I had a guy from South Korea request to stay. I love that in order to accept a res from them we have to agree to SK law allowing those guests to be able to cancel with 100% refund at any point. So, I messaged the guest and said, even though I know it would never hold up in the Airbnb court of law, I will be glad to accept your res and host you, but only if you agree to not cancel. We rely on all of our accepted reservations to pay the bills and make a living wage (basically but in other words…). He agreed fully. Well, he got into a motorcycle accident. His fault or not, I do not know. So, he could not travel. EC policy was used in full… double whammy! Airbnb cancelled the res and I got nothing a couple of days before the res arrival date. Does not seem fair to me. How about a partial refund for him and a small payment at least for me? NOPE.
Who got hurt? The guests will get re-booked, and will probably save a lot of money with lower rates.
Oh … and let’s not forget how Airbnb conducts business: (with a $3 Billion cash reserve)
- Sorry your Guest trashed your place. We will not honor your claim
- Sorry your Guest caused damage - we’ll pay pennies on the dollar
- Sorry your Guest didn’t buy Trip Insurance. We’ll EC them and take your money! Sometimes, we’ll do it when the Guest does not qualify.
- Sorry your Guest wrote a crappy lying review - we’ll let it stand.
- Sorry that we encourage Guests that “4 stars is good” and hold Hosts to a 5 star standard.
- Sorry your Guest was a dirtbag but we won’t block their account.
- Sorry but our $1 million guarantee is total marketing bs.
- We are running a business and are 90% Guest-Centric.
- We are removing your account. The “Trust Dept” believes your lying Guest and ignores your proof
- Does any of this seem bad? Just wait until we go public!
The list could go on. So, are you going to stand on principle? Or … are you running a business? 
This is a global pandemic, and it will be affecting EVERYONE in one or another way; hosts, guests, everyone. If a deadly global pandemic is not an “extenuating circumstance”, then what is??
Airbnb is NOT “turning their back” on hosts (they’re even asking congress to help STR hosts); what they do is not driving away all possible future guests. The pandemic will pass, but guests will remember how they were treated in these times by Airbnb and their hosts. You won’t remain in the business by screwing over your customers and being an a***hole in times when graciousness and understanding is 100% expected. That is very short-sighted.
Both, Airbnb and we are service providers, and the pillars of our business are the guests (customers!). It is not in our interest to drive them away from Airbnb by “enforcing our policies” in midst of a deadly global pandemic, forcing them to pay for a service we don’t provide/they can’t enjoy.
All my bookings for March and April were cancelled, I refunded everyone (it HURT, of course, but this is the right thing to do in these circumstances!), and I’m glad Airbnb eventually decided to force those among us hosts who refuse and cast a poor light ON ALL OF US, to do the right thing, too. I WANT Airbnb to make sure other hosts don’t force us all out of business by driving away our mutual customers.
I agree with you, BobBenjamin. I can’t believe that this is even a question.
I suppose I value AirBnB as much as they value me as a host. I dont have strict cancellation policies and I happily told all my upcoming guests that they had 5 days before their reservation to cancel due to covid19. I also lost 2 full months of bookings, which was to be expected and out of everybody’s control.
AirBnB support messaged me asking for the rest of the funds for a March 2nd reservation where the guest cancelled 2 days prior. I dont have a strict cancellation policy and I’ve already lost all my reservations. I told them if they felt so strongly they should refund the guest. They did not.
What exactly do I owe them? They’re a listing service that takes a fee.
I don’t disagree with your sentiment, but I also feel Air handled this poorly.
They should have (or, if I were in charge, I would have) given hosts some sort of notice, like even 24 hours, before essentially soliciting guests to cancel.
They should have immediately refunded all service fees along with reservation fees rather than being social media shamed into doing so instead of issuing travel vouchers.
They have made mistakes and I understand how hosts feel hung out to dry. Their messaging hasn’t been great, e.g. I would have refrained from telling already upset hosts what is in their business interests. That just came across all wrong.
