I never knew this features even existed, but I'm co-host for a friend and she just lost Superhost status because of the following.
I know about guest cancellations and how they work. I know about guests wanting to cancel but putting it in as a 'booking change' with 'today' as the check-out date as a faux-cancellation with more refund and bypassing the cancellation polcy.
But the following process just seems wrong, or broken:
So this is the GUEST requesting that the HOST cancels.
Do people understand that this is not the same as the host deciding to go on holiday or whatever and cancelling a booking, leaving the guest in difficulty? Clearly that sort of cancellation by a host warrants a penalty and loss of Superhost status. But why is a guest changing his mind and requesting that the host cancels considered the same thing when the host doesn't accept (and doesn't respond to) the cancel request?
Again: if you don't accept that cancellation and don't actively deny it then it will expire, and it will come up as a HOST cancellation, along with full loss of income, penalites and loss of superhost status. You could argue that a host shouldn't every let any request expire, but either way, why is this guest-initiated cancellation request treated the same as a host cancelling on a guest who still wants to stay?
If anythign the host would be doing the guest an huge favor by allowing the cancellation and full refund, yet she is penalized.