I've been with Airbnb a couple of years now but often you don't find out that something is a problem or not working until it rears it's head.
So I have now found out that should a guest need/want to amend the dates of their booking last minute for any reason, this effectively prompts a new booking which allows the guest to be able to cancel entirely within 24 hours of the amendment and get a full refund. Even if they don't do this and you have the cancellation policy of within 30 days, they can still cancel within that period and get a full refund. This is despite only amending the original booking the day before when they are not entitled to any refund. This can clearly be abused to get around the built in cancellation policies, I mean there's even YouTube videos promoting it!
So for example, a guest cancels the day before their booking, they want to change the dates, I don't want to refund the money so I would be entitled to say "sorry your loss". However being an accommodating host, I would say "yes,that's OK we'll change the dates", but they could cancel within 24 hours of that change and get a full refund with no questions asked.
My point is that if someone cancels or wants to change their booking last minute, if the host is happy to accommodate this then it really should be non refundable at this point.
The current system doesn't incentivise the host to be flexible, as it could cost them the whole booking if they agree to a date change when really the guest should have insurance to cover any issues that may come up.
We could have a win win situation where both the host and Airbnb don't lose out but instead we have to take a huge risk which shouldn't even be there IMO.
The other issue I have is that Airbnb ask you to refer any amendments/cancellations last minute for them to deal with. As a host it could cost me to cancel a booking without letting them know. I presume they would just reiterate the booking terms but instead they just contact you and ask if it's ok to change it. Which to me is a cop out when they should be sticking to the booking terms agreed at the time of booking. This opinion may not be shared but I do think that the point of customer service is to back up it's terms and conditions not encourage the host to be in a situation where they could lose the booking entirely.
What do people think and surely this has got to be dealt with urgently? I feel that Airbnb know about this but probably it's too much hassle to sort out so they haven't done anything, but they need to.
