Can a guest cancelling be attributed to the host?

[Denise137]

Is there any way that when a guest cancels a booking they can place the blame for it on the host? We recently had a guest cancel, but it is showing up in Airbnb as us cancelling the reservation (and superhost status has been lost). Argh.

Here's the situation:

This is a guest who instant booked and should not have been able to given we require the guest to have positive feedback from other hosts. He has only 1 review, and it is not at all positive. That stunk and was a letdown for us. We regretted he would be staying with us but honored the reservation.

When a family obligation popped up for the same weekend we began a conversation with the guest to try to help him stay somewhere else. We were not comfortable with him staying in historic home without being here given his 2-star rating for following house rules.

We made it very clear to him that while we are happy to honor his booking, if he were interested in staying in a nearby Airbnb we could arrange it for him and even pay the $73 difference. He was happy with the arrangement (a nice upgrade for him) and freely cancelled of his own will.

I'm not sure why airbnb thinks that I cancelled the reservation.  Looking through my email I also do not see a cancellation notice either way for the reservation. It's a mystery, but it's being attributed to us. 

When a guest cancels, is there some way for them to blame the host? That doesn't seem right. Thoughts?

[Lawrene0]

Hi, @Denise137. As far as the guest was concerned, you wanted him to consider cancelling because of your family obligation. You didn't mention to him the star-rating concern, is that right? So when he was presented with the reason-for-cancellation box, he chose "host wants me to cancel", and that's where you got in trouble. 

That's the mystery solved.

Only you know that the reason you were gently pointing him to the cancel button was that you were not keen to have him alone in the house because of his past behaviour. So I would phone Airbnb (the Superhost line will still work for you) and point them to the part of the message thread that says you would honour the booking, and add that you had the extra dimension of concern: you didn't want a known rule-breaker left to his own devices in your home. 

Mention that you did everything you could to do the rehousing on your own - you provided a credit and a new host, and Airbnb did not have to get involved in any way. They like that. I read the post of another host a year or so ago who did all the rehousing in the way you did it, and she says she was congratulated.

Will you write to say whether that worked? 

[Matthew285]

@Denise137, all the humans involved in the trasaction know that you were both ready and willing to host the guest.

But the robots (the AirBnB software) only knows what buttons get pushed, and it received button-pushes that made it assign the blame for the cancellation to you.

You now need to get the humans involved again.

Contact AirBnB and explain to them what happened. It will take one of their human helpers to correct this.

[Robin4]

@Denise137   

Oh yes Denise there is absolutely a way a guest can cancel and have the host responsible!

In many instances if a guest cancels a reservation they will be told the only way they can have an entire refund of their money is to have the host accept responsibility so, this is the path they go down..

"Instead, send your host a cancellation request to make sure you receive a full refund. To send a cancellation request:

1. Go to Your Trips on airbnb.com
2. Next to the trip, click Change or Cancel
3. Click Cancel Reservation
4. Choose My host needs to cancel
5. Click Send a Cancellation Request

If your trip starts within a week, the host has 24 hours to respond to the request. Otherwise, they have 48 hours to respond. If your host accepts the request, or doesn’t respond, you’ll have the option to find a new space for your stay or request a full refund including service fees."

Then what will happen Denise, the host will get an email that looks something like this.....

You look at and think, great, it is all taken care of, nothing further to do on your part....how easy is this....WRONG!

If you do not specifically respond and state you were prepared to honour the reservation or are not accepting responsibility for the cancellation on certain grounds then the cancellation is deemed to be a host cancellation and subject to the host cancellation penalties.

As @Lawrene0 has said, you may still have your Superhost contact option available to you so, Although I will post the contact link here I do 'NOT' suggest you use it at this time!........https://www.airbnb.com/help/contact_us

If you use that it will be seen as a general enquiry.

Ring using the number that Airbnb have on file for you...that is the one you receive your notifications on and when you call, the system will recognise that number as being that of a Superhost and move your call to the head of the phone queue and Denise, in most of these instances when you talk with an agent these penalties will be lifted. Everyone is aware that this tactic is borderline sneaky....it was not specifically designed that way! It was meant to make undiciplined hosts accept responsibility for a gross infringement of the reservation aggreement! But every now and then someone like you will be caught up in this automated system and, Denise, that was not it's intent.

I will also include here the link to article 990 which deals with host cancellation penalties....

https://www.airbnb.ca/help/article/990/i-m-a-host--what-penalties-apply-if-i-need-to-cancel-a-reserv...

Good luck Denise, I hope this sorts out for you and you get that Superhost status back...all the best.

Cheers.....Rob

[Denise137]

Wow, Thank you so much to everyone that helped out with this! I'll give the superhost line a call and report back here on how it worked out. Again, many thanks!