AC went out, account now suspended because I cancelled reservations. Advice?

[Claire337]

Has anyone had any luck unsuspending a listing? It's over 100 F/38 C here daily and I cancelled reservations after a guest complained about the a/c unit malfunctioning. It took 3 days to get a tech out, and I cancelled all the reservations in the interim. Host support was aware of the issue. The guests were understanding about the cancellations -- no one wants to stay in a house w/out AC in the middle of July in New Mexico. Now my listing is suspended and the rep I spoke with is "heartbroken" that she cannot do anything to change the suspension. Now I'll lose my Superhost status and of course, income. 

Anyone got any advice? 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Claire337 the cancellations alone will cause the loss of superhost status. I am a bit confused though as you don't seem to have the 'normal' greyed out listing. If you go to insights and then listing issues what does it say?

[Claire337]

"Due to recent issues, this listing is suspended, " then there's a list of the cancelled reservations.  Does Airbnb not make exceptions when there is an equipment failure at the listed property? This sort of thing is outside of my control as a host. 

[Fred13]

Your listing doesn't show, so they did suspend it. First things first, fix the A/C of course, then stay on top of Airbnb to re-open it and impress upon them you are doing the responsible thing, the guest were cool with the situation. Just get to someone that can think outside the box at their end. Not the first time an A/C has gone out and being a show stopper, especially in the southern U.S. during summer. And is not a piece of equipment people have a spare laying around to plug in at a moment's notice.

[Claire337]

Have you ever had any luck getting someone on their end to think outside the box? I have not.

[Helen3]

If you agreed to penalty free cancellations because of unforeseen maintenance then they shouldn't show as cancellations and you shouldn't have your listing suspended @Claire337 

As it should come under their EC policy for hosts . 

[Claire337]

Thank you. The EC policy unfortunately doesn't explicitly mention account suspensions -- only that waiving the fees for host cancellation.

[Carmen-Fabiola0]

Hello, I am going thru a similar situation. Guests arrived Thursday and they enjoyed the A/C until yesterday, I assume, since they reported early this morning to me via the app that the A/C is not working. I contacted a tech to come over as soon as I got the message and also contacted AIRBNB about it. Because not knowing if it can be fixed today or not, I might need to cancel the current reservation and the next coming one. AIRBNB says if the guests want to leave, I would have to refund them for the rest of the stay and 30% of the affected nights, which I assume is only one. I am 100% in agreement that I have to refund them for any future nights, adn I am so sorry this happened. The tech went in today and the unit is frozen so he could not work on it until it is not frozen. Tech will be back this afternoon to check it and I hope he can fix it. Supposedly, if I have to cancel the upcoming booking, checking in Friday, I will not be penalized because of the records of this issue will be in their system. Once my calendar got disconnected and I had to cancel a reservation losing about $500, I cried because it was a lot of money and I am not sure how it happened, it also make me lose my superstatus, so I am concerned about this A/C issue and fixing it being our of my control.  I hope your account gets fixed. 

[Claire337]

I hope so, too but so far the support folks have not been helpful at all. They keep telling me they can't do anything about the suspension and have so far refused to let me know explicitly what I could have done to avoid it, despite me asking several people several times. I suggest you try and get the guest to cancel by telling them the a/c is out and just issuing a refund. That's the only workaround I can think of. 

[Mar125]

@Claire337 

you are probably not suspended for missing amenities,  you are probably suspended for high cancellations rate. Indeed, for that you cannot deal with it. 

[Claire337]

What was my alternative? No one seems to be able to answer this. Not even Airbnb support. I'd like to avoid future suspensions.