Do refunds have any impact on split payouts?

[Susie207]

My understanding is that AirBnB processes refunds BEFORE splitting payouts. My partner is sure that refunds come from one account or the other. Please clarify. 

[Sandra856]

Hi @Susie207 🙂

I'm a little confused about your question?

If you decide to cancel a reservation you will get refunded according to the cancellation policy the host got on the listing and it will be on the whole amount of the reservation. 

Airbnb sometimes offer the customer to split the payment but it has nothing to do with the cancellation policy. 

If you only paid 50% (split the payment) and decides to cancel where you are promised 50% of the total amount you won't get anything back as you chose to only paid 50% to begin with. 

If you had paid the full amount when you booked you would get 50% back when you cancel if that is what the cancellation policy promises. But I'm not sure if that is what you and your husband are debating?

[Sarah977]

@Susie207  Like Sandra, I also find your question confusing. Are you a host or a guest? What exactly is the situation? And what do you mean by "from one account or the other"?

Split payment option is just a convenience to guests, so they don't have to come up with the entire cost up front. It doesn't have anything to do with cancellations.

[Sharon247]

We are hosts -- sorry, I would have figured readers would recognize the term split-payouts. Hosts have the ability to take their earnings in more than one account. In our case, the property owner gets 70% and the manager gets 30%. A guest was recently given a refund for part of their paid stay. I was assuming that AirBnB would subtract that refund from our next payout (net earnings) before sending 70% to one and 30% to the other. Turns out I was wrong. AirBnB divided the payout amount first, then subtracted the refund from the owner's share. Since we received the funds with the 70/30 split, we have to go back and do the math to determine what the manager owes back to the property owner.

Say someone pays $1,000 to stay 2 weeks. They have to shorten their stay and we agree to refund $100. We've already gotten our payout from this guest because they've already checked in. So when our next guest checks in and we're expecting, say, $300 from AirBnB the next day, we don't get $300 - $100 = $200, divided into $140 for the owner and $60 for the manager. We get $300 divided $210 for the owner and $90 for the manager, and then $100 taken from the owners share, resulting in the owner getting $110 and the manager getting $90, completely messing up our 70/30 arrangement. 

So whenever we agree to send a refund to a guest who has already checked in, the manager ends up owing the owner their percentage of the refund that comes out of the next payout from AirBnB. Clear as mud, right?