Full Refund for Strict Cancellation Policy (TIPS!)

[Farah1]

I always have a strict cancellation policy since I started hosting on airbnb. Fortunately, it has been working very well for me.

Recently, I noticed there are some hosts in the forum with a dilemma for *not being able* to give a full refund for guest who cancel under the strict cancellation when they want to. To hosts with strict cancellation policy, YOU CAN GIVE a FULL REFUND to your guests with your STRICT CANCELLATION POLICY if you want to. Please note to not cancel any reservations from your end.

There are great penalties that hosts can get from cancelling a reservation.

If the guest is the one who wants to cancel, then let them do it from their end. Please also make sure that you do not accept of guests request to cancel as you will also be penalize for it, please read > https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/BEWARE-of-quot-Guest-requests-that-you-cancel-quot/m-p/4...

*If it is really necessary for you to have a reservation canceled, contact airbnb right away and ask for their assistance to help you cancel it from their end (of course this is depending on what is the reason for you to cancel).

*If you are a host with strict cancellation policy and willing to give 100% refund for guest who cancel the reservation, you can do this! Go to Host > Your Reservations > Issue Refund , that way you can refud the remaining balance of the reservation. Please read > https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/165/how-do-i-refund-my-guest

I hope this post helps new hosts/hosts who do not know that this is possible and have been penalize for trying to help guest to give them a full refund by doing the cancellation.

[Fred13]

It appears that the option to request from guests to have the HOST cancel is very confusing and a potential entrapping, and requires each host to learn this dilemna individually.  I wonder why it is there as an option for the guests to use in the first place.

[Annette33]

@Fred13 , i learned recently that actually, there are quite a few hosts out there who are irresponsible, who don't keep up their calendar and who don't communicate with their guests. So there are always two sides to the coin. Here, we mainly meet the conscientious hosts, the ones who are passionate about hosting, who educate themselves about it and/or are looking for help.   I dare say "we" are a group of great hosts here - but there are others out there that are just not that great.....

quite a few hosts out there do know by now about the penalties involved when they cancel. so what do they do if they got a booking, but haven't kept up their calendar? when they change their minds about hosting someone? they ask the guest to cancel! and the guest then  cancels and  has to give a reason on the cancellation form, so they click on " host needs to cancel" as their reason - which is entirely true, given some circumstances.

So I advocate to be a bit more careful before we  assume guests are sneaky when they click on that as the reason and then it comes back to bite hosts in the a** because it gets turned into a host cancellation - which it should have been in the first place.

[Fred13]

My question was, why is there the 'Guest Asking Host to Cancel"  option in the first place, or vice versa, I don't see how it makes any sense. If host wants to cancel a reservation they do, if guest wants to they will. Why is there an option to ask the other to cancel when that could  easily be communicated via the message chat? No aspect of a program that needs individual explanation (i.e. is not intuitive),  and causes potential problems and waste of time on the part of host and Airbnb should survive for too long.

I just experienced this 'phenomena' of being requested to cancel by the guest, and almost did it. First time I have gotten such a message  after 3 years. I hesitated,  and asked guest to cancel, not to ask me to do so, they did. Perfect. I vote remove these types of options and no one has the option to either play games or make an innocent but unfortunate mistake.

[Deb125]

exactly,  I have had guests request me to cancel them, its been typically way before arrival, and I'm good with it, its happened twice in 5 years.  When I cancel them, I check the cancellation box " per guest request"  then I get the bad mark against me,  and for "punishment" from Airbnb,  my calendar remains blocked, so I rely on other websites to rebook the time.  Then the "bad" warnings start showing up that airbnb issues me, "we're going to block you from using airbnb"  yadda yadda yadda! ..  I assume the reason a guest would request the host to cancel them,  the guest gets the airbnb's service fee back, if they cancel themselves, they loose the Airbnb fee.  I have taken the lumps in the past,  but won't do it again.. If I make a mistake, I'll take the consequences..  Other websites do not penalize you for this kind of stupid stuff.  I do like airbnb's new 24-48 hour cancellation fee upon intial booking.. it gives someone time to rethink.. After that.. they should have better cancellation policies that fit everyone. 

[Jennifer2694]

Wow I didn’t know about this- and I’ve hosted hundreds of guests (took 2 years off and now back doing Airbnb). Thanks for sharing this.

[Dionne2]

OMG,

I actually had a problem with this one too.

I was out for dinner when a guest booked my place then cancelled 5 minutes later and left me message after message after messaging begging me to cancel it.

Naturally it was overwhelming because I was trying to figure it out how to do it and had to find out how to do it without being penalised too. I had to message the guy to ask him to shut up and stop messaging so I can focus in trying to process his request. 

From what information I could gather , it said I could be penalised if I cancelled and the guest had to do it. BUT what was not explained clearly is that the guest had to do it through Airbnb and not through me which is what I did and get penalised. 

I was very very angry when this happened because despite my best effort to find out this information with an annoying guest messaging every 5 seconds. It was not so clear on the procedure and to be sure I actually called the hotline asking for confirmation. The lady said yes I won't be penalised if they cancelled but failed to mention that it should be going through them not through me.

