Did they change Cancellation Policies and not tell us?

Today, Moderate says “full refund 5 days before arrival”?! My MEMORY is that it was NOT this flexible when I chose it - my recollection is I would keep 50% within 7 days.

I can’t imagine that I would choose to allow guests to cancel in 5 days and risk losing that revenue. Am I going nuts? Did Air just change things and not tell us?

And we have Policies on Our Host pages that DO NOT MATCH air’s documentation:
https://www.airbnb.com/home/cancellation_policies#moderate

I just changed to Strict! What do you folks use?

Thanks!

I have moderate on the largest AirBnB (sleeps 15) and flexible on the other two AirBnBs. I hate cancellations but, on the other hand, I don’t want a bad review or the house trashed by a guest who felt forced to keep the booking when they wanted out of it.

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Yeah, did you get the email with the new terms? It says 5 days for moderate.

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The Moderate Cancellation Policy has been full refund for 5 days prior for well over a year for absolutely sure. But I am pretty sure much longer than that.

This fits with the Strict cancellation policy, not the Moderate. If that’s what you prefer, then you should be set-up correctly now.

I use the Moderate policy. I like it because it is moderate and feels fair because life certainly has it’s twists and turns but also 5-days is enough time for me to re-book and usually at an increased price. It’s rare that I get a cancellation anyways so it doesn’t come up often and so I don’t really worry about it. However, if my listing was new or had a low rating, I might worry about it more but in that case I would actually switch to a Flexible policy so as to attract more bookings, especially if I needed more reviews to bring up my rating (a flexible policy might bring more bookings).

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Sounds like you misunderstood the cancellation policies @Jefferson

To my recollection the moderate policy has been that way for quite awhile…

I may well have mixed it up with the policies on one of the other sites. I’m listed on several, so it seems that is likely the case.

I’m set to strict now, and that seems more appropriate for us at this time.

Moderate has been 5 days as long as I can recall. However I used flexible for a long time so I’m not sure how long moderate has been 5 days. I occasionally use moderate, never strict. Strict would prevent me from being listed in the “for work” category. I also think strict would hurt me in the search ranking due to the kind of rental I have.

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I am set to flexible. I think I’ve had three cancellations - two for deaths in the family, and one for the hurricane. All of my guests were apologetic and both with deaths sent me links to the obituary without my having asked.

I would have refunded all of these guests anyway so having flexible hasn’t affected me negatively yet.

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Cancellations are extremely annoying. I had a guest book on Wed for Saturday arrival. He also had a pet so I sent the request for the pet fee which he paid promptly. On Friday at about 2pm, he cancelled his Saturday stay. He got the stay auto refunded but I forgot to refund his pet fee and I had to deal with CS for that. All that work, no $$. But meanwhile my Friday guest from Germany was delayed and added Saturday to his stay. And then he also added Sunday. He was a bit challenging but all in all the Fri-Sat-Sun with one guest was a superior booking to the weekend being booked by three different people. Sometimes I get a cancel and lose out but many times I get a superior booking and so it all evens out. It’s just part of the business.

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This is timely! I just noticed a bit ago when I was running through all the settings (I do this about once a week because they so often change something without telling us) and I noticed that under “Opportunities” that the Work Collection box is completely gone now. The “Family Collection” box has been gone a little longer. I know we had a discussion here about how they were getting rid of the collections a month or 2 ago but it seems it’s been done now.

However, you can still click on “Work Trip” when searching for a listing. I’m not sure if there’s just a lag of removing it or if they are facilitating it differently as the tab now says, “Explore homes and boutique hotels with 5 star-ratings from business travelers”. So, it seems that the qualification for “Work Trips” is now high ratings from people who classified their trips as For Work. I guess we can stop providing clothes hangers now! :wink: Just kidding of course but the update is noted.

I am.in total agreement with you. I’ve been doing this for years and I also remember moderate being 50% at 7 days. I believe they changed it when they introduced the non refundable option last year.

Nope. I’ve been hosting for over 3 years, and it’s been 5 days as long as that, I’m pretty sure. Definitely didn’t change just last year, because I had a guest who cancelled over two years ago and I distinctly remember looking to see if she was in the time frame for a 50% refund (because it was my first cancellation close to the check-in date) and moderate was 5 days.

About the 5 vs 7 days for a refund: I was on VrBO & Airbnb with the same listing. The cancellation policies couldn’t/didn’t match and I got them confused. I agree the 5 days on Airbnb is not new.

Interesting: My recent Hilton Orlando required 5 days notice of cancellation or NO refund. Routinely for work travel, hotels require 24 hours notice. The perception hotels let guests cancel at the last minute for a full refund (so Airbnb hosts should too) is changing.