But that’s how it is in reality. Usually the person who is not at fault suffers more physically and financially in the accident. The at fault person provides their insurance information and walks away. The paperwork the losing party has to go through is more than the paperwork for the person at fault. I have been on both sides and that was my experience.
I do wish there was a law that required people to vaccinate. Then my analogy would be better. But it’s not the case.
Being vaccinated will probably keep you from being hospitalized, but it may not prevent infection. Even mild infections can lead to long COVID symptoms.
And they are not putting just themselves at risk, they are putting everyone they contact at risk.
Just remember Matthew 19:24 when they intubate you.
Agreed… anti-vaxxers are so selfish.
I just looked up what this is. I’m not sure I understand the context of your comment.
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Sorry you just don’t get it. Once again- having the vaccine doesn’t prevent you from getting Covid
If you encourage guests with Covid to stay so you don’t have to refund a booking , then you are knowingly encouraging the spread of Covid in your community and putting those who are vulnerable at increased risk.
You are fortunate if you have never had to leave your home ever in the last two years . Most of us have to work outside the home, take kids to school, go shopping etc.
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You keep victim blaming . The only person to blame if you bring Covid into your community is you. (Well and the guest who chooses to travel)
Your lack of understanding that you can still get Covid if you have been vaccinated is frightening.
How would you feel if a vaccinated shopkeeper who had asthma ended up in hospital with Covid because your guest, or an older women in a restaurant contracted Covid from your guest and ended up on a ventilator?
Presumably you’d victim blame them for going out?
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No. You’re being deliberately obtuse and blithe about health and safety.
You’re lauding profits over the thousands of people who would be affected and effected by that guest’s choice to travel.
You’re part of the problem. And I’m done here because you’re arguing that it’s OK if other people make horrible choices and don’t get travel insurance because they didn’t know better and that you’re not part of the problem for the fallout.
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I was not aware about this phenomenon. I looked up some articles on it and I now realize I was victim blaming.
The Atlantic says
many feel that they have a little more control over whether they become victims of crimes, that they can take precautions that will protect them. Therefore, some people have a harder time accepting that the victims of these crimes didn’t contribute to (and bear some responsibility for) their own victimization.
The Psychology of Victim Blaming - The Atlantic
There are certainly vulnerable populations that will be affected by a guest with covid even if they are vaccinated.
I will have to think about how to approach this situation. Perhaps I will request the guest to cancel and offer to reschedule their trip in the shoulder/low season when I don’t get too many bookings. How to balance the scammer requests vs. legitimate requests is a challenge.
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I want to commend you for remaining open to learning and polite in response to the criticism of your attitude.
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Up here, I’ve had 4 shots, but I live in a high non compliance area. I came down with symptoms on Sunday. I have an in-home test and blew negative. Probably too many French fries.
No one gets in here under any circumstance without 3 shots. That doesn’t mean I won’t catch Covid. It means I have less chance of dying.
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I’m a host as well as a guest. I lost over $2000 because I cancelled a trip because my mother 84 years old is fighting COVID. I cancelled 6 weeks before the trip and had to cancel the whole trip. My mother is on a respirator and have been down for two weeks now. With all this being communicated to the host, no refund and no reply from the host. As a guest, I wasn’t able to give a review. I contacted Airbnb, who too had a difficult time getting a reply from the host. My mother is not getting better, even after two boosters of the vaccine. As a host I would think other hosts would be more compassionate and Aloha. Even with the removal of COVID19 as an extenuating circumstance, there are exceptions to the rule. With 6 weeks out from the reservations, the host has ample time to have other guests book their place. I’ve spent the past week trying to get to this host my several means and yet they are not replying. I’m disappointed with these hosts.
Is the short-term rental in Clark County for less than 31 days? If so,
You can report the violation to the County here:
Jim Andersen is the county’s code enforcement chief. (702) 455-4191 • (702) 455-2080. You might wish to call the offices to see if they have any suggestions on how you might recover your $2,000 beyond small claims court. perhaps if Code enforcement would give you a letter stating that the rental was illegal you could take that letter to Airbnb.
I don’t know whether writing Airbnb, with that letter from Clark County code enforcement, that the rental is illegal might persuade them to make a refund. If not, it might be interesting to go to the press in LV. Maybe KTNV tv. https://www.ktnv.com/contact13
It’s likely that there are other news outlets in LV that might be interested in the story. If Airbnb denies giving you the money, that could be a new story.
What you cannot do is threaten the Host to refund the money or else you will contact the government as that is extortion.
If you knew their full names and address you could sue them in small claim court when you’re next in LV. The statute of limitation is six years for breach of contract, but arguably this is fraud since the rental was illegal. The statute might be longer; I don’t know. For this to work you’d need to know their names and address, and you’d time the filing so that you’d be in LV for the court date. Perhaps you could get the name from Clark County code enforcement.
Yes, some hosts are willing to refund for compassionate reasons and some are not. And not responding is not okay.
Is this a private host, or property managers with tons of listings? If the latter, this behavior is much more common.
But the bottom line is that you agreed to the cancellation policy when you booked, and expecting a refund is breaking a contract.
Any guest can purchase travel insurance to protect them in cases like this. It was your choice not to.
I’m sorry your mom has Covid, though, and hope she recovers well and soon. My son-in-law, who is only 50, and fully vaxed and boosted has been suffering badly with it for 10 days now.
