AirBnB penalizing us because of flash flooding - if this is not "Extenuating Circumstances" then what is?

AirBnB has just penalized us for cancelling a guest because our place got affected by flash flooding. The rain here in Australia has been extensive over the last few weeks, with flood warnings issued over some areas, but NOT ANYWHERE NEAR OUR AREA so we believed we were ok to proceed with the booking. We had even discussed the situation with the guest, pointing out the conditions were poor, but the guests assured us they were ok to proceed. But sure enough, the night before the guest was due to arrive - and starting after midnight, when we were asleep - the local river flooded unexpectedly and damaged a bridge the guest would have to use to get to our place.

The bridge was partly washed away and clearly unsafe to use. When we saw what had happened, we tried to contact the guest by phone and message to see if they were already on their way or might be able to defer their travel, but we could not contact them. In the end we had to contact AirBnB and ask them to try and contact the guest, and also to cancel the booking. We did eventually hear from the guest, who was disappointed but understanding. AirBnB? Not so much.

We sent AirBnB pictures of the partially washed away bridge. They asked us if it had been on the news anywhere. Of course it had not - too small, too local and not at all newsworthy given the major flooding events happening elsewhere.

AirBnB now says they will not waive the cancellation penalties since this does not constitute “Extenuating Circumstances”. I have asked them what we should have done, because I can’t think of anything. Are we supposed to be better at predicting the weather than the weather bureau? Are we supposed to let a guest attempt to cross a clearly unsafe bridge over a flooded river?

Will report their response :frowning:

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It’s a stern reminder to never cancel a booking. Don’t trust Airbnb to have any common sense. Sadly you have discovered that you must always force the guest to cancel under any and all circumstances and I have learned that from your experience.

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Yes, I think you may be correct. We had a rush of blood to the head and thought ensuring the safety of our guest was more important than protecting our Superhost status. Silly us! :frowning:

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Sorry to hear about this, and I hope you prevail in getting this covered under the EC policy.
I always get the guest to agree on the dashboard to a cancellation and then use the “admin” cancel - calling CS and having them cancel. They’ll call the guest to see if the guest agrees, then cancel at (supposedly) no penalty to us and a full refund to the guest. I did this numerous times when our government told us they would allow us to open last year, but then kept pushing the date out. We weren’t SH, so I don’t know if this impacts that, but I don’t think so.

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Contact them on their social media with pics and call them out on it

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As said previously, I never trust Airbnb. I send all my issues to Airbnb via messages. On my caller Id I have Airbnb phone number as Airbnb NO NOT ANSWER. I make sure all conversations are in writing and screenshot them with the date and time. The one time I had to cancel due to a power outage, I had it all agreed to in writing and documented.

Another time, I felt very uncomfortable with a guest and should never accepted. I contact airbnb and used the advice on this forum (in writing) and they cancelled with no penalty.

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It actually was more important!

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@rossh Maybe I’m missing something. . . But may I ask why you’re being so proactive and insisting on canceling the guest’s reservation?

You tried to divert the guest. They refused. You tried to call the guest. Couldn’t get through. That’s where you should just sit and wait. You did your part.

Then, have the booking move forward. Wait for the guest not to arrive due to the local calamity. Or have them contact you to tell you they can’t arrive (at which point you tell them “told you so” if you so choose) and then go from there? You keep yourself protected by not canceling, and then you’re the “nice guy” when you opt to refund the guest (if that’s what you’d like to do) when they can’t arrive due to circumstances outside of everyone’s control.

This feels a lot more complicated than it is.

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Maybe I’m missing something. . . But may I ask why you’re being so proactive and insisting on canceling the guest’s reservation?

It is not that we wanted to cancel the reservation. It is that we had to try any means to stop the guest from even attempting to get to us, and they may already have been on their way. The bridges have had their supports washed out by the floods. Superficially they look ok, but if you tried to drive on them you would have a pretty good chance of ending up in the river.

Time was ticking by, and we had no way of contacting the guest - at the time we had no internet (due to the storm) and we have no mobile coverage at any time, but we do have a radio phone - but the guest was not answering. So I phoned AirBnB instead and explained the situation to them. So technically it was AirBnB who cancelled, but I am not trying to shift blame to them - I agreed to it.

Perhaps we should not have cancelled. Maybe we did the wrong thing. I don’t know. But we did it with the full knowledge and involvement of AirBnB, expecting that these would constitute “Extenuating Circumstances” (I had recently read their policy on host cancellations, having had recent experience with it). We were surprised when AirBnB subsequently decided they were not. Bridges washing way when no flood warning had even been issued for our area is apparently considered “normal” now.

I can accept one penalty for perhaps being a bit too rash in cancelling this booking, but we have lots more bookings coming up, and these may all have to be cancelled. We don’t know yet. But I do know that if AirBnB hits us with a penalty for each individual cancellation, we will not only lose our income, we will end up owing AirBnB well over a thousand dollars in penalty fees.

So I have asked AirBnB what we should have done, because (as I have explained to them) we are going to face the same circumstances again very shortly. But it’s been two days now and no response from AirBnB. Today I posted a message on their social media. They claim to be working on the issue, but gave no other feedback.

