So, all the recent outcry about the changes to AirBnB’s refund policy have had a positive impact….
The bit that was most concerning for me (and many others) was the rehoming cost (on top of the refund). That is gone.
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That’s awesome… hosts can continue to cancel on guests and I will continue to get some profitable bookings from those guests.
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Love that “blame the victim” language: “we understand that many hosts aren’t familiar with the policy.”
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Did you read the responses? You have to be wary of C. Powell’s tricky ways of stating things.
She said, “We’re removing the language about hosts being responsible for rebooking costs from the policy.”
“Removing the language” was questioned by responders, as it doesn’t necessarily mean that Airbnb won’t, in fact, charge hosts for this.
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Yes, her response was condescending and victim blaming.
Yes, she did only say they were removing the language, but she also said they had never made a host pay for the rebooking. As long as the language is removed, I think (hope) that will be good enough. With the language in there, you know the more clueless CS reps were going to be refunding and requiring the host to pay for the rebooking.
The 72 hour limit stands though so I expect that will have so undesirable and unforeseen consequences.
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What did “responsible for rebooking costs” actually mean?
Is it the difference between the cost of the guest’s original booking and the cost of the rebooking?
Did they intend to charge the host for Airbnb customer support time consumed by the rebooking process?
Something else?
And she also said,
“I also want to assure you that we rigorously assess claims from guests in order to help protect you from fraudulent claims. And, we take action to hold guests accountable for those types of violations of our Community Standards.”
And,
“Because of the importance of house rules, we’ve made them visible to guests when they book”
And,
“Airbnb as a company is spending a great deal of time and effort ensuring our customer service levels of attention and understanding are where they should be, and they are trained to rigorously assess all guest claims. I believe there is more investment here than there has ever been before.”
The woman is obviously out of touch with the reality of what hosts experience on a daily basis- you can’t believe a word of what she says. She was hired for her PR spin prowess honed at Disney, and she apparently has zero qualms about lying.
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To be fair, it does seem that way because hosts are complaining about things that have been in the policy since 2019, a full 3 years. The uproar seems to be primarily about paying to relocate a guest and yet it was already there, so I can only surmise that a lot of hosts are not familiar with the policy. I believe she is correct. And none of this has made any sense to me because I am familiar with the policy.
It is gone now. But it has been there since 2019 and there wasn’t a fuss 3 years ago. This is from the current 2019 policy:
More than 24 hours has been in the policy for the last 3 years as well. In fact, “72 hours” seems preferable to the current “more than 24 hours”. Also from the current 2019 policy:
Here’s a link. From 2019. You do have to scroll down since they have the soon-to-be policy above it.
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Notably, Mr. Chesky is spending a year as a guest, not a year as a host…
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According to Airbnb, Chesky continued “hosting” for years after Airbnb was founded. I don’t know how much hosting and how hands on it was but I don’t have any doubt that he’s got at least a year of experience hosting.
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On his profile, he has 50 reviews from guests, between late 2008 to early 2015. However, the guy who wrote the first review of Brian’s hosting for Airbed and Breakfast, in 2008, admits to being his roommate so that one is going to need to come down. I’m positive it would go against the terms of service if there had been one at the time 
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Let’s face it, no one is going to write a bad review of Chesky’s Airbnb and if anyone has the power to get a bad review removed, it’s him. But in those early years he might have had to deal with some problematic guests. Or maybe not, I’ve not really had any major problems.
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Wouldn’t exactly call it backing down when they will implement the 72 hour clause. And, while they act like it’s for some major problem, like no refrigerator or pool when the listing says it has one, beware, people will be able to cancel for bugs or leaves in pools.
I feel like they talk out of both sides of their mouths and are not clear about anything.
Yeah, so they’ve had the host will pay to rebook a guest that has cancelled since 2019, but they say they never used it. If you’ve never used it, why was it sitting there for 3 years?
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He has a few that I certainly wouldn’t want.
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Things weren’t the same when Chesky started out, nor were they the same in 2015 when he quit hosting. Back then, customer service was based in SF, they actually cared about hosts, Airbnb wasn’t full of refund-scamming guests, nor the internet full of blogs about how to scam a free Airbnb stay.
And flopping an air mattress down on the floor of the living room and listing an Airbnb was fine. It isn’t now.
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And how would we know if they had used it? Just believe Ms. Powell?
My response was more to the fact that she said that “we understand that many hosts aren’t familiar with the policy”. Which seems true. I’ve never heard anyone discuss the policy about having to pay to re-book guests before, even though it’s been there for 3 years. Now there’s a strike all of a sudden, lol.
And the 72-hour clause seems like a vast improvement over the current “more than 24 hours clause”.
Ignorance is bliss, or so they say.
Show some respect please, they are officially referred to as “The Founders”.
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