I am the opposite of most of you all, I want my guests to cancel. I have messaged the next couple of guests saying that I would understand if they canceled and I mentioned that it is hard to get supplies. So far no one has canceled, other than a German visitor who obviously can’t come now. I would hate to either get sick myself, or for my guests to get sick. I know this is your livelihood, and for me it’s a supplement to my full time job, so I understand. It feels like when a hurricane is coming, you go into a different mode. I am not quite ready to be the one who cancels, but it is giving me a little anxiety.
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We want our guests to cancel, too. Two have so far. Two more will, since the event they’re coming here to attend was cancelled yesterday. I doubt that any of them will keep their reservations.
We also messaged all our guests about the situation.
I hope they all stay safely at home.
We have also unlisted (or is it delisted?) our two rooms until everything is under control.
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Most of mine are cancelling, and that’s fine. I do not depend on the income. It’s definitely helpful but it’s not going to put me under if I don’t have anyone renting. I actually paid for the house without renting it for quite some time… The problem with the cancellations is that I feel bad. I don’t know what is right. I am in an area where it appears about 90% of the Airbnbs are strict. I am sure everyone is dealing with the same issues. I wish there was a simple solution. Perhaps they pay a lower amount to account for the time that was spent on the booking, and for holding the booking, and everything else is refunded. They need to roll out some sort of policy that is helpful to more people.
I wouldn’t say I want people to cancel though. I would love for people to come enjoy my place. It seems like we are all likely to get this thing at some point with the way things are going. I may have already had it, who knows. I’ve probably lived through worse. I am however worried about my older neighbors. I would hate to welcome people who are from more impacted areas.
I suggest that any hosts who can should be generous with guests who cancel. We never know anyone’s actual situation. The money guests might lose by canceling could be essential to them at this time, when a lot of people are going to end up with no work or less work.
I’m snoozed until things settle down.
My cancellations are flooding in, and Airbnb are refunding the guests fully despite my strict policy. They seem to have changed the rules overnight.
Refunding the guests out of the hardworking hosts pockets is wrong surely.
I am based in London.
Julie
But guaranteeing hosts an income out of hardworking guest’s pockets can’t be right either can it? Sometimes in life we have to say “this is no one’s fault.” Things aren’t good all the time.
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I’ve always been of the “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched” mind. So I’ve never assumed that my Airbnb bookings were money in my pocket until the payment was actually in my bank account.
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I agree 100% on this and I still don’t count them for another 14 days after lol…
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That 3% they collect from hosts is mostly eaten up by ABB’s CC processing fees, IMO.
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Here in Seattle, life has come to a virtual standstill. In the beginning I wasn’t willing to refund and directed guests to customer support. But now I honestly don’t think it’s safe/recommended to travel so I’m going to offer full refunds to anyone that cancels…anyone that hasn’t yet cancelled that is. This is an event beyond everyone’s control (well maybe the government could have done a lot more before we got to this point but that’s another story). I don’t want people to have a bad feeling about Airbnb, or feel they will never book anywhere with a strict cancellation policy again once this thing is over. At some point people will travel again. I am someone that almost never cancels anything, never double books hotels/airbnbs, etc., but I would cancel if I had a trip planned right now, especially to Seattle!!
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I forgot to mention that all of our schools are closed now through at least 4/24. 
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Thank you for your response Muddy. I hear what you are saying. I try to keep a prudent reserve myself - but as thiss Coronavirus pandemic is affecting the world so badly, I think that Airbnb Inc should l be heLing us all more. They are a multi million pound industry.
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Well, the first Alaskan case was announced tonight, in Anchorage, foreign crew that came in on air freighter from far east, arranged exam at an Anchorage hospital that was prepared, and went into isolation.
That’s 900 miles from us, and Seattle, a hotbed of infection, is 900 miles the other way, but is the closest hub for Alaska Airlines, our only year round airline.
