Cancelling a booking after 14 minutes

[David1157]

Ugh...I booked an accomodation for a trip 3 weeks in the future. 14 minutes after booking I cancelled the booking as the rental was not appropriate for us as at first thought. We contacted the host immediately, within 20 minutes of booking and 6 minutes after cancelling.

They have strict cancellation policy and told us forget about getting any additional refund. I know that "Strict Cancellation" policy is good to prevent guests cancelling but I am disgusted that the host keeps $400 for a 14 minute booking.

Also, their listing has an empty calendar before and after my dates.

Why would a host refuse to refund after 14 minutes and when a trip is still 3 weeks away?

It's not like it impacted their calendar...or maybe I'm missing something on how it works.

I'm just feeling screwed over, that's all.

D

[Bailey7]

While the cancelation policy is technically clear.. general human decency should come into play. I am a Host and I would never do that to someone. I want the guests staying in my home to be respectful and kind, something I can only expect if I am treating them with respect and kindness! I hope AirBnB looks into this right away. I am so sorry about your experience 😞 If you ever need a one bedroom in Columbus, Ohio for a couple nights I'll give you a 50% discount!

[David1157]

Thank you, that is very nice of you to offer. I have been a guest on airbnb for years and have had only wonderful interactions with my hosts which is why I was taken aback by a host refusing to refund a reservation that was cancelled within 15 minutes after the booking was made.

I always send a message to my hosts to inquire if the dates are available, I've had expereinces where a calendar shows availability yet when I message the host they say the dates might not be possible due to some circumstance. Messaging an introduction to my potential hosts is a way for us to gauge the reply time and tone of the guest.

In this particular case, my message to the host was an introduction and an inquiry if their accomodation was available for the particular dates in question. When I sent the message it instantly booked me into their condo as their listing was one of the Instant Book ones and I hadn'ty noticed.

When I did notice I cancelled immediately and apologized to the host and explained, the time stamps show 14 minutes from booking to cancellation.

I recieved no message from the host on any of my immediate messages and when I saw they had a strrict policy of cancellation that meant they would keep 50% of the fee I sent a message asking if they would refund the fee.

It was the I recieved the first communication saying "we have no intention of refunding. We have a strict concellation fee and have no tolerance for cancellations."

I have never had such an experience with all my experiences on airbnb. I went to the resolution center to request the refund and the host is not even responding to the claim. I have messaged the host asking to please respond to the resolution claim so we can go to airbnb arbitration but they refuse to even respond in the reolution center.

My plane tickets are booked but my trip is in jeapoardy because this unreasonable host is holding $400 of my money and insists that there is no reason to do anything about a refund.

I find this disturbing that a host would abuse the cancellation policy to such an extent and makes me uneasy about ever booking a host who has a strict cancellation policy if their is the potential for the host to refuse any discretionery refunds.

Upon further reading of the listing I found this host has 6 condo listings in the city I am vacationing in and this makes me question if airbnb is becoming infected with real estate speculators who use the good name of the airbnb community to use predatory practices to make money at any cost.

I'm a business owner and have run an online retail.customer service business since 2003 and if we ever treated customers like this host is treating us we would be out of business. The fact that this host refuses to be reasonable and tells us to "talk to airbnb" and "maybe airbnnb can help you, we stand by our cancellation policy" shows that they have no problem hiding behind the airbnb platform and deny any responsibility.

Thanks for reading, I am writing this as I wait for the resolution center to allow me to involve airbnb staff to assist me.

Honestly, losing sleep and being upset for the last three days makes me wonder if I want to continue using airbnb although I am sure airbnb will decide in a fair manner once they become involved it is very upsetting to be treated so poorly.

[Gohel0]

Oh sad, It was really frustrating.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@David1157

As a frequent budget traveller I can relate to your frustration. If I were in your shoes, I'd probably feel as bad as you, but that's the thing with strict cancellation at Airbnb or non-refundable tickets/hotel reservations. You need to be ABSOLUTELY sure before you pay, and in case of plane tickets or hotel reservations, non-refundable is non-refundable. That's why when I was an Airbnb guest, I never booked places with strict cancellation.

I'd suggest that you politely approach the host again and ask, if they are able to book diffferent guests during the time you booked and cancelled, please consider providing at least a partial additional refund.

As a host, I had a guest instant book with me for a week 4 months away from the time of booking. I was messaging back and forth with a different potential guest at the time with overlapping date(that I was really  hoping to host), so I sent the IB guest a message immediately (like 3 minutes after getting the booking notification) appologizing, asking him to cancel and find alternate accomodations. I recieved a "Guest requests that you cancel" message about 10 minutes after. I clicked on "cancel" which made it a host-cancellation. My first review EVER on Airbnb is now "The host canceled this reservation 139 days before arrival. This is an automated posting."  I still got penalized as a host for cancelling a booking less than 30 mins from the booking being made and 139 days prior to the reservation, and my commitment rate took a big hit.

[David1157]

@Jessica-and-Henry0

I always message my host prior to booking to see if their accomodation is available prior to booking. In this case I sent a message asking if it was available and didn't realize that sending the message was going to instantly book me.

The booking was for 3 weeks from the day I accidentally booked. The host had no dates taken before , during or after my stay on their calendar.

I can fully understand reasons for having a strict cancellation policy my issue was the fact that I contacted the host immediately to explain, apologize and request a refund for the error. Their response was they "have no intention to offer a refund" due to their policy and to "talk to airbnb maybe they can help".

My issue is with a host that likely didn't have time to even see the reservation before I cancelled, if they did they made no contact with my until I went to the resolution center to ask again for a refund as they ignored my direct message.

