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Exactly! The User Conduct section was greatly expanded and its language even more vague and ominous. (Mind you, the person who up-rented my place without my permission and stole my photos to put on her own platform, she’s still on Airbnb.)
In fact, I am surprised they have NOT gone after the owner of this site for using a clear Airbnb logo on the header. Although, there may be some agreement connection between the two.
This is indeed the home our family lives in and we rent if for a month to pay for bills. As a result we have to vacate the house and hire someone to clean the house and check guests in and out as we are not on site. I do not think this is the point here. The point is how AirBnb makes decisions on hosts’ behalf which make us loose money without consulting the only people impacted ie us!
I couldn’t agree more and have told customer service several times… This should be handled via a serious and thorough insurance process as opposed to obscure and arbitrary decisions.
That sucks eggs, and it’s one of my fears for one of my 2 listings, one of which is just a shared space in my living room but the other is a fairly large condo that gets booked for events. I know “poop” happens and people have to change plans, but for me it would mean the loss of a few thousand $ and re-renting a long-term listing is difficult at the last minute.
Seems unfair that they didn’t offer you some compensation. Are you going to pursue the issue?
I’ve tried and argued but unfortunately theres nothing to be done as they are behind this ‘‘extenuating circumstances’’ policy and keep resending the same link over and over again. They refuse to communicate objective criteria or documents used to back up their decision. What sucks is that they cancelled two different reservations in a row and the second one was cancelled after the day when the guest was supposed to check in.
What? That’s not right at all! Air’s policy, at least for “flexible”, is that the guest is refunded for the number of days left 24 hours after the cancellation.
Bottom line is, the customer is always right with 3rd party Airbnb and we get screwed. Hopefully this doesn’t happen too often and if it does then what’s the point of giving us the option to choose how flexible or not we are about cancellations?
Same thing happened to me. Less than a month out for a booking I’ve held for 5 months. I get so little bookings from Air BnB, and the majority from Trip Advisor, so I am more annoyed than concerned for the longevity of my business. I will take the advice of a previous poster and only use Air BnB for last minute bookings, and try to redirect any enquiries I get to other booking engines with more reasonable policies.
ANYONE OUT THERE INTERESTED IN FINDING A WAY TO PRESSURE AIRBNB TO CHANGE REFUND POLICY?
I have just lost 2600€ from a last minute cancellation…so no hope of filling the space at end of season. Airbnb accepted extenuating circumstances without consulting me or reviewing emails that showed the flakiness of guests ( first it was an aging mother who might get ill and then it was an elderly father in hospital in Germany!!!)
I had offered the guests a full credit for a future holiday within two years which would mean nobody lost out…in the meantime Airbnb gave them a full refund!
I am gutted and now not able to meet my mortgage this month!
This is a hard one. It happened to me, too – in March. I had surgery in December so I had to pay a friend to host and clean for me. Then, our new city law came into effect, which meant I had to apply for a license, which took two months for the city to process. Not wanting to defy the rules, I shut down my calendar until I got the license (January and February were lost). The only reservation I got in March was for spring break week, and my guests cancelled at the last minute because their teenager had a “sore throat”. Airbnb sided with the guests and I was out $1500, after not having any rental income for months. I guess it is the cost of doing business. I am not sure of their rationale, but in the end, they are the brokers and there seems to be nothing we can do about it. I think the best solution is for Airbnb to partner with a travel insurance company.
I wonder what happens if you send them your own separate contract, and put in your house rules that AirBnB extenuated circumstances policy does not apply.
Nice thought Chris, but if Air controls the money and sides with the guest, you don’t have a say. simple as that.
Yes it is their choice. Which is why they also chose a strict cancellation policy and depended on Air B&B to genuinely enforce that and to do so objectively. Hosts and Airbnb are partners or at least should be. Each party is supposed to look out for the benefit of the other - hosts do so by providing a good experience for the guest, which reinforces the AirBnB brand. Air B&B does so by providing a way for hosts to list their spaces and by handling certain aspects of customer care. Hosts are supposed to be able to trust AirBnB to make decisions responsibly, as AirBnB has the hosts’ money in their hands. This host’s choice to run their rental remotely has nothing to do with it. It’s about the accountability owed by AirBnB to this host and to others.
In the last year I have had several longer term booking 2 week+ being canceled by Airbnb for an unspecified reason. There was no payout to me, 0, zero, and my complains have got me nowhere.
I must say that I have several listings and we host a good amount of guests, So I consider my odds are decent.
1 of the guests had multiple great reviews by hosts, so Im wondering if it is the guest that put the pressure on Airbnb to cancel with no penalty. Why should I as a host be held liable ? My cancellation policy is strict, yet if its not enforced I do not feel secure that Airbnbn will take care of me.
Just wondering what other booking engines with more reasonable policies you use?
Actually, there are quite a lot one can do about it. Including advertising on other sites, and (more importantly) creating one’s own web site / booking platform.
@sandy2, I thought you had your own website. Or was I mistaken?
This is I what I being hearing a lot lately, that many hosts are more proactive to start advertising themselves instead of using Airbnb as a bridge between you and your guests. For me it became a lot more difficult to get a new reservation now that the platform is over saturated of hosts. I was happy before when Airbnb’s role was to give me guests and my role was to make them have the best lodging experience possible. Now I have to also invest a lot of time on trying to find new guests so what is the point of paying 15% for a service that it isn’t delivering what you need. You could collect it all yourself and forget about the search algorithm, the ridiculous suggested prices and the enforcement to use IB.
I finally caved last week and added IB (with the most restrictions). Guess what? My views, inquiries, and bookings are back up. I hate the fact that they punish us for wanting to have a couple of messages with prospective guest before accepting a booking. I was on page 14 of 17 pages; now I’m on page 2. Having said that, I got my first IB booking and they actually told me what I ask of all bookings – ages of all guests, purpose of the visit. They also added their professions. And, they have great reviews. We’ll see!
Being proactive is always a good idea. Of course, it takes time, and not everyone has a lot of time. In particular, setting up a good website is quite time consuming.
They are some solution that are making it easy to make a website