I am under the impression that with instabook on I have a penalty free cancellation. I talked to air last night - the superhost support team - and she said I should not cancel but she would send me a link. Well, she never did. I reached out to the guest to offer alternatives, he has not responded to me, but reached out to air, now another rep contacts me saying there is a “travel” issue but is not giving me details even though I have asked if he had indicated an interest in the alternatives. At this point this is so messed up, I’d rather not have a guest here who will likely write me a bad review because he’s been inconvenienced, but i have an all 5 star rating, but on a pretty new listing (only 5 reviews), I don’t want the bad review that comes with me cancelling. I would really appreciate any advice.
What are the reasons you wanted to cancel the booking? While it is true that you have 3 penalty cancellations/year with IB, there are only certain reasons that are considered to qualify.
As a new host, I would strongly suggest you turn off IB, so guests have to send you requests which you can review, have the opportunity to dialogue with the guest before deciding whether to accept, and decline if you aren’t comfortable with the booking.
Once you get more familiar with the platform, vetting guests, making sure your listing info is clear, you can opt to use IB if you choose.
It is advisable to involve Airbnb as little as possible, as their customer service is generally abyssmal.
We were getting push messages that air was going to deactivate our listing if we did not provide a county registration number by October 15, since our county has currently paused the registration process we have no way of getting this number so we made other plans for after October 14, and got a guest from another platform. Then - after that - air extended the registration deadline to January so we are now left with 2 guest, and I don’t quite know what reason to give them, I believe they are at least partially at fault, but I have no illusions of a customer service rep understanding all that. What are the reasons for penalty free cancellations? We have 2 yurt tents and one smaller coleman tent, which I have offered the guest for free if he cancels, but we’re expecting a windy night and that tent, while rated for 60mph, gets a little loud in the wind, so I’m not sure if I’m doing the guest any favors.
btw - I’m not new hosting, I’ve just never had to cancel on anyone.
I use IB. Don’t know all the reasons Air lets you cancel, but they did for me when I had a third party booking.
Ah, you said you only had 5 reviews, so I mistakenly assumed you were a newer host, sorry.
I have never actually used IB for my listing, so hopefully hosts who do will chime in re reasons Airbnb will accept for cancelling those bookings.
Thanks muddy - I had a listing in Colorado for 7 years, then stopped for a while and we’re now hosting again in SoCal.
I didn’t have instant booking turned on, the guest contacted me to book and I accepted not knowing the truth. I then googled him and found out he was a teenager so I cancelled the reservation because it was a group of teens (senior trip). I called the superhost line and cancelled penalty free. I didn’t lose superhost. At the time I thought I was lucky that I was supported by the agent. I would contact them again and hope you get a rep that’s more understanding.
I canceled recently an IB reservation, there were few choices to choose from, I chose my property isn’t the right fit for the guest or something like that, not sure of the wording, and it was penalty free, no hassle, supper easy to do.
They did end up cancelling the reservation, and said it was penalty free. Thanks so much for the great advice. Totally appreciate it.
There is usually a construction project, sewer leakage or road blockage in my area that would cause a lot of inconvenience to the guest so I give them an option to cancel. But they can keep the booking and put up with the inconvenience.