New cancellation policies: Booking overlapped stays is possible!

They don’t have public investor calls, only their Board and VCs would be privy to that info. Not saying its not accurate, but just not officially public knowledge.

No I meant Homeaway. Cabinhost used to like to listen in to their calls to hear what evils they had planned. :smiley:

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Well if Hosts in Italy stay with AirBnB, AirBnB will roll - out this new Policy all over the world.

The only option to avoid this new policy, is when there will be a massive decline in AirBnB hosts in Italy.

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http://airhostsforum.com/t/warning-dont-depend-on-airbnb/7595

The above post summarizes the risks of depending onAirbnb but it applies to any other BnB site too. The conversion will be slow but in the long run, people will start to find their ways to advertise themselves without the need of relying on third party websites that take a cut of 20%. The only thing needed is trust lo let guest fell safe on booking with an owner directly but the web market is wise and eventually, a solution will come across.

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The hosts should speak up in this year’s Air Open. This is getting ridiculous comparing how lax guest cancellation is and how strict the host cancellation is.

I’m not sure what that means. I’d prefer to say that humans are ingenious creatures, and necessity is the mother of invention.

I asked Airbnb about this cancellation change they’ve made in Italy, the other day via Twitter. I told them I hope that policy never makes its way to the U.S. and I have to give them credit for their pretty honest reply. They said:

"We’re actively collecting feedback on those policies from Italian hosts and you’ll certainly be notified of any updates in the U.S.!"

That’s about as close as I’ve ever seen a big company come to admitting they’re hoping to roll out an unpopular change.

Hopefully the Italian hosts will make a huge uproar about it and/or just stop hosting until it passes. Find another venue. And by the way, if you’re in Italy, and you depend on this income, you don’t have to stop hosting through Air altogether to hurt them. Just host a few less nights a month than you usually do. Every night you block on your calendar is a night Air could have rented but now they can’t. If everybody hosted 20% fewer nights, that would hurt Air greatly and they would immediately reverse this change.

I used to host via Craigslist years ago before Airbnb ever came along.

Disadvantages:

  • No guest reviews, no idea who you’re talking to.
  • No guarantee they would pay

Advantages:

  • No host reviews!
  • They paid cash!
  • In the end, they always paid and no one ever cancelled!

On the disadvantages, if Airbnb changes to the Italian cancellation policy then there will no longer be any guarantee we’ll get paid. And reviews are already useless because 90% of the people we rent to don’t have any. So, if Airbnb changes the cancellation policy they will have effectively put Airbnb on an absolute equal footing with Craigslist! We’ll be no more protected on Air than we are on Craigs.

Oh and the weird thing was - I used to get pretty good traffic back in 2007-2008 from Craigslist! And that was before Airbnb even existed!

I think I might go repost that Craigslist ad now!

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I feel your pain and I admit I also start looking for other options to list my place. In fact, I’m starting to consider Booking.com which is the worst and most unsafe of all sites but based in what Airbnb is now, I don’t see too many differences. At least in Booking if the guest cancel DURING his stay I don’t have to refund him for the night he hasn’t spend. Besides, Airbnb strategy seems to be more and more into incorporate new hosts to the platform instead on making movements to make the demmand grown. Prices are getting lower and lower, inquiries are coming very slow and our security as hosts doesn’t seem to be important for Air any longer.

Can you give us an exact process for how your guests book on Craigslist. Do they send a deposit? Do you send a rental contract?

This is such a joke. How can the feedback be anything but BAD?

Oh sure, thanks for raising the commission while giving us less control over bookings and making the guests the star at all costs. Thanks for stomping hard on hosts. .
I think Air is losing sight of the fact that this has to be a two way street and that hosts are eating so much risk with this policy. Too much pushing by them is going to send hosts back to renting long term or to other platforms that offer more control.

If you are going to raise the rate, do it by one percentage point, across the board. Don’t make it conditional on strict cancellation policies. I just don’t understand why they would bite the hand that feeds them. VRBO and Homeaway did this to great backlash. Their hosts are universally unhappy and dislike the platform after all their shenanigans went down.

With the new policies Airbnb got married with the guest at the same time he sends us the divorce letter.

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GOOD ONE!!! It helps to keep a sense of humour, Flor!
I assume you are in Florence?

Not sure if the policies have changed any - but a couple of years ago I had a Booking.com family book the house for 5 nights. They left a day early, no complaints but just said they were headed back home.

The host can then go into their dashboard and submit a change for when the guest did stay. That way it is correct before they issue out the monthly invoices. Booking.com only charges commission on the nights the guest spent at the home, not the number they reserved. So for the 5th day I did not get charged any commission, and of course I keep all the money.

I think way back in the day Air had a Craiglist listing for hosts, and Air updated the Craigslist listing for the host.

@konacoconutz - anyone??

Yeah they did!!! They did a free cross post, now another thing for the Airbnb museum.

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If conversion rate increases, and the number of hosts that leaves AirBnB remains under a set target.

“feedback” for AirBnB is not equal to hosts opinions, but to revenue. If they do not loose money with the new policy, feedback is good.

Hello everybody, considering the new cancellation policies, we started a petition here :


For the people going to the Airbnb Open in LA , I kindly ask to spread the voice and to try to speak with Airbnb managers. Thank you for your support, I hope we together can stop or rinegoziate this bad policies.

Italian community manager and Italian country manager , told to us , italian hosts, that the new policies will be roll out worldwide after the Airbnb Open.
In my opinion, also the twitter answer says that they are ready to roll out the new cancellation terms worldwide, they won’t stop in Italy.