Airbnb is super pro guest and not pro host in my opinion. I had a guest on-route to our airbnb but could not make it due to road blockage due to an accident somewhere along the line. The cut off for cancellation/refund was way past but i asked them to try and change the date of booking and I would accept it but that would not work as they could not rebook within the same month as per their schedule . They contacted Airbnb and they were told to get the host (me) to cancel so then i would get penalized! Why would they tell the guest that when it was no fault of mine. I ended up giving them $105 cash back as I receive 106.50 per night from Airbnb. They did lose a bit with service fees and such, (i don’t charge a cleaning fee). I didn’t feel right keeping the money because of an accident on the highway which was out of their control. What I am saying is, Airbnb always tried to penalize the host.
In addition: The reason i just gave them cash back as I couldn’t be bothered with the online refund hassle, easier for me and they were happy.
I have had cancellations and the guests accept they will not get a refund. Most recently last week, last minute cancellation 3 day booking over Xmas
I told them to cancel and I would refund based on if I got another booking or not, I did not and the guests are out over $800
I have 0 sympathy for them and actually am glad they did not come, besides asking can they bring a cat a few days before check in they seemed to message every other day with silly questions.
Now they MAY try and get CS to refund them but I will not be authorizing a refund should CS ask. Nothing yet…
RR
Has any host lost a payment from Airbnb, if the guest reverses the payment through their credit card due to non supply of service?
I agree ABB isn’t host friendly. Even though I quickly wrote to the guest explaining my room in my house not being available right after they booked. I’m penalized for the cancellation. My guests however are not penalized if they cancel. I realize now that ABB is about ABB and are insuring that they get paid. It was my mistake for thinking otherwise. I misread the purpose of instant book. After reading more negative posts about instant booking I turned it off. It really should have the option for hosts to cancel an instant booking within a few hours of the reservation- and two weeks before the reservation. On another reservation an instant book was made for my room in less than 24 hrs prior and I have in my rental agreement that I require 24 hrs advanced notice. I rushed around to make it home for the guest and jumped through hoops to make the room ready in just an hour. If I had cancelled I would have been penalized. Lesson learned. Instant booking isn’t a good deal for hosts.
But do you have the advance notice set in your availability settings? Just having it in a rental agreement or stated in your listing wording won’t prevent guests from being able to book without advance notice.
Yes, guests are penalized for cancelling if your cancellation policy means they will lose money. And if they cancel more than 48 hrs after they booked, they don’t get their Airbnb service fees refunded.
As far as your idea of hosts being able to cancel an IB without penalties if they did so within a few hours after the booking was made, you might think that sounds reasonable, but many guests have spent quite a bit of time looking for a suitable listing, and once they have booked, it would be unfair to make them go back through the whole process again just because a host forgot to update their calendar. Hosting is a business like any other and the business owner has responsibilities. If dates show as available, they should be available.
I have never used IB, as I have a homeshare listing, so I want to be able to communicate with guests and read any reviews they have before deciding whether to accept. And I don’t think IB is a great idea for inexperienced hosts, but plenty of hosts do use it and have had few issues with it.
Learning curve with ABB for sure. When the guests couldn’t arrive due to road closure the guests were encouraged to get me to cancel so I would be penalized. I would never think of instant booking, you cannot vet people first, and that is not an option for me. Best of luck. I am taking a nice break now that bookings are wayyyyy down due to winter season. Happy New Year.
Doing a short term rental, especially in one’s home where they live, is definitely not for everyone. I now have a separate space but did home share for the first 2 years I did Airbnb. I didn’t have any major problems but I also managed things pretty tightly and added onto my home to make the separate entrance.
Airbnb doesn’t really care about home share hosts who have a lot of issues. It’s not much money for them and it costs them more than they make handling issues from small money hosts. Anedotal evidence I’ve read here indicates that if you have a large home that brings big fees you’re more likely to be happy with customer service.
Agreed. I don’t offer IB. No way. Horrible business idea for hosts.
Continuing the discussion from Cancellation fee:
Yes I do have my settings set so I was quite surprised when I got the booking. I will not be using IB anymore. It’s a poor concept for hosts. I allow my guest to cancel up to 48 hrs prior without penalty. My space is a room in my home so IB hasn’t been the best concept for me. As I am reading it also isn’t a good concept for many others. I’m not new to ABB. I thought this would be a great way host but it’s not a good concept.
