Refunds

[Natasha45]

Hey All! 

I've always refunded people their money when they cancel. If they cancel the day of, I have given back half and told them if they rebook, I will take 10% off. I feel bad keeping people's money for a service they did not use - up until today! 

A guest ammended her reservation on Sunday saying her boyfriend decided to come with her. Today she messages me and asks me what the latest is that she can check in. I think my listing says 11:00 pm, but it really doesn't matter as it is a separate structure from our home; I let her know. She then responds and says it's going to be really dark when she gets here. Then she immediatley sends another message and says her boyfriend can't come, and asks if she cancels can she get her money back. I tell her I have a lenient cancellation policy but didn't know it off the top of my head, but she should go ahead and cancel if she is not coming. She responds that if she cancels, she will not get a refund and tells me I need to cancel it for her---Ummm, no. So I told her that if she cancelled and IF my listing rebooks for that night, I am happy to refund her. She then wants to know if I can go ahead and Venmo her or Cash App her the money. After I tell her 'No! I can only refund through Airbnb', she cancels, and sends me a message asking when I will be able to Venmo her.

Ermegah...

Do y'all refund in certain cases or do you always stick to what you've choosen thorugh Airbnb? I wish I would have never told her I would refund her if my lisiting gets booked. 

[Ben551]

@Natasha45 not a very nice person all round, from the sound of it. That's great you rebooked though! Nice job 🙂

[Andrei4]

I totally agree. With the new extanuation policy without transparent and clear definition of the "serious illness" the Airbnb turned hosts into the "travel insurance companies". I am a host from 2011, a Superhost from the very fist qualificaition, with 91% 5-stars review. I love people, I love my job and happy to serve them.

Here is my statistics of my cancellations (4 apartments):
2011 - 0,
2012 - 2,
2013 - 3,
2014 -6,
2015 - 7,
2016 - 5,
2017 - 10,
2018 with the new refund policy - 25 (!).
The last minute  cancellation due to the sickness are 80% of them and almost all fully refunded. Most of these refunded cancellations were gladly fully refunded by me on my own decision (cancer, brocken legs, operations.. etc), which I don't mind.

But I don't want to refund the ones without a serious reason and these become a tendencey. I have been just "rubbed" again.  And I am complete pissed off with that.

The Airbnb doesnt have a clear definition of the "serious illness" in their policy, the decision is taken by a manager based on the formal doctor's certificate.  We all know that these days it is no problem to get the doctor's ceritificate for a minor illness for the insurance - let say a strain - stating that it is not desired  to travel! Even the police can write whatever if you say you need it "for the insurance purposes".

In any case - you are right, hosts should not be an isurance companies. The Airbnbn can offer this service to its clients and make money with that.

[Inna22]

@Natasha45 Refund only after the other person completes their stay

[Ann72]

@Natasha45@Inna22 And definitely NOT through Venmo!  🙂

[Cherilyn4]

Hello!  This is my first post in the Community Center.  🙂  I am trying to understand guest refunds better.  Here is my scenario:

A guest that booked 11 days ago (the check-in date is not until June 2019), canceled the reservation last night without reaching out to me first.  I have the Strict Policy with 50% refund in this time frame.  Airbnb refunded 50%.  Later today, I received the email from Airbnb letting me know that the guest was requesting the other half of the rent.  On a side note, it's interesting to me that Airbnb makes note that we need to hurry up and respond within three days to the request, or "Hosts with multiple requests like this one may be subject to review."  It almost sounds as if I've done something wrong.  

The reason the guest gave for cancelation was "The location that was booked is too far from where my children and I will be spending our vacation."  Seriously???  She was the one that made the booking.   The house is on an island that is 3 miles wide.  You are either staying on the island or not and if you are then it's not far from anything.  If you aren't staying on the island, then you should probably know that before you book a house with a strict cancelation policy!  Sorry, just venting!  

I don't like keeping people's money in these circumstances.  It leaves me with a bad, uneasy feeling.  I feel I am blessed with plenty, but I feel the strict policy is necessary to discourage time-wasters and last-minute cancelations because our rental is in a location known for Bachelor Parties and bookings by groups of friends in a party town on an island in Ohio and we have a very limited season to rent.  We can't afford to have people backing out last minute leaving the rental empty for the weekend!  