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I’m sorry to hear what your mom is going through.
Maybe the host had a covid case in their family that prevented them from sending a message. Maybe they need the money to take care of their family in Ukraine.
I wish guests would practice some compassion towards hosts instead of trying to steal from hosts and when the hosts don’t allow them to steal money, they judge them as lacking compassion.
I could go on and on. It boils down to what muddy said. If you expect a refund, book a refundable rate, buy travel insurance, or do not book until you know if you can travel.
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I understand and agree with the idea of getting travel insurance, especially when traveling with someone who might have health vulnerabilities. I agree also that this guest/host knew the cancelation policy they were buying.
Still, if a Host is going to play by the rules they, as the saying goes, die by the rules.
IF the rental is illegal, as seems likely, then this guest can explore what recourse that illegality gives the Host with Airbnb, with the county where it is illegal, under the law, and in the press, as I suggest above. Of course, all that takes effort and might come to nothing.
Many Hosts would agree, if asked nicely, and with no hint of entitlement/obligation, to reimburse the guest to the extent that that the Host does get rebooked for the dates lost, less the Airbnb guest fee. The Host is under new obligation to do so. If I were in that situation that would have been my first approach.
I don’t operate an illegal Airbnb but I find this approach to getting a refund smarmy.
If the guest thought the Airbnb was illegal, why did they book it in the first place? Perhaps because they found the accommodations and price to their liking? So the guest cooperated with host in operating an illegal Airbnb when it suits the guest but the moment it doesn’t suit them (e.g. stealing money from the host for a confirmed non-refundable booking), then the guest will extort the host with the illegal card.
SMH
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Jeez, I see folks on places like Reddit doing this all the time - scheming to get a free stay from a host. @houseplants is right - booking where you know it is illegal, and then using this as an excuse to shaft the host; booking where you will be at odds with the house rules you agreed to when booking, even the dogwhistle ‘unsafe neighborhood’ (meaning other colors besides yours) is simply planning a scam.
They usually have a ‘story’ that somewhere in the second paragraph admits the guests’ wrongdoing (“I didn’t read about extra guest fees; my bad”) and then asks the interwebbers to come up with reasons to get money back. The responders come at it with moralistsics (“no host should charge that big a cleaning fee” or “they should let you slide because you are a poor student”) and with every righteous comment, makes us hosts feel worse… after all, these are people under our roofs being told to find dirt or a hole in the screen door so that the scammer can ‘get a refund’.
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We don’t know that the guest knew that the rental was illegal, do we? The guest said nothing of that in its post.
So I think you’re making an assumption here.
We don’t know that the guest knew the rental was illegal. We still don’t know if it was illegal for sure.
I was the one who raised this possibility.
No one is trying to ‘shaft’ the Host. The OP just wished that IF the Host could rebook the dates that the Host would offer to refund those booked dates (minus the Airbnb fee) rather than take his mother’s illness become a windfall for the Hosts. That seems a fair offer to me.
As I stated above, the Host is not obligated to make such an offer.
I understand that this might be your code of conduct – though your post could be written with the misunderstanding that the guest knew the rental was illegal – but I wonder if you were the Host and rebooked the days whether you would keep the windfall resulting from the mother’s illness or refund it then less fees.
Many Hosts would do so, and I suspect you’re one of them too,
There is no evidence of ‘scheming’ here.
If the Host wishes to rely solely on the legalities of the contract it seems to me that the guest can rely on whatever legalities the guests chooses to muster.
That’s your whole premise and there is nothing in the facts to suggest that the guest did.
I understand that many Hosts here have had the experience of guests who in bad faith schemed, lied, connived, scammed Hosts. So it’s understandable that you’re sensitive, maybe acutely so, to any hint of a guest seeking a refund not required by the legal terms of the agreement. It’s natural that hearing about how a guest might explore the guest’s options might cause us to jump the gun, make assumptions based on our experience or of other poorly-treated Hosts.
But we have not been given with such facts here.
MANY Hosts, given six weeks to rebook would agree to refund any rebooked days, less fees, after actually receiving the money. Many of us would not see the guest’s mother on a ventilator as our opportunity to increase our ROI. Some us might volunteer that; others might agree to it if approached nicely.
There is no evidence that this guest acted in bad faith. Nor is this guest lying, exaggerating, making a mountain our of a molehill, not any of the stuff that some here are thinking about.
Failing a Host acting in good faith as a person, a guest can legally, in in my mind morally, explore any legal remedies they might have, just as the Host as relying on legalities.
This guest might go further, with the press, to bring a spotlight to a Host who on the one hand (if indeed this is the case) flouts the law to run an illegal rental but then not only hides behind it but apparently seeks to reap a windfall – yes, permitted by the agreement – upon the occasion of a would-be guest’s 84 year old mother suddenly hit with COVID, struggling, and on a ventilator.
As a practical matter this guest might feel that the hill is not worth the climb. Nothing might come of such legal or extra-legal exploration and action. The energy is negative and might be for naught. The guest might choose to simply remain disappointed in these Hosts, get travel insurance next time, or otherwise move on.
But let’s not rush to make negative assumptions or attack the appropriateness of an honest guest exploring their legal and truthful options with a Host who is apparently running an illegal rental and then hiding behind legalities while the Host apparently seeks to reap a windfall on the serious illness of a guest.