100% refundable (including Airbnb fee) ..... promotion ?

Nutth0
Host Advisory Board Member
Chiang Mai, Thailand

100% refundable (including Airbnb fee) ..... promotion ?

promotion.JPG

 

Hello , all Hosts

 

I am newbie to airbnb. Today I just saw that my list had some promotion add in. It is great.

 

Just want to know what promotion we can get from airbnb and do we need anything spacial to got it ?

 

If you had somethink like this before ? Do it help your booking ?

 

Thanks

Nutth

 

 

81 Replies 81

@Cynthia-and-Chris1, I think this puts some responsibility on the guest's shoulders, that they must cancel an existing reservation BEFORE booking something new elsewhere that would overlap with an existing reservation, because down the road that would create a problem, mostly for the host who counts on that reseravtion. So not all in Airbnb land is with a bias towards guests, this gives them a break, yes, but it also prevents a lot of those confusing "the guest asks you to cancel on their behalf" scenario where then a host inadvertently got shouldered with the cancellation, and penalised for it. I think it's a step in the right direction. 

On all other major booking sites that I am aware of,  guests don't pay a service fee, and as a guest you can cancel penalty free ahead of time, as long as it it within 24 hours before. Saving Airbnb guests now the service fee if they obey certain perimeters about a cancelleation just levels the playing field in comparison with those other booking sites. It was coming...

@Annette33 @Cynthia-and-Chris1 @Robin4 @David126 @Nutth0

So the new cancellation policy now applies to EVERYONE - and the piggy bank and coin symbol is shown in US and Thailand listings, but not South America, Canada - yet).

Just not sure if it is retroactive for all existing bookings taking place from this week forward - or just new bookings placed after this week?

 

Cancellation policy -

100% refund, including service fees, if cancelled before start of booking (5 days for moderate & 4% host fee, 24hrs for flexible & 3% host fee etc..). And the interesting big difference is with those hosts with 'STRICT' will not only pay 5% host fee for the privilege -but instead of the previous 100% retention of bookings cancelled within 30 days - it is now reduced to just 50% retention.

 

So here is the policy now ( just the first 5 bullet points)

  • Cleaning fees are always refunded if the guest did not check in.
  • The Airbnb service fee is refundable (up to 3 times per year) if the guest cancels before the trip starts. If a guest books a reservation that overlaps with any part of an existing reservation, we won’t refund the Airbnb service fee if they decide to cancel.
  • Accommodation fees (the total nightly rate you're charged) are refundable in certain circumstances as outlined below.
  • If there is a complaint from either party, notice must be given to Airbnb within 24 hours of check-in.
  • Airbnb will mediate when necessary, and has the final say in all disputes.

So it looks like the main change is point 2 - that the ABB service fee IS refundable - up to 3 times a year for guests.

 

OK - and I hope that will be applied automatically so guest do not have to ask host for help to get this.... and that it doesn't 'encourage' cancellations as they now are risk/penalty free (or at least the first 3 are!).

 

So the jury is out on whether this is a good or bad thing: - will it clarifies things for host/guest alike - will it make it easier for guest to cancel - will it prevent hosts getting penalised for cancelling on behalf of guest.... and so on.

 

So here's a QUESTION (and I hadn't thought of it until I saw it mentioned in the Italian blog from 2016 where Airbnb trialed this cancellation policy change).

Will this 'encourage' hostile, revengeful or just plain mischievious bookings from guests who book but have every intention of cancelling right at the last minute??  Without it seeming paranoid - as I am sure this will never happen (!) but if it does, could/should Airbnb at least include a sentence of what penalty (financial as well as block profile etc.) they would impose should such an occurance be proven?

 

Best Wishes.

 

Hi @Rachael26 do you by any chance know when this going to start?

@Farah1

Good question! As I mention in my post above yours - it is now in action. For everyone in US at least..... the only question I don't know the answer to is whether it applies to all existing bookings from this week onwards - or just those new bookings accepted after this week.

 

Best Wishes.

@Rachael26, from a legal stand point, anytime someone changes the rules of something, a new rule can only be applied forward, thus in this case not to bookings that were made before the date they rolled this out. The people who booked then agreed to the rules in place then, thus they are the rules that apply., which isn't to say that one couldn't bend Airbnb's ear and come with a complaint in a specific case. and want that new (favorable) rule  applied retroactively.