So I called up airbnb again to explain the situation. The lady was horribly rude , she actually starting yelling at me. Of course I was not having any of this.

It was so unprofessional and pointless.

I told the lady off and told her it is your own fault that the help link you had was so unclear and tricky, if you have this option given to hosts that allows them to be penalise that is entrapment, furthemore I called with clarification and you said there was nothing to worry about so there are two major flaws in your system and you want to be yelling at me for mistakes Airbnb has created. 

The lady did back off, took off the penalty and calmed down and said she would take up on my suggestion to improve the process as I did point out if its not clear its not clear. Penalty or not , this is a stupid step that was in place to fix it.

Believe or not, most things we learn here is from experience and not a manual that Airbnb can give out and they should have one as a basic guide .

[Helen294]

Hi, Can you give me the hotline number or even an email address that doesn't bounce back at me ? I have been navigating the site for the past hour trying to find an answer to my question. My potential guest is simply not responding to my requests for information . He booked way back in February , so I have no idea whether he is coming or not. I need to either release these dates or get the info from him. I need AIrbnb to intervene. 

Thanks 

Helen 

[Farah1]

@Helen294  Portugal, +351 30 880 3888

[Vanessa-And-Jerry0]

Hi, We had someone book last Friday and they wanted to come immediately which we accepted as the property was empty and ready. They had a problem with the booking and thought it had not come through, and after I had sent them a message with all the info they needed, they emailed back and said that they wanted to cancel.We were on our way to our sons graduation at the time so had no time to concentrate on it. I assume they cancelled through airbnb. We have since tried to reimburse  them ( a different amount to their request as Airbnb deducted service charge + VAT) and the site will not allow us as the message comes up that the money has been paid out (to us) already and that the guest has a claim against us. I am concerned that we will be penalised for this (how I don't know) and that the guest will give us a bad review and say we are witholding their money! Today the money is in our account! Will Airbnb act as mediator for the guest and us? So confusing! Any help would be appreciated. It is not clear how to contact Airbnb to resolve this.

[Farah1]

@Vanessa-And-Jerry0 what is the reservation status? Does it  say canceled? This is the best way to confirm it rather than making assumption that the guest already cancel the reservation. Based on what I understand, they never stay and they never cancel and that is why you received the payout for their reservation. You can give a call to airbnb to explain the situation and ask for assistance to make sure that they will not be able to leave a review because based on what I know, guest who does not spend the night, does not have the rights to leave a review. To refund your guest, please read > https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/165/how-do-i-refund-my-guest

[Vanessa-And-Jerry0]

Hi Farah,

Thanks for responding.

There is a message that says the guest has a resolution request, refund for cancellation, but no mention of them actually cancelling. They are requesting £360 and Airbnb have deducted Service charge and Vat, and paid us £347 into our account. Shall I just wait and see if we get more notifications from Airbnb? I am concerned that we could get a bad review from the guests due to this..we are not deliberately witholding the money, just unclear how to get it v=back to them!

Thank you

Vanessa

[Dare0]

HI

I am a host.  My guest asked me to cancel four days prior to arrival.  I have a strict cancellation policy set on my listing.  

The guest asked Airbnb to cancel the reservation for him.

Airbnb did help him cancel and gave him full refund despite my strict cancellation policy.  

I have been trying to get help from the support center but they are of no help and cannot explain why they betrayed their own rules for cancellation refunds when a strict cancellation option is selected.

Very bad experience and enough to make me want to delist my listing as I cannot count on Airbnb to respect their own rules and support their hosts.

Dare

[Johnie2]

Hi,

We are having the same issue and we really don't know what to do.

The guest asked us to give her a full refund because she decided to invite more people and they couldn't fit in the listing. When we told her that we had a strict cancellation policy and that she could get only half of her money, she answered that she was pretty sure she would get a full refund.

We called right away the support and they confirmed that our strict cancellation policy applied and got it with a written confirmation.

But the next day our "case manager" called and said that the guest felt uncomfortable and wanted a full refund. At the end of the conversation he said he would call her again. 1 minute after hanging up, we received a text saying that she got a full refund!!

Since then the case manager won't reply to our calls nor email except for offering us 10% of the reservation amount.

This is so unacceptable!

The guest said she had an "American friend" and when we told the case manager he offered us the 10% amount but when we asked to escalate the complaint no answer.

If airbnb can give full refund whenever they want regardless of your cancellation policy what is the point?

Does any one know what we can do?

Today when we called again, they told us to wait that it was still under "investigation " and they hung up on us!

Should we contact all our future guests to arrange the reservation outside of the platform to be sure that the platform will not go and give full refund to everyone who asks?

Thanks for yur help,

Johnie

[Accopacatty0]

Hi the same thing just happened to me, airbnb unilaterally cancelled as "host" against my wishes because I was one hour late with room being prepared due to unforseen circumstances. they can just break their own rules!?!?!?