No virus here yet, but our local government is being cautious. In the last 24 hours regional high school basketball tournaments have been cancelled statewide, another annual sports event here in Juneau will probably cancel, and our mid-April 41st annual Alaska Folk Festival, which brings 3,000 musicians from all over Alaska, Yukon, and the left coast to town for a week, just announced cancellation tonight. I usually get Folk Fest bookings about 2 weeks out, but the one festival guest already booked cancelled tonight within 2 hours of their announcement.
The University of Alaska has closed all its campuses effective this weekend. At least UA has a great distance learning system at all main and most satellite campuses.
Alaska’s health care system is very rudimentary in many remote villages with only a health aide, not even nurse, in a two room prefab clinic. Our state public health folks are taking this seriously, and our disaster preparedness folks have portable hospital care units stashed in regional locations.
They also have told us that our relatively remote and chronically understaffed health care systems can’t handle huge peaks of very sick and contagious patients, so we need to practice isolation, cleaning, and all the other cautions. The chart here explains why, and we don’t want to be like Italy, which is suffering from the red zone. We know we’ll have the virus here before long given how many Juneau folks have to travel through SEA by air. We want our curve to be like the gray curve, or lower.
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And one good thing about hosting — I was already stocked up on Costco paper towels and TP, alcohol & chlorine wipes, hand sanitizer, and soap for the hands free foaming soap dispenser. Stopped at Costco tonight to buy fresh veggies and some OTC meds and the canned food shelves were stripped! I’m not out of a lot of stuff, but I like to buy their organic stuff like canned organic tomatoes in quantity and save.
My one guest left this morning. A week until the next guest. Time to deep clean, paint at least one room, and give the hardwood floors the annual pre-season carnuba wax & buff, and hope that this country takes the precautions and travel recovers quickly.
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The annoying part is that the policy was in place before any of this happened and the people booked knowing the policy. I think the biggest issue is, whether it is safe to travel? I don’t know if Airbnb is taking that into consideration. It seems like it’s quite possibly not safe to travel and because it’s not convenient for them they are ignoring that fact. Regardless, for hosts like us, who have strict policies because we believe we did a lot of work and we’ve held those dates which removed the possibility of getting another booking, we feel like getting something is fair. The reality is, at this point, we aren’t getting another booking and it’s likely that anyone who booked would have cancelled. It’s also likely that Airbnb is pretending it’s safe to travel when it’s not. I think they should probably expand the extenuating circumstances to cover more people. I had a guest ask me if I was okay with them coming even if they have Coronavirus - they probably don’t want to lose their money so they will get on a plane and travel, giving this virus to others just to avoid paying a penalty.
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ABSOLUTELY!!!
I AGREE WITH YOU 100%.
Air should bear the brunt!!
In business, this is called “AN ACT OF GOD”.
Unforseen circumstances.
Guests booked not knowing Corona was on the way, hosts accepted under same terms.
Both parties should bare some of it. A 50/50 split seems fair.
If a guest checks into an airBnB and there’s an earthquake and they escape with their lives, will they be asking for a refund?
Same thing!!
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it’s odd. I have some guests who don’t care about the deposit at all. I have others who are beside themselves. I guess there are people who are aware that everyone is suffering, and they understood the policy and risks, and others who think they should get what they want regardless of the rules…
I’ve been seeing this range of responses, too - it’s very odd.
I have a Moderate cancellation policy and have been communicative and supportive regarding the virus, travel restrictions, cancelled events and work, etc. to all incoming guests.
Some guests are super apologetic and communicative upon cancelling or considering cancelling, and I empathize all around and let them know that if they rebook in the future I’d love to offer them a small discount.
And then I have a couple guests who only reach out after I connect with them - who are fully outside of the Extenuating Circumstances - who are pushing for the “option to reimburse all taxes and fees” if they do cancel their trip for tomorrow. I try to be gentle in my responses.