Strict cancellation policy ignored by Airbnb

Edwin283
Level 2
England, United Kingdom

Strict cancellation policy ignored by Airbnb

I hope you can share experiences...

I have an issue where I had a strict cancellation booking and the guest simply asked the credit card company to reclaim the deposit and Airbnb accepted / claim it has been approved so ‘case closed’ so if this becomes common knowledge the whole Airbnb that wishes to cancel will just contact the credit card company and overrule our strict cancellation conditions - unacceptable and should Airbnb not cover this otherwise  we can expect this to become common ground and hosts will walk away. Very upsetting! Has anyone had the same experience and has anybody been able to overrule this ?
Airbnb is not prepared to share any further detail or do anything more for me, Cheers E

18 Replies 18

Very interesting. I wonder if the rationale primarily is based on the propensity for a 'party' which supposedly rises exponentially after a gathering of 6, or maybe that in their view that constitutes the average size of a traveling family unit. I have always never exceeded the same number (6) also, for the above-stated reasons.

Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Fred13 I don't think the rule of 6 is anything to do with parties. Its a number plucked from the air semi randomly by a bunch f politicians. In Scotland children under 12 years of age don't count - I think its under 11 years of age in Wales but honestly I can't keep up with all the devolved regulations. Roll on a vaccine.

Leave it to me to think that everything in life has to have a rationale, because thinking is really not that hard. 😄

Yes, this also just happened to me.  Totally non Covid related.  The guest canceled their reservation and when I pointed out that my policy was "strict" she went to her credit card company and they gave her all the money back so Airbnb won't give me the 50% they owe me.  This seems to me a huge problem.  It's Airbnb's issue to collect the money, not mine and I think they owe me the 50% but they basically said "too bad so sad for you" and that was it.