Just an fyi the "new Covid EC policy" is more of the same

No surprise to anyone here. The “new policy” that they are so proud of, and is supposed to go into effect this month, is "Guests must report within 14 days of check-in instead of 30 that they or a member of the booking party is infected or has been exposed, with no guarantee at all that they will be required to provide any proof, as if that will help any host who is cancelled and is likely to lose revenue.
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So, more of the same to continue probably forever, and no thanks at all to Catherine Powell or the team at Air.

Well, there goes my firm booking policy. We learned in September that we’ll be hosting an official IronMan race in August, and almost everybody and everything is already booked except for Air hosts that only open bookings 60 or 90 days out. I’ve been debating about opening booking just for that week, since I’ve applied a rule that among other things raises rates about 60% then. I know that it will book almost instantly because I had already several calls from folks who found my phone number. This event is happening during peak summer tour season, when we could really use the business a lot more in late September, but oh well.

Catherine Powell is a joke. Does she even exist? WTF does she do? I can’t think of one thing that she has done for hosts since her position was announced and a whole lot that’s gotten worse. She put out all these feel-good videos when she first took over, full of promises that never materialized, but she’s been out of sight for at least 6 or 8 months.

Catherine Powell is to Airbnb what Kyrsten Sinema is to the Democratic party.

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I really have to recommend the moderate cancelation policy. Eliminates at least 94% of the trouble with Airbnb. Why would anyone want a guest who doesn’t want to be there? Not even my husband commits something to me 14 days out.

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It would not be good in our case - only 5 days out for full cancellation. We’ll stick w/ firm.

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Means that your guest actually really intentionally and happily wants to be at your listing, which is the best way to start off a stay. I understand that different hosts have different reasons for their cancelation policy and it surely must vary by listing but, geez all of the extra time dealing with guests who want to cancel, I don’t want to spend the time.

That being said, I have only had a couple of cancelations in nearly 4 years (not including April 2020 of course, but that was different). My point being that my Moderate cancelation policy doesn’t seeem to encourage cancelations. But I would never use a Flexible cancelation policy purely because a lot of dumb hosts in the area drop their prices right before open dates and I don’t want people canceling to get a better deal. Maybe your market is different and you feel the same way about 5 days.

Why do hosts drop their prices a day before the date? It makes no sense to me. If there’s only 11 places available, you should raise your prices, not drop them. Supply and demand.

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Well with us, if a guest could cancel without penalty only 5 days out, we would have a high risk of vacancy. Most of our bookings tend to be a mix of same day, same week or next week. We get a few further out, but they seem mostly to be holidays or some kind of special event that we may not be aware of.

He darn well should know better or he’ll get “the shoe of doom”!

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Yep! I stay or raise. I just watch and eventually the cheaper places go and then it’s my turn. I only lower if I feel I overpriced myself to begin with, which usually happens when I’m trying to price for events in the area. Prices have risen so quickly it can be hard to predict 3 or 6 months out.

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That’s why I would think the Moderate cancelation policy would be ideal for you. If most of your guests are booking within 5 days of the stay, why worry about a cancelation? You don’t have a risk of vacancy if you can get bookings “same day or same week”.

It is more than possible that you are only getting bookings so close to the stay because of your cancelation policy. People might be wary to commit to an extreme policy. However, hardly anyone actually cancels. And if they canceled 5 days before, then you could still get your same day or same week bookings in their spot.

I assumed that hosts that used the strict cancelation policy because they couldn’t get bookings close to the date. Some can’t because of the nature of their listing or their location. I am not dismissing how you feel about it but, mathematically, it doesn’t really add up for your listing. FWIW.

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I had moderate, and was glad to move to firm when it became available. In my area, folks start booking for summer after Christmas, but Covid has diminished long term bookings. After 14 days out I’m probably not going to fill an empty week, most stays here are 2 to 4 days.

I wish Air would add “cancellation policy” to the list of rule set options. I don’t see why a cancellation policy choice can’t be applied to a date or range of dates before they are booked, so that guests see that when they see the price.