I run a retail/customer service business and have since 2003 and we have explicirt cancellation policies and just like airbnb there is descretionery consideration that we have no problem using to be fair with our customers on a case by case basis.

I find a host who refuses a refund after an accidental booking and who is using the strict cancellation policy in such a manner and forcing the guest to have to ask airbnb to arbitrate shows an extremely predaotory nature, especially when their calendar was open before, during and after the dates I was asking about and after 14 minutes from booking to cancelling and my immediate contact with the host I fail to see how the host could seriously consider this to not be a case for discression, unless they were delibrately trying to screw people at any cost.

A funny thing that you mentioned airline tickets, my wife was booking two tickets with Air Canada this morning for a trip in September and they were non-refundable. After the booking we had breakfast and when we checked the email again from Air Canada realized we had booked in August instead of September. We contacted the airline immediately and they changed the tickets for us without any penalty and they were indeed listed non-refundable and non-transferable. It took an hour before we noticed the mistake and they made the change for us.

I might expect a cutthroat attitude regarding errors in booking, strict cancellation policies, and non-refundable fees from an airline company but this is not what I'd expect from an airbnb superhost.

If my business handled clients in such a way I would be out of business quickly. This host is hiding behind airbnb and forcing them to do the work while they just deny responsibility of fair business practice. There is no way possible that in the 14 minutes from when I accidentally booked to when I cancelled that the hosts were inconvenienced in any way or had their calendar affected in any way. I can't see that any rational person, especially a "superhost" would even dare to try and make the judgement that no-refund would even be considered especially with a booking that was for 3 weeks away during a time of total vacancy on their listing calendar.

Meanwhile, they don't respond and my $400 is frozen.

I sadly think that when this is over I will just stop using this platform. Maybe the popularity of the platform is bringing in a new sort of user who are preying on the good name, trust and honesty that once ruled airbnb.

[David51]

David, from the host's point of view please realize that if a host cancels the reservation they are subject to a cash "fine" of $50 and it hurts their "host metrics" as well as their listing in search results as well. In my early days as a host I took 2 conflicting bookings which I cancelled within 10 minutes, keeping the guest informed immediately. Because the latter of the two happened within the last year, it has kept me from "Superhost" status for over 9 months. What you should is contact the host again and see if they will work out a deal with you. My policy is I will refund the guest who cancels any rental fee I receive for the originally booked dates up to the amount of what they paid. However this will only be at the completion of the originally requested dates once Airbnb releases the new (replacement) booking funds to me and that guest has departed without issues. The guests who made the initial error have always been very grateful for the fair way I handle this. Perhaps if your communications with that host have not been too contentious to date you could contact them again and propose this type of solution. Please know however that this would be entirely up to them, and you should have understood the terms and conditions you accepted in regards to Airbnb policy prior to "pulling the trigger". Good luck.

[David1157]

I accidentally booked when I messaged the host inquiring about availability June 10th at 12:00 PM for a stay July 2nd.
I cancelled June 10th at 12:14 PM once I realized my message had "instantly booked" my stay.
I messaged the host at 12:18 apologizing for the error.

I had no communication or message from the host until an hour later when he said he had no intention of issung a full refund because of a strict policy.

After 14 minutes? That is abusive. The host loses nothing if he refunds fully. It is abusive to hide behind a strict policy to steal $400 for an error.

I have my credit card money being held by AirBNB and am waiting for what should be a simple refund policy.

The host lost no availability on his calendar. They are just being greedy.

[Marit-Anne0]

@David1157

If I were you I would contact airbnb - they might be able to help you.  

For future reference - if you want to contact a host prior to booking - use the "contact host" button.

[Cathleen16]

I cancelled my booking within 2 minutes after receiving a call from my Moms Alzheimer’s facility about a serious infection that she was taken to the hospital for they charged my card $3300.00 and refused to refund. There was no inconvenience to anyone. This was the first time I ever used AirBnb. I cannot afford to give away $3300.00 dollars after canceling a reservation within 2 minutes. I am completely devastated 

[City-Limits-Ranch0]

@Cathleen16contact Airbnb and ask for an extenuating circumstances cancellation and refund.

If they refuse or you can't reach them you can escalate it on Twitter.

If they don't give you a refund you could dispute the charge with your credit card company  to try to force Airbnb to uphold their own policy.  Travel cancellation due to serious illness of family member should be an extenuating circumstance as long as you are prevented from traveling at all.  However you will have to prove at some point that you cancelled or rescheduled your entire trip.  You will have to NOT travel during the dates in order to show that you COULDN'T travel during the dates.

Next time you should have trip cancellation insurance in place before booking anything.

Really you should not book places with strict cancellation policies unless you are willing to abide by them.

[Marit-Anne0]

@Cathleen16

Your situation could fall under the extenuating circumstances clause

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1339/how-do-i-file-an-extenuating-circumstances-claim

[Suzana57]

I booked 2 Airbnb on 03 24 and I did not get the refund after I cancelled in 15 min

[Duan62]

my situation is completely same with you. I have ordered a hostel and cancelled 10 minutes because i found my mistake, but  and host don't accept my refund. just in 10 minutes, I lost 2700 Chinese Yuan(400 American dollars), i am Chinese and working in Japan.

**[Image removed - Community Center Guidelines]

[Duan62]

my situation is completely same with you. I have ordered a hostel and cancelled 10 minutes because i found my mistake, but airbnb and host don't accept my refund. just in 10 minutes, I lost 2700CNY(400USD), i am chinese and working in japan.