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Issue: request for booking a 2 day stay by a South Korean person generated a pop up box saying I have to accept or cancel the South Korean cancellation policy terms and conditions that over rides airbnb strict cancellation policy for Australia.
There are a couple of issues here from my in house host perspective.
The guest can cancel at noon on arrival day or during the stay for 50% refund. Guest has requested a booking in two weeks so the 30 day 100% Korean cancellation policy does not apply.
Does anyone know whether the South Korean policy applies to Sth Korean nationals and or residents or travellers?
If a Sth Korean national is working, studying or residing in Australia or other countries does our cancellation policy remain in place.
I am seeking further information before accepting this reservation through forums but could not find a recent one and this is the first Sth Korean popup box I have received ever.
I messaged the guest Hi XXX (name) , I had a notice pop up from airbnb about the cancellation policy which I have not had before with guests from Korea. Just a questionâŚare you living in and travelling from South Korea to Australia or living in Australia? I can then proceed with the information needed regarding cancellation. Kind regards, Dee
She replied: Iâm just living in AUS now!
HOWEVER: I checked her reviews and her previous stays have been in Australian airbnbâs for almost a year now. There is no profile photo and her profile name is in Mandarin (or similar) script but she calls herself with an anglicised name.
Her profile indicates she is living in South Korea but that often happens that guests do not update their country of residence.
Are there suggestions or experiences you other hosts have had about matters such as this. I am not reliant on airbnb guests as income and sometimes happy to not have guests if it looks complicated due to the hosting in home scenario.
I canât find that Airbnb cancellation policy for South Koreans anywhere in their policies. It must be written somewhere, but I googled it and nothing came up but 6 year old articles from other publications.
It doesnât address whether a South Korean citizen who may have been residing in another country for years is covered under that policy. What exactly is a âSouth Korean travelerâ, I wonder.
Thx for all your responses: Guest has all 5 star reviews and most are from Australia. She wrote back and uploaded a profile picture of herself (previously was only a mandarin symbol) and changed to âliving in Sydneyâ (Australia). On the strength of that I accepted her reservation.
Yes, Deb I think you are correct, it appears as if it might apply to South Korean citizens wherever they are although I have had Korean guests travelling to here over the years but never seen the pop up box before.
When I was searching forums for info (thx HostAirbnbVRBO for the link) posters said Italy was doing a similar cancellation policy override when Italians visit other countries. Imagine if each country decided to override policies!! I didnt call CS because I thought it might be a bridge too far away LOL!
BTW I got a pop up from this forum suggesting dont do so many smaller replies so here is the collated reply and I deleted the individual replies. Still learning about posting protocols!
Well, I didnât know all that myself, but I looked it up, because I was fairly sure that Korean writing I had seen didnât look like Chinese writing. And I was thinking that a guest could be offended if a host assumed they wrote or spoke a completely different language than they do.
I found it enlightening to learn that written Korean is alphabetic, the characters representing sounds, quite different from Chinese or Japanese, where the characters represent concepts.
