After almost 4 years working my butt off, a pandemic, a really bad guest and miserable Airbnb support combined made me decide to give it all up. My last guest told me was here to visit her elderly mother in a nursing home, so although she was extremely unpleasant I agreed to let her her extend her stay 2 more days after she had been here for 11 out of her original 15 night stay. Instead of accepting my offer for 2 more nights, which I sent through the app, cancelled the rest of her stay. Then she said it was an accident, lied to me, lied to AirbnbâŚthere was a lot of back and forth but the end result was that she got a refund and Airbnb says I owe them $143 (her rate was $37/night so not sure why this amount). I canât bear to get on the phone with them again. I guess they will send me a bill? Or can they charge my credit card? have deactivated my account, I will not host through Airbnb again. Obviously with the low rates I was forced to charge due to lack of business, and the extra time and money cleaning, this is not much of an economic hit for me, but it was such a big part of my life! I am sad but happy at the same time. 100% sure that I am done.
Itâs a known guest scam. I assume you have moderate or strict cancellation policy. If you accept a change request, the guest can then can cancel without penalty. I donât remember seeing reports of it being used after a stay had started, but it doesnât surprise me that it works that way too.
They take it out of future payouts. Maybe they can do a clawback from your bank account, but Iâm not sure they would if they could.
When I reopened in late May, Airbnb put a lot of pressure to lower my price and use flexible cancellation. Enhanced cleaning, longer stays - I accepted all of it.
I am sure they will find a way to get the miserable $143 from me.
Very sorry that you leave on such a bitter note. I wish it had ended differently for you.
Iâm sorry that you got manipulated by someone who knows how to work the system. I learned about that workaround on this forum.
This confuses me. How did AirBNB âput a lot of pressureâ on you or anyone to lower prices. If youâve spent any time on this board, youâd know to ignore their suggested rates.
My rates are always higher than AirBNB suggested rates, and I have a Strict Cancellation Policy. Iâve never felt any pressure to change.
Whether you stay on AirBNB or go elsewhere, it is your responsibility to charge based on how your listing compares to your competition, along with with Supply and Demand for your area.
This just reaffirms my commitment to never accepting change requests. Add a guest? now I am subject to EC policy for grandma too. No thanks. I have it in my very short list of house rules to be certain before you book, my policy does not allow for any changes in the reservation.
RR
This forum helped me a lot, but
That is so sweet. The kind comments help, I wonât stay bitter. Hosting was a very interesting experience. I had some very unusual guests but most of them were really nice. And it was nice to have the cash flow, at least until this year. The tourists will be back, and Iâm sure things will flow again. I hope things will be good for all the hosts with Airbnb going public. Best to everyone!
The whole âchange a bookingâ thing is awkward. Iâm sure we all want to help where possible - especially as weâre going to be meeting our guests personally in future, but not at the risk of being scammed. This is something the new chief could look into if theyâre planning on becoming more host friendly. Deeds mean more than words and all thatâŚ
So, I had no idea if someone requests an extension or a change in the reservation, the guest could up and cancel. How is this so? Last week my Halloween weekend did not book and my week long guests asked to extend an extra day from Thursday to Friday. I replied sure let me figure out how to do thisâI continue to be challenged by these thingsâand ended up calling for help from vrbo who added the extra day and all went smoothly. I got paid. So, should I have said no? Is it just some platforms that do this? I do not want to open myself up to getting shafted in the future.
If you accept it resets the cancellation policy, even with strict cancellation it is now ânewâ and can be cancelled within 48 hours
I would just take cash, call and say sure, its $X cash and you will save the 3rd party fees.
RR
Good to know for the future!
No, this wasnât an extension that you had to be wary of or say no- theyâre just adding an extra day on to an established booking.
The ones you have to watch out for is if they have a reservation that would result in them not being eligible for a refund if they cancelled, like the check-in is 6 days from now and you have a strict policy. So they ask to change it to a January or February booking and then they cancel, because they are now in a time frame where they can get a refund.
It may have been a blessing in disguise. 2/3rds of the Covid cases in my city are coming from old folksâ homes.
Yes except the story about the elderly mother was not true.
One of the many negative aspects to Air. There are definitely some guests that look to exploit this, especially as dates get close and there may be alternative stays at lower rates.
Yes. The issue with a 48-hour cancellation window opening up after accepting a change request is specific to Airbnb.
To be clear, a savvy Airbnb guest that wants to cancel but isnât eligible for a penalty-free cancellation may just ask for an extra day to see if the host will take the bait. When the change request is accepted, a 48-hour cancellation window opens up and the guest can then cancel penalty-free.
Edit: I donât know if Airbnb has made any changes to how this works, but Iâve read posts where hosts have said this still works even on check-in day, which means it overrides the other policies where the 48-hour penalty-free cancellation window only exists 1-day/5-days/14-days before check-in (depending on the cancellation policy).
Thank you for the info will be watching for these requests in the future. Last summer a guest wanted to change the dates of the reservation and vrbo told them they had to cancel the initial reservation in order to do so. This may have been why . I was not aware of this at the time.
Will be more wary of change requests after reading this thread!
Sorry @Perimaud for your experience, it sounds so unfair for Airbnb to not try to hear out your side of the story after years of commitment to hosting on your part. 
Indeed this is my understanding as well. I have also seen posts where guests have used it to cancel a stay underway.
Total bs.