Penalties for Cancelling bookings

[Rachel3322]

Hi Hosts!
Question about cancelling bookings.

I am new to hosting on AirBnB and just got 2 listings up.

Before I could go in and play with the pricing for high-demand weeks – we had people book the biggest weeks at a SUPER low rate.

For example, there's a huge music festival in March that got booked for $102 /night. But It should be more like $400 - $600 /night for that week. 😬😬

Same thing happened for several other events throughout the year.

What kind of consequences are there if I were to cancel the bookings?

They're all more than 4 months in advance still.

I've turned off the option to book more than 3 months in advance temporarily while I get this figured out.

Would love your experienced advice. Thank you!

[Helen3 · Accepted solution]

Oh dear, you shouldn't let your listings go live before you have sorted out your pricing @Rachel3322 

Airbnb takes cancelling bookings by hosts very seriously as it affects the reputation of all hosts .

you will be charged a cancellation fee for each booking you cancel (see Airbnb Help website for host cancellations) and the dates will be blocked out in your calendar. 

i would suggest you remove instant book while you review your pricing.

[Rachel3322]

I've turned off instant booking for now. Thanks for the suggestion. 

I was using Air BnB's Smart Pricing feature. 

Confused as to why it would price it so low when all other listings in the area are 3-5x higher??

[Greystone0]

Hi @Rachel3322  - 

Don't use the smart pricing feature. This won't know when local events are to reflect an increase and the goal seems to be to force price downward, generally speaking.

[Lorna170]

@Rachel3322  Smart pricing has no bleeping clue when there are events in your area that would warrant higher prices.  Other hosts in the area with higher prices have probably manually set those higher prices themselves on their calendars as they knew an event was occurring.  

IMO, smart pricing will decrease your rate if it does not see you getting booked.  I would not use it.

[Rachel3322]

Yes I turned it off!

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Rachel3322 You have made a contract with the guests who booked. As well as the consequences highlighted by @Helen3 , if you cancel you can expect to rocket down the search listings and get far fewer bookings as a result.