In seek of advice / help. Guest reached out 10/2 to verify house had power, we are in a hurricane effected area & had a hurricane 9/27. We have power, HVAC & hot water - no internet restored yet. Guest asked for early check-in bc they had been staying in hotel with 7 people (2 adults & 5 kids) & they had to leave the hotel at 10am. House was ready so I agreed. Guest got access to the house at 12 noon (normal check-in time 4pm). Tried to reboot internet - company says out of service since 9/27 with no estimated time of restore yet. At 9pm guest messaged how to cancel bc the power at their personal home was restored & they wanted to return home. I suggested she check the cancel policy in airbnb & even try to initiate so she can see how much is automatically returned - we do follow the cancellation policy & it is in our house rules & we share a copy of the rule 5 mins after each booking. In addition, I said if it re-rents I will process an additional refund of the unused nights. At 11pm I got a message alert that Airbnb had cancelled the reservation by admin and zero'd out the payment including zero-ing out the cleaning fee. At this point the guests - 2 adults & 5 kids had been in the house nearly 12 hours - and it was getting close to midnight so I doubted they were packing up & leaving that night. I asked my cleaner to drive by & check on the house & to schedule a cleaning that was not showing up on the calendar. When she drove by close to midnight she said lights were on in the house & car in driveway. I called airbnb back & said they were not checking out. I was told that according to policy Airbnb only interviens when a guest overstays their reservation by 36 hours - before that they will call but not consider it an issue that warrants their intervention until the 37th + hour. Is this accurate? Then I was guided to the resolution center to request a cleaning fee & nightly rate since the payment was zero'd out. I am sure the guest will deny the request & then I have to advocate for a payment for having the guest in the home for 12 hours & that a new group was not going to come happily into a house that 7 others were in for 12 hours - without a cleaning & I would need to prove that. It is frustrating to me I have to start a claim for payment of a reservation that was started & used enough to warrant at least 1 day & cleaning. Any tips for how to best position this within the resolution center so that I get paid something & don't have to pay for a cleaning out of pocket? Finally, has anyone found a solution to setting up the listing or house rules in a way that doesn't allow airbnb to unilaterally cancel bookings? I do have it in my house rules that we don't allow cancels without host consult - but Airbnb doesn't seem to care. It was 6-7pm my time when the reservation was cancelled & I often have Airbnb ambassadors call me at 4-6am so the we couldn't call bc of the time doesn't apply here.
