OMG,
I actually had a problem with this one too.
I was out for dinner when a guest booked my place then cancelled 5 minutes later and left me message after message after messaging begging me to cancel it.
Naturally it was overwhelming because I was trying to figure it out how to do it and had to find out how to do it without being penalised too. I had to message the guy to ask him to shut up and stop messaging so I can focus in trying to process his request.
From what information I could gather , it said I could be penalised if I cancelled and the guest had to do it. BUT what was not explained clearly is that the guest had to do it through Airbnb and not through me which is what I did and get penalised.
I was very very angry when this happened because despite my best effort to find out this information with an annoying guest messaging every 5 seconds. It was not so clear on the procedure and to be sure I actually called the hotline asking for confirmation. The lady said yes I won't be penalised if they cancelled but failed to mention that it should be going through them not through me.
So I called up airbnb again to explain the situation. The lady was horribly rude , she actually starting yelling at me. Of course I was not having any of this.
It was so unprofessional and pointless.
I told the lady off and told her it is your own fault that the help link you had was so unclear and tricky, if you have this option given to hosts that allows them to be penalise that is entrapment, furthemore I called with clarification and you said there was nothing to worry about so there are two major flaws in your system and you want to be yelling at me for mistakes Airbnb has created.
The lady did back off, took off the penalty and calmed down and said she would take up on my suggestion to improve the process as I did point out if its not clear its not clear. Penalty or not , this is a stupid step that was in place to fix it.
Believe or not, most things we learn here is from experience and not a manual that Airbnb can give out and they should have one as a basic guide .