Covid 19 cancellation issue

[Marina710]

Hi,

I have 3 guests who had checked in on 13th march in my apartment in Malaga, Spain. At this point WHO has already declared the pandemic. After 3 hours of my guests checking in, they had decided they prefer to return home after all, due to uncertainty with virus situation. (They returned to another part of Spain) At this point Airbnb had no new policies regarding cancelations. My cancelation policy obviously doesnt give full refund once the guests have checked in. On 15th of march, Spain declares state of emergency and Airbnb issues the new Covid19 cancelation policy, which gives full refund to all guests with stays starting from 15th of march, if they are not traveling within same country. My guest is denied a full refund from Airbnb and advice to consult me if i would refund at least one part. I explain to her how cancelation policies apply in her case but propose to refund the night they didnt stay in my apartment. (This was a two night booking). After a few days without her answer i write to her again with a proposition to donate the money of their second night to a charity as i dont feel either of us deserves it really. She replies that she has already talked to Airbnb again and they have agreed to give her the full refund. At this point, extenuating cancelation policy says *** (copy of policy in the bottom) - which still doesn't apply to their check in date (13th of march), especially since they had already checked in. I have tried to reach Airbnb support but I can't contact them regarding her booking because now it has been deleted from calendar as if it was canceled long before the check in. Also i can not contact them in any other way, that option doesn't exist at the moment, probably due to too many questions both from hosts and guests. 
So in this situation, i have no say in managing my property, it seems Airbnb is overwriting both my cancelation policy and their own extenuating circumstances policy.

I hope i have explained the case well enough and i hope someone has advice on how i can procede with this situation.

Thank you.

***
What reservations are covered Reservations made on or before March 14, 2020

Reservations for stays and Airbnb Experiences made on or before March 14, 2020, with a check-in date between March 14, 2020 and April 14, 2020, may be canceled before check-in. This means that guests who cancel will receive a full refund, hosts can cancel without charge or impact to their Superhost status, and Airbnb will refund all service fees.

Reservations for stays and Airbnb Experiences made on or before March 14, 2020, with a check-in date after April 14, 2020, are not currently covered for COVID-19 related extenuating circumstances. The host’s cancellation policy will apply as usual.

If a reservation has already begun (the check-in has passed) this extenuating circumstance does not apply.

[Huseyin2]

@Allison97  I entirely agree. The continual extension of extenuating circumstances despite the fact that travel between the two countries is under no restrictionis beyond me. I was shocked when my guests whose stay was due to start mid August could cancel without any penalties yesterday. They are from the UK where I live and my listing is located in Turkey. I myself am going to travel to Turkey next week. There are no restrictions between these two countries, but somehow Airbnb feels it is entitled to give full refund despite the strict cancellation policy in place without even letting the host know. And since Airbnb announce the extension of their policy at the beginning of each month, cancellations are done at the very last minute. I don’t know how I will survive financially. It is really unfair.

[Leonie-and-John0]

The day before our guests were due to arrive our state government announced a new covid lock down,  restricting travel and preventing overnight stays.  I contacted our guests who were watching the latest covid updates as well because they live in the same state. I told them I would process cancellation so they would receive a full refund however when I tried to do this Airbnb were going to deduct $100 from my next booking regardless of reasons for cancelling. I followed links in cancellation dashboard and rang assistance line.  Operator rang back short time later and I explained that cancellation was out of our control due to gov restrictions and my priority was for guests to receive full refund and I was going to fight the $100 host fee.  Operator escalated my request and about 15 minutes later rang and sent a message to advise that Airbnb would cancel the booking and neither guests  nor host penalised.  Posted this to help other hosts. Don't  pay a penalty for something that isn't your fault. 

[James2821]

We have  nowhere to go to get a refund from AirBNB.

We got an email from AirBnB saying that they are not refunding their Service Fee for a COVID-related cancelled booking (as it was made after March 2020). This is unethical. The cancellation was due to extenutating circumstances: the Aus Govt closed a state border, which clearly we  have no control over.

Furthermore, AirBnB have given us no way of contacting them to discuss or dispute. The host tried to provide us a phone number of AirBNB to ring but Airbnb blocked it. Also, there is no online way or email to contact AirBnB.

Both hosts and guests suffer from this lack of ethical behaviour! 

If AirBnB see this the Reservation code is HM5RJHZWCA

[Vicki435]

This whole covid situation is certainly a real headache for we hosts!

I had a guest, who is due to check-in in 12 days time, contact me last night to ask if we would consider refunding her if she cancelled.  Her booking was made for 4 adults but her reason for wanting to cancel is that her daughter, whom I am assuming is a child, has become too anxious and scared to travel because of covid.  Now, at present there is no covid in our part of Australia and no covid on Christmas Island, where the property is located.  We have indicated on our listing that we are happy to refund on bookings where covid causes guests to not be able to travel to the island ie. lockdown. The booking is set at “Modified Strict” so with 12 days until they are due to fly to the island they are not entitled to any refund.  We have already happily refunded a guest who couldn’t travel due to a lockdown previously so we are certainly not lacking in compassion.

We have suggested to this particular guest that she could try contacting her travel insurer but it’s likely that they didn’t take out travel insurance, something I can never understand to be honest.

With only 12 days before they were due to check-in we have no chance of getting anyone to rebook the dates as they would most likely not be able to get a seat on a plane anyway.

It’s a real dilemma when you also have no idea if the guest is even telling the truth or not?!