Guest not following COVID quarantine requirements and I'm penalized for the cancellation

Guest not following COVID quarantine requirements and I'm penalized for the cancellation

I had a reservation made by someone coming from outside the COVID-19 quarantine area and would not be doing the 14 day quarantine as required prior to arrival. I told her that we could not accept her reservation because she was travelling against government regulations. I told her that I have a flexible cancel policy and she would get a full refund. She then sent me a cancel request throught the AirBnB app. If I didn't accept it, it would cancel for me. So now my calendar is blocked for those dates and it goes against my rating. I attempted to get help from the support desk for extenuated circumstances but was told that that was how it worked if I accepted it. (If I don't do it, they automatically do it for you.) So now I'm waiting to hear back from another member of the team who I'm told can help me better. I was given no time line of when I could expect a reply from the other member of the team. I'm not feeling very good about this lack of support for hosts from AirBnB.

5 Replies 5

@Elaine-and-Larry0 Yeah, that cancellation by host request feature is a trap, and one of Airbnb's all-time worst ideas. Did it not even notify you of the penalties when you accepted it? 

No, but I suspected it would go against me. I had no idea it would block the dates on the calendar too. If I didn’t accept the cancellation within 24 hours it said it would do it automatically. I knew there was no way support would get back to me before the 24 hours so I had to take my chances and plead my case when they they do reply. So a person who is traveling against government regulations books my house and I get the hit. This is in Ireland btw. 

Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

@Elaine-and-Larry0 

 

I guess tthe guest followed this procedure:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2728/

 

It should not block the dates or affect you negative on Superhoststatus

 

If the guest would have sent a "not exenuating circumstances" request for cancellation via this procedure, then you are not forced to accept by rule stating "otherwise it will be cancelled anyway".

BTW Never accept such cancellations request !

 

Best regards,

Emiel

I should of also mentioned that I have a flexible refund policy and she would have gotten her money back either way. In the meantime, still no reply from AirBnB and my calendar is still blocked. 

To follow up on this - After 2.5 days, I was finally contacted by a support person from AirBnB. They asked me to provide official goverment links to COVID quarantine requirements. Once I did this they said they were going to give me a one-time courtesy waiver and re-open my calendar. I continued to have a long dialoge with them about how this shouldn't have even been an option and how AirBnB should have something in place to prevent this from happening. So if it happens again, I've used up my one-time courtsey? The support persons suggestion was that if I get another booking outside the quarantine area, that I use the option that I am not comfortable with this guest and then contact them. I've seen this option, but never used it so I don't know what the ramifications would be (in any?) in using it.