So, I generally feel inclined to refund.  However, I don't feel it is right for me to eat fees and end up paying out of my pocket because someone changed his/her mind.  When this particular renter made the request, she asked for the other half of the rent, which was $262.50.  On my payout page, it showed that I would received $262.50 - $7.88.  So I decided that it would be more than fair to refund $254.62 (half the rent minus the service fee), so I did.  Well, then the payout screen updated to show that I will receive $7.88 - $0.24 service fee.  So essentially, I am still losing 24 cents?  Not a huge deal obviously, but I am so confused!  If I had refunded the $262.50 would she have received the full amount and I would not have had any service fee????  I'm just trying to understand this for the future.  

Thanks for your help in advance!

[Cherilyn4]

@Andrei4 

@Natasha45 

@Inna22 

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Cherilyn4 

Personally I make it a rule never to refund more than my policy, and for whatever reason if I need to refund money I will never refund money that I haven't first recieved. 

"Refund" means I got the money and I am giving it back. If the check in date has not passed then hosts have not recieved anything.... therefore there is nothing for me (=host) to refund. 

I would never give money or refund a guest with the assumption that Airbnb will pay me what I am owed at a later date. 

[Cherilyn4]

@Jessica-and-Henry0 

Jessica & Henry,

You bring up such a good point!  I have now refunded two seperate guests over the past few months - one who would have checked-in during the month of June 2019 and one who would have checked-in during the month of August 2019.  Now my first, maybe even my second payouts for the upcoming season will not even cover these refunds.  Meanwhile, I will be waiting to receive the refunded guests money in June and August!  This surely does not seem fair.  The part in all of this that I find tough is that my personality doesn't do well with confrontation and this isn't my day job.  Like many Airbnb hosts, I have another job that comes with plenty of stress, and I fear that it will be more of a hassle and aggravation if I end up having to deal with someone who now has my personal contact info pestering me about a refund.  In other words is the extra stress worth the $250? Just out of curiosity, have you had any troubles with a persistent person hounding you for their money?

Thanks for your advice!

[Suzanne302]

@Cherilyn4 

I would stick to your policy. These guests are adults. They were aware of the cancellation policy at booking and still booked.

If you feel bad, maybe offer to refund ONLY if you can rebook those dates.

[Helen3]

Hi @Cherilyn4 

If you are just going to refund guests who cancel why have a strict cancellation policy.

The most I would do, is say to the guest that if I get bookings to replace the cancellation I will consider a refund for the for the nights that get rebooked and the money will be returned to them post the replacement bookings (remember the new guests can cancel too.

If you just want to refund on cancellation, look at a flexible cancellation policy.

[Cherilyn4]

@Helen3 

As I explained in my originail post, we need the strict policy to discourage cancelation due to the cohort of guests we host.  We rent April through October and have hosted through Airbnb for two rental seasons (we are headed in to our third season with tons of bookings) and I have only had to deal  with cancellations three times.  I assume that is partly due to our strict policy.  Most people would think long and hard before throwing away half of their money on a $1400 weekend booking.  And they don’t know I’m a push-over if they don’t even try to cancel.  🙂

[Mark116]

@Cherilyn4 I would stick to my policy and not feel guilty at all. 

[Susan17]

Sure would be interesting to see some stats on the breakdown of exactly how much money has been refunded to guests via shady refunds and dodgy "extenuating circumstances" claims, versus the figures for how much is now not refunded, by hosts would have happily and routinely refunded in the past, but now stick to the letter of their cancellation policies, after being short-changed one too many times by Airbnb. 

[Andrei4]

Exactly. And that’s exactly how I do now to reserve some funds to cover the shady cases.

[Inna22]

@Cherilyn4 

While I personally stick to my policy, let me explain a few things.

1. You are not refunding anything you have not collected. While I do use this line as an excuse to the guests, it is not the reality. If you refund in full, you will simply not collect anything after a guest stays. It will be far more complicated to wait for your pay out and then refund. If you want to do it, just do it now. For the guests you have already refunded, you will not be getting paid anything at all. If you look at your bank account, they have not actually taken any money from you. I hope this makes sense
2. The amount it is asking you to refund is after all the fees. You will not be paying any fees out of pocket. Because you agreed to refund less the fees, you are now getting that $7 as your payout. You are not losing 24 cents, you are gaining $7.64
3. As far as confrontation, it is all on paper. You can breathe in and compose your answer. And once they cancelled, you can ignore them. When Airbnb reaches out to me asking for extra refund, I let them have it. It is actually a great stress relief exercise J