I'm posting this to genuinely understand from a host's perspective why my host strung me along this incomprehensible refund journey instead of just telling me "no refunds".
I made a booking for 1 night for a group. Turns out my group had already secured lodging, there was miscommunication in my group. The booking has a no-refund policy, which is fine, my fault, I'm not expecting any refund.
I figure it doesn't hurt to ask, worst I can get is "no". I've stayed with some extremely kind, considerate, and flexible hosts. Within 3 hours of booking, I let the host know of the situation, ask if he'd be willing to do a refund. I'm fine if he's not, that's life. Even if I can't get a refund, I cancel anyway to be courteous so the place can be available again for him to book. I mean, I could just keep the place so my group has a spare place in case anything goes wrong with the current lodging, but I'm just being considerate.
AirBnB says his response time is generally 1 hour; he doesn't respond to me until 2 days later, after I follow up twice, which felt a little weird. He tells me to contact AirBnB, that they'll assist in processing the refund. Awesome, thanks so much, wasn't expecting that at all!
I contact AirBnB support, they tell me that they can process the refund, but they'll need the host to authorize the refund, they will contact him. I let the host know that support is going to contact him for authorization. He says ok, he'll wait to talk to them. Sweet!
AirBnB support gets back to me; "I just got an update from your host, and unfortunately he has decided to uphold his cancellation policy." ... wtf? Shocked, I tell support that I'm confused -- they tell me "When I reached out to the Host he informed me that it won't be possible for them to provide you with the refund as they wont get any other bookings." If he was never going to refund me, why did he send me to support instead of just telling me that he won't refund me?
I contact the host again, asking for clarity.
He simply says: "Hi Joshua, I understand, we abide by Airbnb policies, we have to talk to Airbnb because it is a strict no refund policy."
...what does that even mean??? Why isn't he just saying yes or no??? I tell him that support told me that they are able to process a refund given his authorization, and the issue is that he did not authorize the refund. Maybe it was a misunderstanding? I ask him if it's a misunderstanding.
He says: "Joshua, We are unable to refund due to strict cancellation policies. It is not possible for us to do so."
I'm just sitting here completely dumbfounded having gone through the emotional rollercoaster of this thing, the confusion, and the time wasted going back and forth between him and support.
I'm honestly confused. I can't find the logic in it. The only thing I can think of is that he wanted to pretend that he was the saint who wanted to refund me, but big bad AirBnB wouldn't let him refund me, but the wrench in this manipulative scheme was that he didn't anticipate that AirBnB support would literally just tell me that he didn't authorize the refund and what his explanation was.
Does this behavior make sense to any host? What is the incentive for this weird avoidance to simply saying "no refunds, sorry"?
