go onto OwnerRez instead.
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Probably not because the PM will still offer an alternative accommodation that airbnb will deem an acceptable substitute so no penalty
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very very wise. Yup you found a loophole
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Yup. Even when the guests do not see the alternate accommodation as acceptable. Airbnb turns a blind eye to these bait and switches.
Yes, it’s so true. Software-connected hosts are allowed to have “room types” and swap them out upon a guest’s arrival. It’s legitimate but most guests don’t know that some hosts have different rules.
This is the part that I’m most concerned about…
“If you have to cancel for unavoidable reasons, we’ll work with you and help your guests find another place to stay, without fees.”
Does ‘we’ll work with you’ mean we have to argue our case with a CS rep to be able to have the fees removed? If I’m already facing some crisis/disaster I wouldnt want to have to do that too.
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yes that works when it is a “room”. This policy is describing a hotel listing. A full home host that is software connected does not have that advantage because each house differs. But places like an extended stay hotel is protected by this policy
yes it does. that is exactly what that part means
I’ve seen it typically used in a building that is full of similar condos, not single family homes.
So far everyone here is talking about the penalties for hosts cancelling. Anyone notice that this policy also applies these penalties if a guest reports the property as uninhabitable, with one of the examples given being “mold”?
So a guest can now report that there was mold, and some CS rep will take their word for it, and the host can get up to $1000 fine. Whether there actually is mold or not.
Know what this new cancellation policy is? Remember a little while back when they introduced the ‘guest has 72 hours to report an issue’? Part of that rollout was that the host would have to pay for an alternate accomodation. Airbnb removed that part after hosts protested, pointing out how unfair that was.
Well, they basically just reinstituted the same thing, couching it in new language as a new policy.
I’m all for irresponsible hosts who cancel on a whim or because they got a better booking, not being allowed to get away with that behavior, but as long as some clueless outsourced CS rep has the authority to decide what is and is not an avoidable cancellation, this is yet another policy that will end up punishing good hosts along with the bad.
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yes I think you are correct…it would be that too
I did notice and I think this is pretty awful
A few months ago my bathroom ceiling fan had “mold” around it …I failed to look up in a while. No big deal…I cleaned the mildew / mold up with a cleaning spray and a sponge. It never returned yet. But what if that black ceiling triggered a guest, who could send a photo, and then $1000? I would not be happy about an AirBnb intervention over something that could be wiped off with spray and a sponge. And this photo could be faked by a guest too…like cockroaches are sometimes faked I have heard, or security cameras are imagined. I turned instant book off again in protest. Most of my bookings come from VRBO anyway and every time I turn instant book on then the Bachelor Parties try to book, even though my description tells them not to very clearly.
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It’s not only Instant Book I’ve been reading a lot of hosts saying they are turning off on the heels of this policy, I anticipate many hosts deciding to shorten their max stay length. Risking a percentage of the payout penalty for a 4 day booking is a lot less risky than a 2 week booking.
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also makes me wary of having the calendar open too far in the future. currently barely have 3 months open.
What is so frustrating and depressing to me about this is that Airbnb seems to have no understanding whatsoever what the underlying cause of hosts’ opposition to new policies like this stems from.
Almost all of hosts’ frustration and anger with Airbnb is due to their abyssmal customer service department. And to a lesser extent the objectionable extras they slide into policies (like a host getting charged under this policy if a guest claims it’s uninhabitable- WTF does that have to do with irresponsible host cancellations?)
There is no reason why responsible hosts who would never cancel a booking without a seriously good reason wouldn’t welcome this policy, which is essentially designed to punish and hopefully eliminate bad, unethical, and scammy hosts.
But we know that some CS rep can arbitrarily decide that me falling off a ladder and having to spend a week in the hospital isn’t an unavoidable circumstance for having to cancel a guest booking and could say that I could find someone else to move into my homeshare and host the guest. (I couldn’t, and even if I could scramble from my hospital bed to make that happen, it would likely result in a less than happy guest and possibly a bad review, because my guests like my listing in large part because I run it well, which is evident from the reviews I get. The guests talk about their experience sharing a home with me as much as they speak about the actual space they rented).
The vast majority of both hosts’ and guests’ disgust and anger with Airbnb is not over policies, host/guest experiences, payments or payouts, it almost all comes down to the horrid, inconsistent customer service.
Why can’t Airbnb see this, and why don’t they care?
The thread on the Airbnb CC about this policy in the Host Circle section (not the ones in the Updates or Hosting sections) is well worth reading.
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I guess it’s more profitable this way… I don’t think they have a shortage of hosts right now. Many of the second homes that were occupied by owners during the pandemic have come back on the market. Plus, working remotely has decreased as many companies have asked people to return to office.
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I’m sorry, I don’t see what your response has to do with the awful publicity Airbnb gets from both hosts and guests about their CS dept.
it’s more profitable to provide poor customer service. Providing high quality customer service requires more effort and cost.
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But poor customer service is how you lose customers, both hosts and guests, buyers and sellers. In the long run, it’s not at all profitable.
It’s more profitable, with less effort, to hang on to one’s existing customers than to be constantly trying to replace them with new ones to fill in for the ones who left in disgust. And every happy customer tells others about a great business, so they get new users without much effort. Whereas every unhappy customer warns other people not to deal with that company.
Cheaping out on customer service is not good business sense. As every good 5 star host knows.
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You mean 2019. Because that’s when that part was added to the cancelation policy. I know because I actually read the policies, it’s part of my job as a host. You and I have already had this conversation so you already know the truth and are still spreading the rumor.
That policy was old news from 2019 and saying that it was new was just drama and hysteria. And it was started by hosts who like to talk about how awful Airbnb is all day long but can’t be bothered to read and know the policies that they’re griping about.
For anyone who hasn’t seen it, this is section 4.2 from the 2019 Rebooking and Refund Policy:
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