Jury's not out for me, this clearly benefits Airbnb and guests at hosts' expense 😞

AND the lack of communication about this non-trivial change rankles.

BTW, piggy bank banner is in Australia too.

@Belinda55

I hear you - and reading your phrase 'piggy bank banner' - made me think - so exactly who is 'saving' their money in the piggybank???

 

Best Wishes.

but @Belinda55 , how is this new rule going against the hosts interests, or even at their expense? 

Remember the haggling over who is the one that should cancel? guests didn't want to do it, hosts ( with good reason) didn't want to do it, and then some hosts got sucked into this weird cancellation request by guests who didnt want to pay their service fee, like in "guest would like you to agree to cancel", and well meaning hosts clicked the okay button - only to discover that THEY were the ones now that the cancellation got attributed to! So this new rule helps hosts actually, that that scenario will not get repeated! And it saves us hosts lots of time and energies in the back and forth about deciding and haggling with guests over who is the one that should cancel.

Also, you assume that because of this new rule,  there now will be an increase in guests cancellations? I don't believe so: by and large anybody who cancels has their reasons and doesn't just do it on a whim, just to play around. And there is that extra caveat built into the new rule, that guests cannot just go ahead and book something new when they have an existing reservation. So there is no playing one host against the next.

Ultimately, as a host, if we offer a great listing and service, there will not be many cancellations before a booked stay. It is up to us hosts to have great pictures, great description - and hardly anybody will cancel before arrival - unless they have a serious reason to do so.

@Annette33 what is your opinion about the host with strict cancellation policy might need to pay 5% fee instead of 3%?

@Farah1, not sure I fully understand your question: are you envisioning or wondering that possibly Airbnb might raise their service fees to hosts who have  strict cancellation policy in place and raise it to 5% for those hosts ?  I don't see that coming anytime soon, would cause too many issues and uproar from those hosts - but who knows... We all shall see. It is not proven yet that the new easier cancelling  process for guests now will actually lead to more cancellations, thus hurting Airbnb: I still believe that most guests only cancel when they have a very good reason, not in order to game the system to see what they can get out of it. That is just a very very few, I think.

I think Airbnb's angle is to align themselves with what the rest of the booking market is doing, which is no service fees to the guests, so this is a first step in that direction, refunding the service fee when a guest cancels. I do wonder  though if Airbnb will not try to recover those lost fees to them somewhere else, and perhaps you were wondering about that also with your question. But as it is, perhaps it is a wash: there was a lot of man hours spent by Airbnb representatives to deal with guests and hosts caught in the crosswinds of who is the one to cancel - nobody wanted to, they expected it to come from the other side. All that will pretty much now fall to the way side, so there is a savings to Airbnb right there.

@Annette33 I never had an issue with guests asking me to cancel, and in any case am well aware of the penalties for hosts. So the haggling back and forth that you mention has simply never happened for me. I DID once have a host asking me to cancel (as a guest) so she wouldn't be penalised, and now that guests can cancel with no penalty maybe this will happen more often?

Where I live, beachside, catering for weekend breaks, cancellations are likely to happen because of the weather forecast. Previously there was a disincentive for this.

 

@Annette33 The default policy on other booking sites that I use is to have guests pay a non-refundable deposit. I would not use a platform where guests can cancel without penalty 24 hours ahead.

@Belinda55 what other platforms are you using?

@Farah1 I am using Stayz and Tripadvisor

@Belinda55, maybe it's different in Australia from here the US: any major booking site that I use, booking.com, hotels, com, tripadvisor, etc.. all don't charge service fees and on just about all of them as a guest you can cancel penalty free as long as you're  24 hours ahead of the stay. Nobody pays a non refundable deposit on those sites, nor is there a non refundable deposit in place with Airbnb. 

About cancellation policy here on Airbnb : strictly speaking the cancellation policies, strict, moderate, or flexible, have not changed and they have nothing to do with this new refund of service fees. You are connecting those two because you anticipate more cancellations now. But keep in mind that only the  flexible cancellation policy allows a refund with 24 hours to go, not the others. Any host that now worries about more cancellations, a good remedy is to switch into moderate or strict cancellation policy.