I have drafted a message I intend to send to all our guests as their bookings approach if we don’t get better advice from AirBnB. Basically, we will outline the situation and ask the guests to cancel. But what do we do if the guest either doesn’t respond, or if they refuse to cancel because we can only refund them our portion of their costs, not AirBnB’s service fees?

What would you do?

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You said you can’t text because you have no mobile service? Try calling or also look and see if you can find them on an app like What’s App.

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YOU DID THE RIGHT THING. Now social media shame Air for it and contact the guest again and tell them to write a message saying they’re thankful they didn’t come to a soggy end in a river torrent and agree that you were correct in canceling.

If the bridge is unsafe and there are floods in the area and I’d booked and you couldn’t get to me, I’d want you to move heaven and earth to tell me to keep my sorry ass home.

EDIT: And if I’m so much of a fecking idjit that I insisted on booking a holiday home in the middle of a monsoon and was AWOL for contact to tell me bridges are out, then I deserve my soggy fate.

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@rossh I agree you did the right thing. There are a lot of hosts who just see guests as dollar signs, and will always advise you to take a hard line. Those hosts may be great hosts as far as attending well to all their guests when they stay, but the objective is good ratings and reviews and more bookings.

Others consider how they would like to be treated if they were in the same situation as their guests. Sure, it’s a business that you are making money from, but the financial aspect doesn’t take precedence over everything.

I would also be really concerned if my guests would be putting themselves in danger trying to get to my place and would be trying to contact them.

So you did the right thing as a human being and a host. What’s not right is that Airbnb would penalize you for that.

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Can I ask what is probably a daft question? Weren’t the local emergency services dealing with the matter? Closing the road to the bridge or something?

We are remote, and we have no mobile service near where we live. We usually have satellite internet but it was not working at the time. Our radio phone was still working but the guest was not answering, so our only choice at the time was to phone AirBnB.

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We live remotely. Emergency services would have attended if there had actually been an accident, but not just to put up a road closed sign. These roads are not their responsibility, nor are they the responsibility of the local council - they are managed and maintained by the state forestry commission, who do not work weekends, but will probably put up such signs today. Had we been able to cross the bridges ourselves we might have put road closed signs on the other end, but we could not cross them - and putting signs on our side would have been a bit pointless.

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True - but thanks for replying. I guess it was a dumb city-dweller comment I made. :flushed:

Good idea about contacting the guest. I have now asked them whether they think we did the right thing or not. Of course they may say we did not - but I can live with that.

I am a bit reluctant to shame AirBnB publicly until they respond. It is possible they will come to their senses on their own. Also, I do not want to antagonize them further and jeopardize $20,000 worth of current bookings. Okay, that sounds a bit selfish - but it is a consideration.

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Just got the guest’s response. They agree we did the right thing. I will point this out to AirBnB.

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You said just now:

But your OP was:

So, which is it?

It’s good that you sent the guest multiple warnings on the Air message thread. It’s good that you called them a handful of times to follow up. The only thing missing was to possibly call Air and have them create a ticket to formally document that you tried to reach the guest and that they were non-responsive.

If the original post is true, I’m still not following why you ever tried to even touch the actual booking.

Regardless, it sounds like it all worked out? I still can’t tell.

A lot of other posters above are telling you that you did the right thing because you contacted the guest. Good on you for that. However, you’re kind of in a pickle because I think you canceled a guest’s reservation which you should never, ever do. Canceling a guest’s reservation has nothing to do with warning a guest that a bridge is down and/or your home is inaccessible/dangerous.

I would use the following template:

Good morning, (insert name of guest here)!

As you may have heard, we have had (insert calamity here). It has been a massive hardship and has forced us to close (insert name of listing here) We are doing everything we can to get listing back up and running as soon as possible. As you can imagine, this (insert calamity here) and the resulting booking cancelations that will result, will take a major toll on our tiny business and our lives. Nobody want’s (insert listing here) to be open for business more than me.

We know you were intending on having a wonderful vacation at (insert name of listing here). Unfortunately, that wonderful vacation to occur as scheduled will be impossible due to (insert calamity here).

But, have no fear, you have options!

  1. You can cancel your reservation outright and we will (insert refund structure and/or how much money you’d like to give back to them here). This refund will likely NOT include a recovery of your service fees from Airbnb. I’m so sorry about this! If you decide to take this route, you will want to call Airbnb @ XXX.XXX.XXXX and see if they can help you. Sadly, the scope of any/all refunds that we administer do not include Airbnb’s service fees. You must contact them directly.
  2. You can reschedule your stay with us to (insert weeks/months that you predict the calamity will be an issue here) down the road. This would be our preference by far! We will gladly accept your schedule change free of any charges. Airbnb fees will NOT need to be repaid.
  3. You can keep your existing reservation knowing that you will be unable to stay at the home due to (insert calamity here). This would be extremely generous on your part and it is not necessary. But this is absolutely your option!

Either way, let me know how you would like to proceed. And to be clear: (insert name of listing here) is 100% inaccessible, unusable, and uninhabitable for the foreseeable future. One of the 3 decisions above will need to be made. If you can let me know in the next day or so, it would me a lot to me.