This little piggy stayed home.... Changes in the Cancellation fees?

[Rachael26]

So I am noticing the new display changes to the cancellation policy shown on the listings - there is a little piggy bank and coin (piggy symbol shown in US but not South America, Canada - yet) stating:

100% refund, including service fees, if cancelled before start of booking (5 days for moderate, 24hrs for flexible etc..).

So it was the "including service fees" that got my attention - as it was only in January I was reading posts from guests (and hosts) requesting help on claiming back the Airbnb Service fees, which were only refunded in 'special or extenuating' circumstances.

So here is the policy now ( just the first 5 bullet points)

• Cleaning fees are always refunded if the guest did not check in.
• The Airbnb service fee is refundable (up to 3 times per year) if the guest cancels before the trip starts. If a guest books a reservation that overlaps with any part of an existing reservation, we won’t refund the Airbnb service fee if they decide to cancel.
• Accommodation fees (the total nightly rate you're charged) are refundable in certain circumstances as outlined below.
• If there is a complaint from either party, notice must be given to Airbnb within 24 hours of check-in.
• Airbnb will mediate when necessary, and has the final say in all disputes.

So it looks like the main change is point 2 - that the ABB service fee IS refundable - up to 3 times a year for guests.

OK - and I hope that will be applied automatically so guest do not have to ask for help to get this.... and that it doesn't 'encourage' cancellations as they now are risk/penalty free (or at least the first 3 are!).

And as this is the part of the cancellation policy that often gets explained in listings/description/correspondence between hosts and potential guests - if it gets changed/altered again - will we, as hosts, be notified? Or am I writing this post showing my ignorance as we were actually notified of the change and I didn't get (or read) the memo?

Best Wishes - and Congratulations to all the newly recognised Superhosts from this round of assessments!

[Linda108]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, @Rachael26.  I think I heard something about this change at the LA Open last November but frankly didn't pay it much attention.  

[Robin4]

@Rachael26

Yeah it seems to be universal Rachael.....has hit our listings too.

I have posted this on other threads to but I feel it is relevant!

Yeah, just another little 'tweek' to the system that they did not bother to involve us in.

I have just been through the official 'How can we help' section of Airbnb and there is absolutely no mention of it anywhere there, so Airbnb are not considering important enough to consult anyone on!

What happens when a guest instant books for three weeks time and then cancels 24 hours before the reservation date...is the host going to be compensated for the loss of booking potential for the time that reservation was active.

I tell you what, I am getting really fed up with being shot in the foot by Airbnb....please can they start employing programmers with just a grain of commonsense!!!

Cheers.....Rob

[Annette33]

@Robin4, I think it's an unproven assumption that because of this change, suddenly there would be a major increase in guests cancellations. As to the 24 hour before cancellation and a host not getting compensated : that already is in place for flexible cancellation policy, nothing has changed about that. So if you are concerned about lots of new cancellations becai use of the new rule, how about changing your cancellation policy from flexible to moderate? That would give you some extra protection. Good luck!

[Annette33]

@Rachael26,  Notification about cancellations will be handled as before, I just went through that with someone yesterday.I believe it will go through automatically, no more back and forth between host and guest who shall do it, offering to refund them their service fee through the resolution center, etc...

So I believe the new rule of guest cancellation with getting their service fee refunded is a good thing,  as it solves the stalemate between hosts and guests, when both parties were reluctant to do the cancellation: guests because they wouldn't get their service fee refunded, and hosts because they would incure steep penalties.  So this helps a lot and abbreviated a lot of nonsense.

I am all willing to give Airbnb a break and see this as a step in the right direction. Not everything about what Airbnb does is as negative as @Robin4 sees it. ( Hey lets be positive, shall we?? 😉

Here is the other post where this is getting discussed:, Robin and I both contributed there, scroll down a bit and the conversation gets focused on the issue. As usual, quite a few hosts see this as another thing where Airbnb caters to guests and just makes hosts' lives more difficult. Robin shares that view, I don't. : https://community.airbnb.com/t5/forums/v3_1/forumtopicpage/board-id/listing-and-reservations/page/1/...

[Lizzie]

Hello,

Thanks for your comments here. I am sure many of you have seen I posted this information in another thread in the CC, but I thought it would be useful to also post this here. To address any worries you may have over a possible rise in cancellations, I just wanted to share with you that we have put in place two guardrails to help prevent unnecessary cancellations:

• We’ve limited guests to a maximum of 3 fully refundable cancellations per year.
• If a guests has overlapping bookings, even if only partially overlapping, service fees from those bookings are not refundable.

Also, I think it is important to provide a little more background to this and so to add, we've heard that guests are hesitant to book in the first place because of the penalties they face if their plans change. As a result though, these changes make guests feel more comfortable in making a booking and during our pilot of these changes, we did see that guests were more likely to book with hosts who choose a Flexible or Moderate policy.

I hope you find this information helpful.

Thanks,

Lizzie

[Derek62]

Hello,

What does this item mean?

"If a guests has overlapping bookings, even if only partially overlapping, service fees from those bookings are not refundable."

Can you give an example?