How To: Put a Stop to Last Minute COVID Cancellations

[Magic3]

The Air BNB COVID extenuating circumstances policy allows any guest to cancel at any time and receive a 100% discount. As a host, you want people to cancel sooner rather than later so you can free up your calendar to accept future bookings or possibly host COVID responders. What you don’t want are guests who are 99% sure they will cancel but want to keep the reservation “just in case”, because they can without any financial risk whatsoever. Here’s how I recommend to handle all reservations that are eligible for a free COVID cancellation:

1st Message:

Dear Guest: Air BNB has modified its extenuating circumstances policy and your booking now qualifies for a 100% money back cancellation. Please let us know within 24 hours whether you wish to keep your reservation or cancel. Thank you.

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2nd Message (If Guest wants to Keep Reservation)

Dear Guest: If you are confident that you will be able to keep your reservation, please cancel and then submit an inquiry to book the home again. I'll send you a "special offer" and take $500 off your previous price as a thank you.

If you choose to cancel and not to re-book, I totally understand. I appreciate your understanding as we navigate through all of this. I'm going to keep your reservation in place for the aforementioned 24 hours. Feel free to cancel if you wish, or contact me with other ideas.

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3rd Message (if Guest asks why they have to cancel and rebook)

We welcome you to enjoy our home as scheduled and we also understand if you must cancel. Either way, we appreciate your interest in our home and hope to have the opportunity to host you and your guests now or in the future.

To answer your question: Guests who cancel sooner rather than later are helping us to reduce our losses because they enable us open our calendar for others to book. Guests who hold on to their reservations only to later cancel at the last minute hurt our ability to re-book.

Therefore, we are asking booked guests who are committed to keeping their reservation to simply reaffirm this commitment by cancelling and re-booking our home. Doing so puts our original cancellation policy back into effect. In exchange for this renewal, we are offering a discount. We appreciate your understanding.

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If you don't hear from the guest at all, you can just go ahead and cancel them. I know that cancelling a booking is not something any excellent host ever wants to do. But, guests now have zero financial risk and every day that goes by with "no risk" bookings just adds more risk on the host. 

[Linda108]

I like this idea if you have a property that is bookable.  I think your messages are well stated and respectful.  I wonder if you also want to be able to house workers that come into the area to assist with the health crises.   If so, you might also include that information.  If a guest has messaged you with their intent to cancel, I think you could make a case for cancellling without penalty.

[Magic3]

The Air BNB extenuating circumstances policy allows either the host or the guest to cancel penalty free. While hosts generally don't want to cancel booked guests, this is an unusual time. We are seeing an uptick in requests for longer stays (1-2 weeks or more). So, many hosts now have a tough choice to make: Keep a few existing weekend bookings in April and May that will probably cancel eventually, or just cancel them all out so you can get new longer bookings that will now be subject to standard cancellation policies.

This is not a position we expected to be placed in, yet here we are. Giving existing bookings the option to go ahead and re-book seems a reasonable and fair way to handle this, rather than just cancel them outright.

[Kaylee18]

@Magic3   That's a good idea. 

I messaged a guest the other day saying something similar... and crickets...

[Yan49]

This is great! I have reached out to guests explaining the same concern but you have worded it a million times better. Thank you.

[Denise249]

I thought the guests could only cancel free of charge on bookings up till May 31? Could I cancel a guest booking for the end of June? We still have restrictions in our area .