I don’t feel hung out to dry because frankly I never expected much out of them but low-cost, paid-per-booking advertising for so long as they and the AI allowed me to take advantage of it. That’s all they are. Their emails refer to us as ‘partners’. They’re not my partner - he’s way more handsome and a million times more useful 
On the other hand, I forgive them for not being perfect in unprecedented circumstances. And I think we all could use a little kindness … especially now.
I appreciate this sentiment and I agree that a little kindness would do a lot in these times. Maybe a night of sleep for me.
You’ve handled this forum very adeptly and professionally; I think we all have a bit of cabin fever.
The fact that you’re in Los Angeles, I think would push me towards LTR because if the new STR regulations.
I’d first work w the future guests to try to cancel wo penalty based on your concerns of the virus and or work w the help desk w the same justification and ask them to pause your account. If neither of those work just delete the account and move forward.
Thanks for taking the time to detail your situation
I just stayed with 3 “superhosts”
2 had appalling communication amongst other issues.
Look at the bright side. At least now I don’t have to scramble around looking for toilet paper for guests 
That’s nice if you can afford it. At this point I might not be able to, and many other’s can’t. I’m one of those that can’t make my mortgage with an empty upstairs for the next 6 months.
I do a blend of Airbnb and long term. Long term has issues, too.
The no-show rate is 50 percent. Now I cluster them, like a real estate agent.
So on Monday the province declares a state of emergency. A government agency for immigrants shows up 20 minutes late and parks in a handicapped zone. There are four of them!
I’m the middle is a tiny Arabic grandmother who is blind and speaks no English. Her son wants to pawn her off. I had trouble sleeping, poor soul.
You have to sift through all of them.
With Airbnb, it’s a click.
L
I hope I haven’t been selling long term rentals as this easy way to make cash. It is rife with risk and takes work. An eviction can wipe out your gains for 6+ months on that unit. Strict screening and good accounting is vital.
But in the near term there appears to be no money to be made in STRs in my market. So for 6 months we transitioned our property (we were very very lucky to have our last renter inquire about staying long term, did not have to change a single thing with the listing just background check and lease).
I’m in the same boat. I am in LA and just let my April 15 Romanian guests know what’s going on so they were grateful for my update and cancelled. I was grateful in return since I didn’t have to sit on the phone waiting for an hour to talk to someone at Airbnb - this reservation was 1 day the other side of the current EC policy (unless something changed overnight).
I have a few guests in May, June and July. I have snoozed my listing - this is a guest house on the property where I live and I don’t want people in and out of here right now. I accepted a guest earlier this month who may be interested in this as LTR. I am hoping that is the case but hadn’t thought about long-term strategy for backing out of those other reservations. Glad I read your post! Hope everyone stays well!
I am a super host and I do not have a clue why ?
I’m not sure if you are asking how you became a superhost or what the benefits are of becoming one, but the answer to both is here:
Am i naive to only list on Airbnb? I am pretty new at this…since about Oct 2021. Is it easy to manage Airbnb and VRBO simultaneously , cannot imagine i would want to manage more than two, I’m not a ninja.
It is super easy to manage VRBO and Airbnb. You synch the calendars and you’re in business. It’s done automatically from then on. We’ve had no problems,
The resounding advice you’ll hear from the experienced Hosts here is that you don’t want to be at the mercy of just one platform, especially AIrbnb’s which is guest centric.
There is a recent post here from a Host where suddenly Airbnb stops booking his property, which has many reviews and past bookings, They won’t respond to his emails, and calls hav gone nowhere. I’ll look for it and send to you but you don’t want to be only with Airbnb. Seems risky.
There is a counter that your listing might not get as much visibility on Airbnb when dates are blocked because you have reservations on VRBO. Our experience is that we’re on the first page with both platforms, which I’ve tested incognito on a separate browser with all cookies cleared.