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We’re on Strict policy. Someone booked for June on Sunday morning, then cancelled a few minutes ago, a few hours outside the 48-hour free cancellation window.
I don’t want to keep her money, but she’s run to the Resolution center and asked for me to refund her. If I agree, does it get taken out of my next payout and then I get it in June when she was supposed to check in?
I just want it to be as if it never happened - I want AirBnB to give her the money back and keep me out of it entirely.
Airbnb hasn’t paid you for the booking yet, so they shouldn’t take it out of your next payout, they should just refund her. I think they only take it out of your next payout if a guest cancels after you have been paid, and they got refunded something.
Just check the Strict Policy again, from the host side and pay enough attention not to be charged a percentage… Airbnb don’t like it at all when you agree to refund, the guest for sure will be partially charged if she doesn’t cover herself with a proof of an exceptional reason.
Indeed, payments are kept by Airbnb and sent the second day after check-in if you didn’t opt for delayed payments for having less commission on payments.
??? Then why do they phone hosts trying to pressure them into agreeing to a refund?
I didn’t see in the original post of @PitonView the part when Airbnb have done the effort to call the host for intervening in the name of the guest… It is an automatic process, they ask the other part if agree, message-based, under the app, and that agreement of the host might involve a cost under certain policies.
I agree that I didn’t check that specific policy, but my ‘danger’ sensor was activated. As a host you can agree even to pay a penalty for allowing a guest to cancel even the policy says is now ‘unrefundable’. That penalty can be seted up to cover the cost of platform running.
I remember the situation that made me to join this forum… I refunded that booking but Airbnb was then strongly against me doing that. That was my experience a time ago, indeed at that time the money were already in my account, but I can understand that business is business and it’s supposed to produce some revenue, and I think we all should be vigilant, that’s all… Here the guest should have been cancelling in a timely manner… (Or I misunderstood the question 
?!)
The guest cancelled then messaged me “What are the details of the refund?”. I was busy and thought it was within the 48 hours period (it was not) so I just sent her to AirBnB. I then get a message that the guest has opened a case in the Resolution Center asking for a refund.
Afterwards, she messages me that her father is sick so they don’t want to plan a vacation for next summer and that she should get a refund because it was only six hours beyond the deadline when she cancelled.
It’s a holiday week (4th of July) and there’s plenty of time to rebook. I don’t really want her as a guest anyway - she sounded rather petulant when she said she should get her money back because she only missed the deadline by a few hours and her father is sick with an illness that isn’t usually very serious (especially seven months ahead of time).
On the UK airbnb site, when the cancellation comes through to you it says whether or not the guest was refunded anything, and how much, and then there is another set of options you have as host if it wasn’t a full refund. so you can choose then whether to refund a little bit more or indeed ‘in full’. That option completely wipes the booking out and it is as if it never was…
The resolution centre request makes it more complicated - you might have to refuse the request for money to be able to get back to the option of a refund in full… I got caught out by that with a guest demanding a specific amount when the reality was we both just wanted the full refund option including fees!
If you feel like you are not happy hosting her, I’d say you have no reason to hurry up with an answer that you agree with that refund 
. I’d serve an non-committal dodgy answer and let her demonstrate her reasons to Airbnb :poker face:
That will send her elsewhere 
I ended up calling AirBnB CS before the Resolution Request expired. AirBnB had been threatening to make the decision for us if I didn’t respond in time.
The AirBnB CS rep canceled the reservation and deleted the Resolution Request. I was thanked for going outside my cancellation policy.
The guest never came back and thanked me for giving them money back. She was in a huge hurry to try and get it back, though.
The total refund was almost $4000 US. I can’t imagine not saying a quick “Thank you” for that. It just reinforces my impression I don’t need them as guests.
Guest’s cancellation email gives you the option to give a full refund. It’s not nearly as complicated as everyone is making it to be. Just refer to the cancellation email.