hidden fines for host when guest uses 48 hour grace period cancellation

[Silvia-And-Greg1]

Wanted to write you about a hidden Airbnb policy that is happening to us. A few months ago Airbnb forced a 48-hour free cancellation policy upon us, where guests can instantly book (if the host uses instant book and has a strict policy) and then cancel within 48 hours with no penalties. Airbnb claimed it would help bookings and would not be detrimental to any of us. This is not true. Like in the movie "Animal House" Airbnb has hidden a double-secret probation. If you have too many 48 hour cancelations Airbnb will turn off your instant book and all guests will have to request to book. It has been 18 days now and we are still off. Here is the conversation we have been having with airbnb:
Airbnb Support
4:15 PM
Okay, So I finally got an answer for you and I will leave this pending for a while to make sure. It seems that the issue was in fact created by your guest cancellations and it has flagged your account for a 7-day probation where 50% of guests see your listing as request to book. I do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. I hope my answers have helped to clear things up.

5:49 PM
Andrew thank you for looking in on this. So if guests cancel in the 48 grace period, Airbnb will penalize me? This started the beginning of the month and is still going on, which is past the seven days. When will I be off double secret probation?

Airbnb Support
7:07 PM
I am not sure why its still ongoing, one thing I was told to try is to make some changes on your calendar. For whatever reason, it flags activity on the account. I hope this helps let me know.

7:33 PM
Ok, Andrew, I went into the calendar and changed a few things. I will look tomorrow and see if that helped (give Airbnb computers time to see the changes). I will drop you a line tomorrow.

Airbnb Support
7:56 PM
I will be back in on Monday. If you have any urgent questions feel free to call in. Otherwise, you will be my first priority for a response on Monday. Have a great weekend.

8:05 AM
Morning Andrew, I did change things on my calendar on Friday. On Sunday morning our listing is still not instant book.

[Helen3]

Sounds completely ridiculous.

I would contact them publicly on twitter and FB and point how you are being penalised because a guest chose to cancel.

[Mark116]

This may be the definitive proof that airbnb's algorythm is indeed insane. 

[Mark116]

I could possibly see reducing the rankings for a listing if multiple guests cancelled once they had arrived at the listing, because that might mean that there is something wrong with it, unclean, inaccurate, etc.  but doing that to a listing because X number of people cancelled within the initial booking window, doesn't make sense.

And of course, it would be nice if airbnb would tell hosts all of these types of things that cause their listings to disappear, but that would be too organized and fair of a system.

[Fred13]

Sometimes I get the impression Airbnb's thinkers come up with a 'nifty' idea, but have no clue how programming-wise it will really work with their existing code, why oftentimes such ideas lead to unintended results.

[Gillian19]

@Silvia-And-Greg1 I can see why they would do this. It would be quite feasible for a host to contact guests who have instant booked via the now provided phone number and arrange for them to make the booking outside of Airbnb thus saving the Airbnb fees. 

So I don't believe it has anything to do with bad programming, insane algorithms etc. It is to do with protecting their commission.

I would imagine that the statistics show a certain number of cancellations to fall within the norm, and when you fall outside of it (as you have) they flag your listing as a potential "problem". Unfortunately the CS would have no idea of this and it would be hard for you to prove these were genuine cancellations. 

[Kathie21]

That makes sense, but it would be fairly easy for Airbnb to check whether a host had done this by seeing whether they immediately blocked out the same number of days in their calendar.  If the dates remained open, or somebody else booked, then obviously that's not what happened.

[Jan83]

Hey Silvia,

so how the problem was solved? Because Im now in the same situation. My Instant book doesn´t work almost whole month. I wrote 5x on help centre but nobody was able to tell me where is the problem 😞

Jan

[Silvia-And-Greg1]

You must change prices in your calendar every 24 hours until the computers kick out this problem. It took us 18 days.

[Jan83]

Ok, thank you. I wil try it 🙂

[Nathan92]

Jan, did this work for you? I have been dealing with this for 6 weeks and nothing has been resolved. One of my properties is now completely empty for the rest of the month.

[Jan83]

No, doesn´t work for me but I wrote with other people who has the same problem and wrote about to we all begin write public on Twitter Airbnb Help that maybe then they will try do with that something

[Jan83]

So my Instant booking began yesterday working. I changed price in my calendary but definitely not every day. Last week I was sick so 4 days I did not even turn on the Airbnb. So there have to be different solution.  😕

[Valerie512]

Anyone having any luck?? I've been dealing with this issue for a couple of weeks, but actually only discovered it yesterday (feel like an idiot). Have already called twice, been told that the issue has been escalated twice. Neither of the reps I talked to had ever heard of this issue. Very frustrating. 

[Jan83]

I had this problem more then month. I wrote to Airbnb about 7x last time more then 1 week before and yesterday it suddenly began working. But nobody wrote me so I have no idea why it began working.