COVID relief payment

[Tiff0]

Dear Hosts,

Be careful about accepting the COVID Relief payment as it is acceptance of a quasi-settlement offer.  I wrote AirBNB today informing them I was not accepting $58 COVID payment in exchange of the thousands of dollars I lost without my permission. I know you may need the money but what is $58 compared to thousands? This is what I wrote. Feel free to cut and paste and do the same: 

Dear AirBNB,

Thanks for writing but I am writing to inform you kindly, that I reject your COVID 19 payment. You do not have my permission to deposit this money in my account.  I formally reject any settlement offer and $XXX is a pittance if the lost funds. 

AirBNB should have offered travel coupons to guests who want to cancel. 

AIRBNB should not have overtly advertised to guests that if they cancelled they would get a full refund. You are encouraging cancellations which you have no right to solicit without our permission. 

AirBNB never had hosts permission to cancel reservations with a full refund if hosts had a moderate or strict cancellation policy.

AirBNB did not verify that cancellations were due to COVID which violates the very policy you are trying to enforce upon on us without our consent. 

Therefore, based on the above, AirBNB's COVID 19 payment, I am afraid to tell you, is absolutely insult to injury.  I loved AirBNB up until this horrible treatment. Please remove this $58.56 payment from my account. I did not ask for this small amount of remedy, I do not want it, and you do not have my persmission to send it to me. 

Thanks,

XX

Obviously some hosts may not have the luxury of rejecting any money and I understand this is a personal decision to do what hosts need to do. Please note there is a Change.org campaign going around against what AirBNB did. You should sign it: 

https://www.change.org/p/airbnb-airbnb-breach-of-contract-class-action-lawsuit-violate-cancellation-...

[Huma0]

@Tiff0 

Wow, $58 doesn't sound too generous. I totally get your points here, but are you sure they have sent you all the money you are due? From what I understand, they are paying out the 25% of cancellation fees as instalments, not in one lump sum. Still, I don't expect it will amount to a lot in the scheme of things...

[Tiff0]

@Huma0 Thanks for writing. Actually, the sum I received is $8.20  which I find funny at this point. $8.20 is not even worth the time of having an AirBNB staffer calculate that amount of money and issue the payment. In the spirit of fiscal responsibility, AirBNB should have not bothered. What a waste of their time and ours!!  I feel like AirBNB is using lawyers and bean counters to create fuzzy math to cover their liability. The disingenous response needs to stop.  VRBO honored my cancellation policy which means I earned 100% of my VRBO cancellation policy. With AirBNB I earn 12.5%? That is an 87.5% difference! If VRBO can honor their contract agreements with hosts, AirBNB can too. 

What AirBnB cannot keep doing is extending any deadlines and offering flexible COVID cancellations. This is a new world order and if people are going to travel they are going to have get travel insurance, choose a listing that has a flexible cancellation policy,  or not travel. AirBNB assuming that a host has to bear 87.5% of the risk, AFTER, AirBNB did not honor their contracts with us prior, is more poor judgment and abusive treatment. 

As a response, my partner and I delisted three listings and have no regrets. One is still left. I blocked the calendar in the far future for the last listing.  We might take a guest a couple days before they need it--to reduce the risk of a cancellation but we might  just pull the cord and drop the final listing all together. 

I cannot imagine this is going to play well for AirBNB. AirBNB has been trying to gobble up marketshare for their IPO at all of our expenses. I think City Council's and the Federal Government are going to wonder about the value of AirBNB now that AirBNB hosts are filing for unempoyment---if they filed a Schedule C.  Most of us did not and reported it as rental income and are thus ineligible.  Most AirBNB hosts are not legally a busines--some city council's do not require it like DC, as long as we get a rental permit, which I have--so many AirBNB hosts like me are also not eligible for the PPE or other small business relief programs.  So this is why I am shocked AirBNB is continuing to not look out for their own.  There is nothing for most hosts--no relief--and AirBNB is leaving them stranded. Sending an $8.20 payment? Really? 

I just cannot even describe what it feels like to get that payment.......it is a feeling that involves an eye roll combined with a certain finger--- needing a shot of something strong like whiskey and I do not even drink hard liquor like that. Whatever that feeling is though is a feeling I will remember and will not forget. AirBNB has screwed us over and they keep digging a bigger and bigger hole. 

[Nonie2]

Thank you for this information

[Huma0]

@Tiff0  I hear you! Yes, I totally agree. The latest is that Airbnb plan to extend the 100% refund to guests into June, but hosts will not be eligible for the 25% compensation for those cancellations. Perfect. I always suspected that Brian Chesky's big announcement of $25m to help hosts, and his lamenting about not consulting us, amounted to little more than a publicity stunt and I think this latest development proves it. Airbnb got lots of media coverage for this 'aid package' to guests, so maybe feel they can safely move forward continuing to screw us out of 100%.

Good on you for de-listing. I haven't been brave enough to do that yet. I have for some weeks been researching other options but there is not that much out there for homesharing - nothing that looks like it would bring in many bookings anyway. Also, it's pretty much impossible to test any of them out right now, but I certainly plan to down the line when things eventually start to pick up. I am already in touch with language schools etc. (I host mostly long-term guests).

In the meantime, I continue to press for the money that Airbnb still owes me, but if it ends up being $58, I'm not sure I'd be happy to leave it at that.

[Helen3]

Hi @Huma0 

You are correct options for UK host who homeshare are very limited at the moment, as it is now illegal for hosts who homeshare to do STRs, so long term rentals are the only options for hosts in this situation.

To be honest, even if it wasn't I still wouldn't want to do STRs because of the high risks to both myself and my community of encouraging multiple guests to travel to and around our city.

We are very lucky in the West Country that the numbers are fairly low and hopefully it will stay that way.

Stay safe, hopefully the next few months will see our country opening up more.

[Huma0]

Hi @Helen3 , I didn't mean for right now, but in the future. There is no harm doing some research now, when times are quieter. The problem is that, until things start to go somewhere back towards normal, it is difficult to judge which platforms offer real opportunities of bookings, so I'm just making lists of people to contact later in the year.

No, I wouldn't really want travellers in and out of my house right now. My last guest was a Londoner whose flat purchase had been delayed, as they often are. As a long-term host, it's not unusual for me to get bookings like that, although they don't come up frequently. That's the kind of guest that I would be willing to accept once the restrictions are lifted. I don't usually host holidaymakers anymore even under normal circumstances.

My next international guest was due to come at the end of this month for study, but has decided to reschedule for September, which I think is wise. We can reassess the situation closer to the time.