It may not be happening now, but I can certainly imagine Airbnb eventually deciding to phase out the older cancellation policies. My concern is that by encouraging hosts to adopt this new policy, Airbnb could later eliminate the previous options, leaving hosts who switched unable to go back.
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I never opted for the photo tour, therefore I don’t have it on my listing. But people who did opt for the photo tour and dislike it, finding it problematic to rearrange photos, etc., are unable to opt out.
(BTW, hosts have been reporting that while their chosen cover photo appears as such in their host view, Airbnb’s bots are changing it to another photo on the guest view.)
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I have a ‘firm’ cancellation policy - when I looked that is the strictest option available for short stays. Guess the Strict and Super Strict have already been phased out as new options, in the UK anyway.
Before they eliminated strict, Airbnb asked to confirm or decline the change, and if declined, strict would remain, even after they eliminate it as a choice.
I declined. So I still have strict.
I noticed today I’d been opted in to the “Extended Cancelation.”
So if my guest doesn’t show up, I’m still paid and just don’t host anyone? And if I get a last-minute booking, I’m paid twice?
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That would appear to be the case. The economic logic of it doesn’t really stack up.
I’m curious if there is any reason to opt out? Seems a little too good to be true coming from AirBnB, which has not been friendly to small-time hosts.
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I read and re-read this and feel like I’m missing something.
What I don’t understand is only getting 50 percent back. If my policy is strict and it says that I will be paid according to my existing policy which would be 100 percent if it was 24 hours before arrival, where is the 50 percent off coming from?
I am not sure hosts ever get 100% of the booking whatever the cancellation policy says - Airbnb only payout 50% on the unused nights.
Not for me. If a guests cancels last minute the only payment I don’t get is the cleaning fee. Still don’t understand the downside of not opting out.
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Who said you only get 50% back? It says you’ll be paid out according to your cancellation policy.
I did mention 50% upthread, but that was just an example of how it will negatively affect hosts with moderate policies, like me.
With a moderate policy, hosts get paid in full for the first night, and 50% of the following nights if a guest cancels less than 5 nights before check-in. I have hardly ever gotten cancellations in that time frame, guests normally cancel long before that. But this new policy would encourage last minute cancellations, leaving hosts not enough time to rebook.
Thanks for the clarification. I saw that and was confused. I don’t see a down side. Airbnb never does anything for the hosts so I’m wondering about why they are doing this.
On another topic, it’s getting really difficult to use this forum. Lots of errors, pages reloading, 429 errors etc.
Yes, these software errors are really frustrating. I sent a message to the site owners about this months ago but never received a response and the issues continue.
Right, my cover photo has been changed to something worse constantly, I could only find out when using an incognito window. I never opt in for the photo tour either. Somehow the stupid AI did it anyway.
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Yes, Strict policy was grandfathered. No more for new listing.
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