Cleaning fee refund with no check-in and was past cancelation time

[Joel1530]

Hi, 

I booked a stay at an AirBnB for a work conference. It was canceled by the sponsor 45 minutes after the cutoff for a partial refund. I immediately contacted the host to acknowledge that this was my problem, not his, but ask if I could cancel so it could be documented if I was successful getting my work to pay for the stay anyway. 

He said that he contacted AirBnB and they said no, that this was not possible. I'm not sure why AirBnB was involved, but I did not challenge him on this. I just said I would try to get vacation approved and come anyway. Unfortunately I was not successful and never checked in. 

I understand losing all of the nightly rate, and AirBnB service charge. But it seems almost unethical that I have to pay for a cleaning fee that will have no reason to ever occur, nor be an expense to the host. In essence this just turns into an overage to the nightly rate and not reimbursing for a true cost. 

I don't see a way to challenge this part, and that is something that should be part of the AirBnB service and policy, not that I have to deal with individually with hosts. But I didn't find anything posted on AirBnB on the specific policy (that I believe would have to be relatively common) or how to contact AirBnB - other than opening a formal complaint (which I don't think is warranted as this should be a specific AirBnB policy). 

Am I missing something as far as specific documented policy or a way to discuss this casually with AirBnB support? This whole inability to have any form of customer support, along with generally what happened that was not the host's fault at all, certainly doesn't encourage me to use AirBnB again.

[Marie8425]

@Joel1530 

When cleaning fees can be refunded

The cleaning fee is part of the booking total and is not returned to guests at the end of the trip. However, the cleaning fee will be refunded if you cancel before check in.

[Joelle43]

Hello @Joel1530 

Well that's strange as it is part of Airbnb's policy to refund cleaning when a guest cancels prior to check-in.  

Here is the official Airbnb link explaining this so if you are in contact with CS, you may need to send this to them as some reps are not always up to date with Airbnb policies:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2812#:~:text=The%20cleaning%20fee%20is%20part,you%20cancel%20bef....

Was a cleaning fee clearly stated under your reservation number?  Some hosts incorporate this into their nightly rate so no cleaning fee appears.

Hope this gets sorted,

Best of luck
Joëlle

[Joel1530]

Hi Joelle. I typed out a lengthy reply to your questions, and praising AirBnB customer support for helping me more than I asked. Unfortunately even though the text box was open to type and look like it would post, I was not signed in. After pressing submit, and then trying to enter my phone number to sign in, the forum software deleted my post.

I am unwilling to retype the whole thing. But suffice it to say I am very happy with AirBnB's resolution when they saw this post and proactively reached out to me.

Their app and forum software have a lot of opportunity for improvement. They tried to simplify it until they made it difficult.

[Joelle43]

Thanks for your reply @Joel1530 but just to be clear, are you confirming that CS refunded the cleaning fee that was due to you?  Very glad to hear if I have understood you correctly😊

[Joel1530]

They refunded half my total reservation as a one time exception, and said it would not affect the host.

It appears if you are past the cancelation deadline even if it is days or weeks prior to your checkin, that there is not a way to indicate you are canceling or request the itemized cleaning fee refund.

Since I hope this is a one time thing, I didn't challenge the Rep on how I should have handled it if I only want the cleaning fee back because it was past the cancelation deadline. But I would assume I just need to open a complaint against the host and AirBnB would handle it. It's very kludgy and manual, but there isn't a documented or other clear process in the UI to do it.