah977]

@Pat360  You as a host can refund a guest if you choose to. You just go to the Resolution Center in your hosting account and use the "send money" option. Whatever you send will be deducted from your next reservations.

What happened here, it sounds like, is that Airbnb upheld the cancellation policy you have in place, which you should be grateful for. They don't always do that-a guest demands a refund, the host is unwilling to agree to that for whatever reason, and Airbnb overrides the host's cancellation policy and refunds the guest anyway.

As it's obvious that she cancelled after the 48 hour free cancellation period, she will not get back the Airbnb guest fees charged. If she doesn't understand that, you'll need to explain that to her, that those fees have nothing to do with the host- we don't set them, Airbnb does, and we don't see any of that money- it's Airbnb's.

So if you want to refund her, you can certainly do so, just don't include those Airbnb fees in the 50% you are talking about refunding. That's just her loss for cancelling late and nothing you can do about it.

[Anonymous]

@Pat360   Yes as @Sarah977  says, when the guest hits "Cancel Booking," the system automatically applies your selected Cancellation Policy - as well as their own, wherein the Airbnb fee is non-refundable. This info is all in plain sight for the guest during the booking process.

Though you had the best of intentions in negotiating the terms of the partial refund with your guest, this isn't really a necessary step. The guest already agreed to a clear and specific set of terms when they placed the booking. They could have chosen a host with a more flexible policy, they could have chosen a platform with free cancellation options, they could have chosen to get travel insurance. A reasonable customer would recognize the conditions they contractually agreed to, and also see that it is already fair to all parties concerned.