It would be interesting to know what Airbnb had to say about this?
We all know that the software can be glitchy, as just about every software can be but it should be able to honour 24 notice settings, particularly these days.
What would you say to someone who has used IB for many years with no problems? There are plenty of us. it’s just that people rant on forums about things they are unhappy with, not the opposite.
Agreed. I usually don’t have an issue with IB but with the recent issue I had I realized that this isn’t a setting that works for me. I have recently read about all the issues people are having with IB. So my post is just out there to add to the complaints. Perhaps IB needs a little attention and perhaps there should be some attention to how hosts are looking for some support as well. My rental is a room in my home so for me IB isn’t going to be a good option. Anyway I turned off IB. I want more control over who I rent to and more control over when I rent. It takes a negative experience to learn.
Agreed doesn’t support hosts at all. Can be pretty risky. Great for guests though.
Agreed. IB isn’t a good option for those who rent out a space in their home. I have my space blocked off from my main living space with a separate entrance. This works great. The IB setting though doesn’t give me any protection though should something pop up and a conflict arises. It supports the guest but not the host. As I have learned hosts do not have much control and seems that they do not have much support. So I will no longer be using IB.
I have only used IB in my former rental and my present one. Both were/are inside my house with separate entrances.
I can count on one hand how many times I’ve had trouble using IB. Here I had a third party booking that I was allowed to cancel with no penalty and that’s about it.
I agree that nothing can be right for everyone. Until I left the UK, I hosted in-home and in those days (pre-internet) we didn’t have the option.
Often, the first thing we’d know about a guest was when they knocked on the door, suitcase in hand, asking if I have availability for the night. That was a real IB. 
What sort of support?
There isn’t any Airbnb cancellation policy option like that, so not sure what you mean. The Moderate policy allows them to cancel up to 5 days before check-in and receive a full refund (minus Airbnb fees) and the Flexible policy allows them to cancel up to 24 hrs before check-in for a full refund. You can’t just create your own cancellation policy, you have to choose one of the provided options.
Of course, if a host chooses to refund a guest beyond the parameters of the chosen policy, they are free to do so.
And yes, Airbnb does have tech glitches where hosts find dates they have blocked showing as available and vice versa. It’s never happened to me, but I’ve certainly read of it happening to other hosts. It’s a good idea to check all your settings daily or as often as you can, because hosts have reported many of their settings, like IB, check-in time, prep days, etc. mysteriously changed, when the host definitely did not change the setting themselves.
Sorry you’re not correct @KTWothe guests do get penalised if they cancel .
I had four sets of guests cancel last year and I got paid out for all of them. (Strict cancellation)
I’ve used IB renting out a room in my home for six years, hundreds of guests and no real problems with Airbnb.
If you vet your guests carefully and set your listing up so you only open up your calendar for dates you know you’re available to host there’s no reason it can’t work for homeshare hosts.
If Airbnb accepted a booking on a date that shouldn’t have been available because it’s blocked off in your setting you could have asked them to cancel penalty free.
Laura, I have felt exactly as you do, and every frustration you have, and working for money to be taken away is the height of anger for those of us that work. I understood every line of what you wrote because since COVID, every incident has happened to our listing a time or two as well.
We also have about 1,000 guest check-ins a year.
I might rant and cuss around our listings - but hear this, from noon-3pm everyday, we are basically closed because we are an airport/cruises overnight layover for one night. We rant just like you. It’s because that’s the right place to do it. With the staff/family that run the place.
I kept reading your rant because I wanted to grab any of the things I knew the solution for and give you a word of encouragement, until I got to the end.
You are utterly and completely not cut out for this. Half the things you ranted about clearly were your own fault, and could be part of a learning period, but you are not learning anything because you do not own up to a single thing you have a part of.
You’re on your own - but don’t worry, you’re on your way to getting de-platformed, assuming you’re sugar coating your side a bit.
It is called the HOSPITALITY industry for a reason. But we still love saying “NO, the customer is NOT ALWAYS right either”. and we tell inquiries who start out with balls out outrageous requests, “did you read any of it? We get credit for answering now, and we are telling you, go read our listing, the THINK TWICE, I seriously think you have no idea what product we are selling”
Laura, you have no idea what product you are selling either.