Had to refund, but airbnb kept my discount and fees

[Bethel12]

I didn't realize my settings were on "instant booking" instead of "message me first" and I had to refund a guests stay because I wasn't ready to host that night. Is it possible to get the rest of my money back from airbnb for a stay that never happened?

[Bethel12]

Just to clarify, I lost out on the fee and 17% discount, which was kept by the platform

[Hello6]

Hi @Bethel12 

Best bet is to write them directly and / or contact Airbnb and ask them.

When we first started, we had same day bookings, sometimes we would be out for an evening and have to race home to make space. 

We have kept:

 - instant booking;

We have adjusted, for better control and work / life balance:

 - no same day bookings;

 - previous day booking for next day cut-off time set at 1500;

 - flexible check-in based on pre-booked check-in time based on host available hours with host greeting guests in person;

- self checkout with a fixed time limit of 12 noon latest checkout;

- 3 night minimum and 31 night maximum;

- flexible Cancellation;

- timed messages and stock information messages repeating address and contact number in each message;

Good luck.

[Bethel12]

Thank you! great info

[Trude0]

Welcome! 

I very much doubt you will be able to get the money back from Airbnb, I wouldn’t even waste time trying. 

Airbnb are really pushing Instant Booking, and I think it is the default setting for new listings. When (if) you turn it off, they will make you think you are making the dumbest mistake ever…😏 But do it anyway. 

If you are not ready to host/if there are nights you don’t want to host, your calendar should not be open - even if you switch to Request to Book, declining several requests can hurt your rank in searches. 

I suggest you check your settings, and think carefully about which settings suit you. I would recommend:

- Don’t use Instant Booking

- Don’t use Smart Pricing

- For the calendar/availability, choose ”Dates unavailable by default”, and manually open only dates you are sure you want to host

- Don’t accept same-day bookings, as you will want to have time to vet the guests before accepting/declining. I have a 2-day lead-time (there is a setting for this).

- Don’t do same-day turnovers (check out and check in on the same day) - can be very stressful, especially if a guest is late checking out, or leaves the place needing more cleaning than usual (there is a setting that automatically blocks days before/after bookings)

- Carefully consider if you want to accept 1-night bookings - is there a risk of attracting the wrong kind of guests? 

- If you are considering accepting long term stays, read up on the warnings here. 

- Scammers target new hosts. You might be contacted by ”guests” with no reviews, inquiring about longer stays, and asking you to send more photos/films off platform (cannot be sent via Airbnb chat). Never communicate off platform. Reply to the message, then click to report the profile to Airbnb.

- Read up on the difference between inquiries and requests to book - with inquiries you don’t need to pre-aporove/decline, only answer with a message. 

Good luck! 

[Alex]

Hi @Bethel12 ! 👋

Hope your week is going well. Were you able to fix the issue with any of the answers you got in your post? In case you didn't, here you have the link in order to contact Customer Support to see if they can help you with the situation. 🙂

Hope this helps! 

Alex

[Greg2406]

@Bethel12    

Short answer is unfortunately no,..you can try to get the funds returned, but we learned that lesson the hard way when starting out.   We immediately changed our listing to 'request booking' setting.   Also, you may wish to change your cancelation policy to 'medium' or even 'firm'.   We changed ours to firm, but had to due to several last minute cancellations.  Most Guests will understand.  

[Bethel12]

Thanks for your response, so if we give a full refund we have to eat the cost of the sales tax?

[Lorina14]

@Bethel12 

If you refunded the guests completely, then Airbnb should not get any fees or taxes. I would recommend you call the Airbnb customer service and ask for a refund of all fees as you refunded the guests for their entire stay.

I don’t know if them booking and you refunding them (did you do it through the resolution center?) affects their decision. I usually call to speak to someone directly as they said I could have refunded the guests completely through the resolution center but I told the customer rep that I wanted to make sure that the guests would get the entire stay refunded and that the stay be cancelled with Airbnb. (My situation was different for a guest had a late cancellation and we were enforcing the cancellation policy unless we got a last minute booking which we did because we ran a special). 

Please check your settings for booking and going live (sometimes you can create a listing and make sure it isn’t live until a certain date). Good luck!

[Bethel12]

My settings are fixed since it happened but, I couldn’t find airbnb’s number anywhere, just the help bot so thanks!

[Lorina14]

@Bethel12 

For some reason the number is harder to find. If you use the help bot you can chat or ask to call them then they give you their number. Here it is just in case: +1 (415) 800-5959 or +1 (844) 234-2500.

Also just FYI, if you type the @then the person’s name it will alert them in notifications that someone mentioned them. It’s helpful when asking for support from the moderators or responding to other guests or hosts. And if you only want to talk to hosts, you could go to host circle and post there. Sometimes people may post in both categories for support.