cancellation

[Sarah4092]

I received a booking within 24 hours of the proposed stay.  We were having problems with the wifi so I informed the guest who cancelled.  Airbnb are saying that I cancelled and have charged a penalty and ruined my profile.  Is this fair?  

[Sarah977]

@Sarah4092  If you received a message saying the guest wants to cancel and you accepted it, that unfortunately is a nasty Airbnb trick that goes down as a host cancellation. You should always decline those, so the guest has to cancel on their own. But if you can't provide a listed amenity, you should offer the guest a discount, or if they want to cancel, assure them you will authorize a full refund. 

You could try to get Airbnb to reverse the penalties, but it might be a frustrating exercise.

[Sarah4092]

Thank you for your very helpful reply.  This was to have been my first booking!  I think airbnb customer services are a dead loss even after an hour on the phone I didn't get any help or support.  Does anyone have any experiences with booking.com?

[Brian2036]

@Sarah4092 :

First, I don’t think you should be penalized for a mutual consent cancellation. You already lost the income and your honesty reflects well on Airbnb.

Second, I tried to list with Booking.com and their host website is such a mess that I couldn’t get through it all. They did register my listing though, but it was completely unacceptable and inaccurate and I couldn’t edit it.

So I just decided to cancel, but they make that nearly impossible and I had to make a fuss before they would do it.

Besides that, Booking.com does NOT collect the money for you. You will have to try to get them to pay when they arrive and I think you can expect problems with that.

 You might try VRBO but I encountered similar exasperating problems with their website and had to cancel my listing.

[Gordon0]

The issue here is that the guest would have lost their booking fee and all charges having cancelled themselves (just before the stay), which we can all probably agree isn't fair. But I think you may have missed a trick by not getting Airbnb involved before asking them to cancel, @Sarah4092. I think you might just have got away with a freebie had you managed to get through to them. 

The other lot you mention? Like @Brian2036, I gave up after spending hours on their site trying to get set up.