I have a guest scheduled to arrive Weds for 6 nights. I told her last night we are under curfew. I just opened up. As in most big cities, a peaceful protest not far from me turned into violence, destruction and looting and the entire county is under curfew for the next week. I worry about the guest being safe. Also not having a good time due to so many restrictions! I contacted Airbnb and they responded that there would be a penalty to me if I cancel and that I should be more careful with my calendar. I realize it was an automated response, but I was really annoyed - I didn’t know in advance that this emergency situation would arise.
Then I got a response that the guest should cancel and say that she doesn’t feel comfortable due to Covid-19 and that way she would get a refund and I won’t get a penalty. I think when she booked I had instant book turned off, not sure.
Is anyone else going through this? I wrote my guest and told her I strongly suggest she cancel and tell them it’s because of Covid-19. If she doesn’t cancel - well, I don’t know.
My current guests were commenting that they had some challenges going out to dinner last night, getting an UBER because of protests and curfews. They leave tomorrow with next guests arriving Friday, so it’s having an impact as you allude.
Kudos to you for looking out for your guests’ interests, however at this point, you’ve done what you can, and it’s on your guests to do what they feel is best (for them).
If she doesn’t cancel, then why not let her come? She may be safer at your listing than in her own home.
Exactly.
We have guests who are self-isolating in one of our rentals (LTR in the other) and I was talking to them today about the curfew. As we live in weird times, and as they are not party people who would want to be out later than the 9 pm curfew they are fine with it.
So as others said above, I’d not have a problem with the guest coming to stay. We’re all in the same boat.
I think I still have so much anxiety from the virus and the guests that couldn’t leave. Does anyone know what the penalty is for canceling? Although I am a little less anxious today, I am still very uncomfortable. I know some of you are going to say “well then maybe you shouldn’t be hosting” and you would be correct. Covid-19 pushed me over the edge, I think. So again, what is the penalty? Are they going to make me pay them?
Why don’t you just look at the Airbnb site, it’s not hard to find…
JF
You were right, it says very clearly that the algorithm will make sure your listing suffers 
IF they were InstantBook, I believe that you get three cancellation per year (if you are not AirBNB Plus). That however might be upon booking so I’d validate first. You have good cause that you should emphasize - Health and Safety, specifically with the riots and protests nearby.
Thank you. Since I work with a tablet, it’s not as easy to find information. When I got through to a live person they just said someone would message me, which is what happened.
Has anyone actually used this - and confirmed that this did not impact your actual stats?
## Canceling a reservation without penalty
To cancel a reservation that you’re uncomfortable with:
1. Go to Your Reservations on airbnb.com
2. Find the reservation that you need to cancel
3. Select Change or Cancel to start the cancellation process
4. When prompted to choose a reason for your cancellation, choose “I’m uncomfortable with the reservation or the guest has broken my House Rules”.
When you cancel for this reason, all penalties will be waived.
I’ve cancelled on two different occasions, but with the help of CS, because they don’t provide the 3 no penalty cancellations to AiBNB Plus listings.
- The first time was awhile ago, and I can’t remember exactly why I was uncomfortable.
- the second time was a few weeks ago when someone IB’d and I hadn’t yet automated the Covid19 1-day buffer between stays.
In both situations I was not penalized nor had my stats impacted. BUT, unlike OP’s situation, both my cancellations were within hours of initial booking.
Makes sense. Our instinct would be to always do this via phone and remind the air agent of the specific page of their policy - as we simply would not trust that it would happen properly via automated means. And, if it ended up being in our stats we have no faith at all that they would remove it after the fact, regardless of their written policies.
After strongly suggesting to my guest that she cancel and getting no response, I called Airbnb again. This time I got a live person who said “is this about the protests in the US?” She looked up my location and said she agreed that for security reasons it would be best to cancel, and they would not charge me a penalty. And she said she would contact the guest. So not exactly a happy ending but a resolution.
I have cancelled all of my bookings due to Covina 19 for the next year. I’m at risk and we luckily don’t need the money.
I just had a cancellation request come as CV19 related but in the message the guest, who had only booked last week, told me that she needed to protect her business from looters in LA . If you read the small print on any trip insurance/credit card policy civil unrest is usually excluded. Yet I knew Air would side with the guest and I did not want to deal with it so I accepted the cancellation with 100% refund.
RR