I don’t care about stay lengths, but most of my rules raise prices because they were created to apply to dates with big events locally.

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I will have to pause my listings again… except for desperate hard to book situations. With large houses there is always “somebody “ in a large group who can claim exposure and then a $5000 booking would be refunded. Of course I could then rely upon a contract and small claims court, but collecting on a judgment can be difficult. Once more Airbnb is showing particular disregard of large properties and the differences of costs, booking lead, and rolling the dice within a large group of people. For small units booked last minute this edict is much less painful if there is a cancellation. I will pause Airbnb on Christmas week which had not yet filled and leave it open on VRBO. Too bad.

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I can’t understand why anyone relies on the Airbnb “strict” cancellation policy, on the basis that they have shown time and time again that’s it’s essentially worthless.

As it stands now, hosts are at the mercy of poorly trained and (I suspect) poorly paid CS staff in south east Asia who it would appear are judged on how quickly they can close out cases, irrespective of the actual result.

Apart from March 2020, we’ve been fortunate over the years, cancellations aren’t a major issue for us. During our several peak periods, if we do get a cancellation, we usually rebook at a higher rate even at short notice.

JF

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It’s a bit of a crap-shoot. The policy that we would use is Moderate with 7 days. Moderate with 5 days could leave us hanging.
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With moderate if we have a Fri-Sun booking (common for us), the Guest can cancel 100% before 3pm on Sunday and we would likely be stuck without a booking.
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A question is, if we had moderate “would we get more bookings”? Cancellation policies are not part of a Search filter, so we feel that isn’t likely, unless Air gives more views to moderate than firm/strict etc.
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It would be nice if we could set Holiday Bookings to Firm and regular stuff to Moderate, etc. Or, weekend bookings to firm and all other to moderate. So many “nice to have” that will never be considered :slight_smile:

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Yeah that would suck. If you get a channel manager you are “software connected” and can collect a security deposit, and have a house rule that it will be used to compensate host if guest cancels due to EC, at sole discretion of host. Or something like that.

I would like a 7 day policy too, that’s a good idea.

Actually, they are, just so you have all the information. There used to be a toggle right next to “Type of Place” that said “Flexible Cancelation” and choosing that brought any listing that had a Moderate Policy or a Flexible Policy.

What I see now is a toggle that says “Free Cancelation” and if you have a Moderate Policy it will come up under that search until it’s within 5 days of the date.

I kind of question marketing to guests who think they might need to cancel, because it seems like there would be more cancelations but it hasn’t gone that way for us. We’ve had very few cancelations and it’s not difficult re-book the same week if needed. But, I totally get that it doesn’t fit for everyone.

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May I ask what your max capacity is?

I :heart:’d your post about the “leaving it listed on VrBo” but the rest is a bummer and I was wondering if cancellations are a big problem for you? I got a bunch when Covid hit, of course, but mostly I’m seeing people book later (1 month to 1 week prior unless it’s an event weekend/holiday). It sounds like you are a very popular destination so book out far quickly.

Is there any link to the new and updated covid policy? If there is, can you share it here? …or is this just their newest interpretation? Thanks

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All I found was this when I looked. See bullet 4 under " Don’t travel or host if you’ve recently been exposed to or have symptoms of COVID-19"

It still points back to the 10/2020 or so extenuating circumstances policy. As he said, seems nothing new. Maybe this “seems” to give them 2 more weeks to claim Covid but they could do so up until checkin all along w/o having to give proof (just need to “attest”). So I’m just going to keep trucking along. I do think it is notable that “exposure” isn’t in the extenuating circumstances list. But what that means to whatever CS answers your call, who knows. I haven’t had any Covid/EC cancellations since the first wave, surprisingly.

Ah … Ok so I’m sold. At least to give it a shot and see what happens. Just changed to moderate and we’ll see if we get an uptick in views or conversions.
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It stands to reason that some people will search using FREE CANCELLATION and it is to our benefit to show up when they do.

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