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Have any other hosts here had this issue- apparently, they’ve just had a massive system issue which meant a whole bunch of accounts were inadvertently deleted and the all the reservations cancelled.
The only reason I found out was because a future guest had been texting me to ask questions and texted me to ask (rather than Airbnb messaged) when her reservation was cancelled. I then tried to log in to check and discovered there was no account associated with my email.
I called Airbnb who reinstated my account which meant I could see the various dissatisfied emails from future guests calling us unprofessional for cancelling their booking for no reason (rightly so) etc etc. Apparently, Airbnb are working on reinstating our bookings now but I wonder how many we are going to lose with people receiving a cancellation and rebooking somewhere else immediately and whether we will be compensated for this…
Sorry this happened to you. Haven’t read anywhere that it’s a widespread system issue. Is this what Airbnb told you?
A word of advice- always make a note of booked guests’ phone numbers (and I now ask guests to check that the phone number on their Airbnb account is current, after having a few who neglected to change phone numbers when they moved or lost their phone) as soon as their booking is confirmed, as well as a copy of your guest calendar in case you get locked out of your account for whatever reason, or there’s some system glitch where you can’t send or receive messages. Airbnb has too many tech glitches to entirely depend on their platform without having back-up info somewhere.
Good advice. As soon as I get a reservation, I take a screen shot of all the reservation details, most importantly the guest’s phone number, and store it on my hard drive, just so I’m covered for such contingencies.
I just had guests show up who booked last minute today and I did not get a notification of their booking! We were getting ready for bed and had no room for them. Fortunately, they were understanding and said it had happened to them the yesterday as well. So I picked up my phone to call CS and was told the number was no longer in service. Any suggestions?
Yep, whole bunch of posts just appeared on the Airbnb CC- hosts freaking out, guests freaking out, some hosts said their guests had already booked somewhere else when seeing their reservation had been cancelled.
This is the most incompetent company I’ve ever encountered. They essentially have two jobs- keep their tech flowing smoothly and handle payments. Neither of which they appear to be able to do in any consistent fashion.
Not one week goes by without some tech glitch, and that’s not an exaggeration. This one is a really major screw-up.
By way of update, this happened to us at 8am (Australian EST). We realised at 9am and my husband (co host) called Airbnb right away. They said they would investigate and get back to us- at that time I don’t think they knew it was an issue. I called at 11am to find out what was happening and was then told it was a known issue and someone was working on it right away to reinstate the bookings. I even got a message from someone saying they were working on it.
It’s now 6pm and I haven’t received any updates so called them up. The person I spoke to didn’t even know it was an issue at first!? She eventually said (after a lot of ranting on my end) that she would contact the two next guests with bookings in the next week to ask them to rebook. But for all of the other guests… they can’t reinstate the bookings and we have to contact them to ask them to rebook… but they wouldn’t have received a refund yet and it could take up to 10-15 days!
Honestly, if I were a guest and I’d received a message from a host saying “hey airbnb deleted our account which is why your booking was cancelled but now we need to ask you to rebook even though you haven’t got your funds back yet…” I’d probably be looking for new accommodation.
I’m in NIce, France. All my reservations have been cancelled yesterday evening and I wasn’t able to log in because the system no longer recognised my email address, phone number nor password.
The system of Airbnb said that it was me who cancelled all the reservations and the dates related are all blocked. The CS of Airbnb of course doesn’t answer phone calls.
We woke up here in Europe (our listing is in Costa Rica) to find ALL 17 bookings (over next few months all the way up to Feb 2022) were cancelled. We initially had same login problem as well although that is now resolved.
I spoke to Airbnb (after line dropping and waiting over 30 mins) to be told that they knew about a ‘bug’ in system that is leading to reservations being cancelled without host or guests knowledge etc) but they couldn’t give me a time frame of when this will be sorted or how reservations will be reinstated not to mention the logistics of new payments etc.
We even have guests in our lodge at the moment (checked in yesterday), who have received a message from Airbnb saying their booking has been cancelled and they’ll be receiving a full refund!
So far we have written to all our guests explaining that there is a bug in system and its out of our hands etc but some guests have already booked alternative accommodations. This is a disaster right.
The customer service person who I spoke with, while he tried to be helpful, essentially said he’s passing the case onto the relevant dept (regulatory responses) and gave me a ticket number. I was told they’d contact me via airbnb app, but so far nothing…
In Portugal there are issues too!
I have 2 apartments in Lisbon and all my reservations were, by Airbnb, cancelled.
The guests are already contacting me and asking why did I cancelled the reservation…
From Airbnb just a plain, “we are trying to understand whta is happening”…
Thought I should post an update to see how other hosts are handling this horrific situation.
Since this morning’s awful revelation of ‘the Airbnb bug’ and seeing 17 reservations cancel in a flash, we’ve written to all our guests pleading that they bear with us as Airbnb (hopefully) plans to sort the problem and reinstall all the bookings. Some guests have been very patient and loyal, as naturally they’re keen to stay in the place they initially booked, whereas others (so far 3 separate groups), have all opted to book elsewhere (outside of Airbnb) at small boutique hotels in the area… apparently not feeling confident in the Airbnb platform and having their bookings cancelled at such short notice…
So far, this amounts to just short of $3000 of lost income up in smoke and our calendar is still no updated and has all the cancellations days ‘blocked’ so none of our guests can even re-book…
Airbnb lines are busy with automated systems sending your round in circles… and still no response on the infamous ‘ticket number’ I was given this morning…
I’ve posted my despair on various Airbnb facebook groups and pages, no responses so far. Not sure what else we can even really be doing…
Just to be clear we are just a host forum. Mostly but not exclusively Airbnb hosts and not at all affiliated with Airbnb. This forum is funded by a private individual.
I don’t think I’ve heard of an outage/problem of this extent before and I’m not sure anyone knows of anything to do. Kudos to you for having kept a record to be able to contact all your guests.
I suggest you diversify and list on more than one platform. In addition it sounds like it would be worth your while to have your own booking website. Perhaps you could have your guests who are willing book directly with you.
Good luck to all, it definitely sounds like a nightmare.
“Thanks, Ricardo. We have been actively monitoring this issue since we became aware of it and our team is working diligently to assist all impacted users. Rest assured, a Support Ambassador will be in touch. In the meantime, we do not recommend creating a new account. Thank you.”
Wow. Airbnb has had a lot of glitches in the past which is a good indication that their software and ecosystem has been a big mess for a long time. This one is much more serious than any I’ve heard of and it comes at a time when hosts are more sensitive because of the COVID cancellation fiasco and generally lower bookings due to COVID. Plus, Airbnb’s cutbacks give them limited resources to deal with the additional customer support burden. I expect they’ll just try to put a Band-Aid on it instead of implementing a robust fix.
Somebody take Airbnb’s shovel away so they can’t dig the hole any deeper.
I have lost all correspondence on my listing. I cannot contact my guest because I can’t see any info other than - my listing and thankfully my reviews - that was not there last night . I keep calling and they have cancelled my guests and I have no response. Not only is covid a hit but now this . Someone please help me
No one here can help you. They are apparently aware of the glitch are working to reinstate bookings and contact hosts and guests who were impacted. I think you’re just going to have to be patient but also keep on them.
And going forward, always make a note of booked guests’ contact info and stay dates off-site so you can stay in communication with guests if Airbnb has one of their all-too-frequent glitches.
I think they’re going for Lifetime Achievement Award for the most incompetent tech of any online company.
