Sorry this is long, but I'm seeking clarification on Airbnb's long term reservation cancellation policy.
I had a guest book a stay for 30 days. He had to leave early but did not officially cancel with Airbnb. With the second payout due, I received an email from Airbnb stating they were unable to charge the guest for the balance due and "If your guest doesn't successfully submit payment or if they cancel the reservation before making the payment, Airbnb isn't liable for issuing your host payout. "
I was paid for the first 28 days so I'm only looking at potentially two days of lost income so it's not a big deal in this situation, but since I typically rent my house out for 30 days or more, I want to be clear on what the policy is.
Airbnb's long term reservation policy states, "Cancel before 12pm local time during the trip and the next 30 nights of the reservation are non-refundable. If fewer than 30 nights remain in the reservation, all nights are non-refundable."
Am I somehow misinterpreting that? It seems pretty clear that I should be paid for at least 30 days of any reservation after it starts and shouldn't have to engage in a bunch of correspondence with Airbnb to collect that.
Based on what I'm gathering from the email, a guest could reserve a place for 56 nights during peak season, then they can just leave after 28 days without recourse leaving the host screwed out of a month of bookings since the listing showed as unavailable. And if this is indeed the case, then it's way too risky to accept one long term reservation. Instead, I should request that long term guests make separate bookings because then the strict cancellation policy would guarantee at least 14 days notice of a cancellation for the second reservation.
Not only that, I added up the prorated amount for 28 days and realized Airbnb shorted me $10 on my initial payout. In other words, they made sure they got their full cut upfront!
The message also states, "If you have questions about the payment problem, you can reach out to your guest. " The thing is, I don't want to fight the guy to collect because he had a family issue to attend to but I do want to fight Airbnb on this policy. Any loss or collection efforts should be on Airbnb's part, not the host's.
Does anybody have any experience or thoughts on 1) Addressing this with Airbnb or 2) On requesting that long stays be broken up into separate reservations?