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Yes. And it may be an unpopular opinion, not sure. My husband and I actually feel very lucky to be hosts right now. It is really the best case scenario for us. In our situation, it is allowing us to continue to support ourselves. It much more secure than our other jobs. (I know that things are different for other hosts, especially those who host private rooms, but we are lucky to have separate apartments in our home). We are booked since March through the summer with long term stays (haven’t opened the Fall yet). It is not as much as we’d make normally this time of year (not even close), but it is paying our mortgage and utilities.
On the other hand, my husband is a bartender/bar manager at a restaurant. His job (which he’s done since he was 19) has changed, probably forever. There’s no way to socially distance at a bar and no one wants to sit at a bar socially-distanced. Sure, he could make cocktails for the servers eventually but there’s not much money in that to add to the $3.89/hour he makes, especially at 25% occupancy. So, when he has to go back to work, he’s looking at making maybe min wage and risking his life. (People can’t wear masks while they eat and drink). It’s the law that he has to make min wage and in our state, that means his boss would have to pay him another $7/hr. Restaurants are already struggling and will struggle more with the very few guests that can be 6ft apart and are not budgeted in a way to pay tipped employs the min wage. He might get laid-off and that’s the best case scenario. Though he already feels lost without his job
But people will still need a place to stay/live and our apartments should continue to bring some income (probably less as the economy dives). STR/LTR are saving the day for us. So, even though we lost money from cancellations, we are still very grateful for Airbnb.
Airbnb didn’t put the burden of the pandemic on hosts shoulders. The pandemic did. All the hosts who are outraged that Airbnb didn’t uphold their cancellation policy seem to think they’re in some special protected class that shouldn’t have had to suffer financially , like hundreds of thousands of other people in other walks of life are suffering right now. Including guests.
Which is exactly what can be said of the guests in return, except they may lose or postpone a vacation they had already budgeted for, while hosts could go out of business for good. Both are victims but hosts are bigger victims FOR SOMETHING THEY DID NOT DESERVE OR THRU NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN. No other crisis has forced businesses to refund all their customers everything all at once. This is unprecedented.
While hosts don’t have to refund if outside their cancellation policy and if they are still open for business and did nothing wrong on their part, I think a good compromise is credit for a future non-refundable reservation. Everyone should be okay with that under the circumstances.
I have lost $20k in advance bookings. These were direct, Airbnb, Homeaway and b.com.
I offered a full refund, future dates or a credit, their choice.
I put myself in the guests position with what would I want? All the ones who were refunded will now be direct booking with me.
Thanks for that suggestion! Golightly does seem to fit my current stance, outlook, etc. from what I can tell and if that doesn’t get traction, I can move to a standard month-to-month, or longer, if need be. I’m lucky to have someone, who was in dire straights, be willing to pay for expenses, so I didn’t have to close it down completely, and I’m happy I could find a way to help, too—
So too is a global pandemic where people are mandated to stay at home.
Many people need what would have been their vacation money to pay bills and rent and have no idea if / when they’d ever be able to travel again, or if the host will be hosting after all this. So the “credit” is just ploy to keep $ that they may never be able to access.
It’s very presumptuous to assume that guests’ money was some sort of play money that they can afford to lose. For all you know, a guest might have saved for years to take a special holiday and losing that money is as devastating for them as it is for you. And maybe they lost their job now, as well and need the money for rent, mortgage, food.
Credit for a future non-refundable stay might be acceptable to some guests, but probably not to most. The reasons why they booked that trip may not be applicable in the future. Maybe they booked specifically to attend a concert or a conference that got cancelled. That concert or conference may never be scheduled for your town again at all.
Any host who can’t grasp that a highly contagious pandemic is the very definition of an extenuating circumstance needs to get their brain adjusted.
Thanks for what you are doing to help those on the front lines! We have talked about doing the same thing, and we fall within the preferred 10 mile radius of the hospital. But, we don’t know where to find the names and addresses of reputable nurse’s registries. If you can, would you post the names and numbers of those you have used? Thanks!
Hi @lizmillercht. I’m not sure you meant to direct your comment to me. Although I live close to a hospital I haven’t used any nurse registries. I signed up for Airbnb’s program but then closed my Airbnb, as I said in the post to which you replied.
I sent an email to HR/recruitment contact at my local hospital on their career website. They thanked me for offering my space and said they would pass it along to the team. No nibbles yet.
My local hospital was keen on having any possibilities to put on the intranet, so if you know of anyone else, that’s another way to try to help. I put a message out on FB and had a lot of people into the concept (no definites, either!), so it puts it in people’s minds, if nothing else. My local hospital wanted email contacts to be able to reach out, rather than to be emailed or called—
I agree with giving a full refund to guests in this National Emergency. I have given full refunds to all of my cancelled reservations and have been given the same back except for a management company who kept the processing fee and I have filed an insurance claim. Yes I have lost income but others have lost their lives and jobs. We will get through this together and not by penalizing people in a pandemic.
I agree Helen. I blame a virus for sickening and killing people resulting in economic and political chaos. Unfortunately human beings seem to have a great need to blame unfortunate circumstances on any other human being or company that might have been involved in the situation. Individual, political and corporate decisions have been flawed, no doubt, but some have been heroic. This is a rare occurrence with limited precedent. Even the best plan or policy couldn’t have been perfectly written for this circumstance.
Not necessarily - often guests travel for a one-off reason so have no need of a travel credit.
Many guests like hosts have lost their income stream but unlike hosts don’t have assets like a property that they can put to other uses to generate an income such as long term lets or letting out STR to key workers. @SWLinPHX
Hosts are not the bigger victims, everyone is affected by the pandemic, many financially. This is not about playing ‘my loss is bigger than yours’.
I’ve given back full refunds for every guest that has cancelled on the house I manage. Today I gave a full refund of over $3K to my Redweek renter for his week in Hawaii in June. I simply cannot fathom not giving a refund, and I’m dirt poor right now.
Hi, that was my mistake. I thought I was writing to a member who posted about renting to nurses. Sorry about that, and thanks for letting me know it went to you.
