Please help Italian hosts against new cancellation policies!

… without words… please read and sign. This changement is only for Italy (for now).
Thank you
Claudia

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The link didn’t work for me.

@cabinhost Thank you, it works for me please try to click on the text block in bold.

Claudia,

Can you please clarify all of this below??

I read (second hand) that the Strict policy will be much more relaxed. No longer will the host receive 50% at the bare minimum after guest books. But host will receive NOTHING if guest cancels 30 days out. This will not work for many properties in markets where it is difficult to rebook within 30 days.

Another change I heard is that the strict policy will no longer allow hosts to receive full payment if guest doesn’t cancel 7 days out. Now they can cancel up to 24 hours the day before, and host only receives 50% versus the 100% they were used to in the past.

I rent out a whole home, and it is not that likely I will rebook within 24 hours. It has happened, but not likely. I do get last minute bookings, but it also depends on the season.

It would help if you could clarify this for us Americans. I am certain you will have more support if people understand how the changes will directly affect them.

To take 5% from host, and also charge guest 6-12% is Airbnb pushing boundaries. Every listing site tries to get everyone signed up, dependent on them, and then they just slowly start taking and taking…while all the responsiblilty lies on the host.

Airbnb (as far as my understanding) no longer requires a verified ID either. So basically anyone can create an email, phone number, and upload any photo of anyone…and use a stolen credit card. This will only increase. However, instant book guests can choose to require a verifed ID. Airbnb already does not match ID to credit card used.

A lot of this doesn’t even matter if Air does not change their “extenuating circumstances” policy where guest can cancel and host gets nothing (all with guest claiming to be sick or presenting an obituary).

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I saw an interesting host recently who had her own rules, she charged a supplement for anybody who was single staying in a twin room. It’s not something that air promotes but she has loads of great reviews and guests pay her a supplement.

I wonder can you say at the top of your listing. My cancellation is set at flexible but I do not offer flexible cancellation but you will only get 50% if you cancel within a month for whatever rule. Please read my rules and agree to them before booking. I have only done one cancellation and I was the one doing it so does that not give us some power ?

Or say I only accept guests who have ver. photo idea , as this is my home, for my safety and protection bla bla

I’m pretty sure that any language used in a listing to override an Airbnb policy would be disregarded.

Cassid,

No, I cannot override a strict cancellation policy, and would never have it set to flexible.

What bothers me is that I don’t see that Air verifies guests anymore. I “thought” they used to require a verified ID. But it seems they no longer require that on listings that don’t have Instant Booking.

Please…anyone correct me here.

dear @cabinhost my English is so poor that I hope you could see this airbnb page as I see it.
https://www.airbnb.com/home/updated_cancellation_policies_explained?eluid=0&euid=f6c84611-3da2-94c8-a13e-283f1f216e10&locale=en

It’s incredible, please see here all new conditions.

https://www.airbnb.com/home/updated_cancellation_policies

And guests could cancel during their stay, the host will have 50% and have to pay the commission to airbnb as well…

Now for Italy only, for all bookings after October 18th, I’m opening a listing on Homeway there’s a reduction (in Italy) calling them by phone.

Thank you for your kind attention, If the page is not working please tell me, I will cut & paste all relevant terms.

Claudia

Trust me, my guest will end up at the police station if he tried to pull a stunt like that.
National laws supersede AirBnB policy.

I am checking ID’s and taking passport numbers, if a guest would cancel after they checked in, I would report them to the police. And local police is very active in tracking non paying guests in the area.

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What?? Are they now applying this policy to the strict cancellation?

The links only brought me to the airbnb home page. But someone else in another thread did post the cancellation policies.

cut & paste @cabinhost and you all
This applies to Strict Terms (for guests)

  1. Cancel up to 30 days before your trip and get a full refund, including all
    fees. Cancel within 30 days of the trip and get a 50% refund of the
    total nightly rate, as well as a full refund of fees.

  2. 30 days before trip by 12pm
    Cancel within this time period and get a 50% refund of the total nightly rate. You’ll also get a full refund of all fees.

  3. During trip
    Cancel during your trip and you may be eligible for a partial refund
    Strict policy: Canceling after check-in
    3.a) Before 12pm local time
    Cancel within this time period and you’ll be refunded 50% of the remaining booking value, excluding fees.
    3.b) 12pm on any day after check-in
    Cancel within this time period and you’ll be refunded 50% of the remaining booking value, excluding that night and fees.

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here’s the post with all details, thank you @AllAboutAirbnb or having add it after my appeal!!!

we are stonished by the new cancellation rules Airbnb is testing in Italy! Host is not protected at all, in spite of the load of work is doing before and during guests staying at their houses. The worst is protecting guests even when they have made check in… in spite of whatever reason… it can be “it is raining and so I want to change location”, etc
These new rules are unacceptable. Airbnb is testing right now in Italy but they roll out all over the world… watch it

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Today I sent an email to the italian airbnb team in Milan and an Italian Airbnb employee confirmed that all the new bad cancellation policies will be applied gradually all over the world by Airbnb.

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I will sign the petition in support, as we are all in this together. Even people who currently have the flexible policy and instant book…sooner or later Airbnb will implement worse changes there too.

Even if tomorrow Air had 100% of hosts on flexible and instant book - they will not be satisfied. I do hope you all are finding other places to advertise. Air will only change their policies if it hits them in their pocket book.

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Hi, I’m an Italian host and this is my first post here, but the matter is very important for us, of course… We all have been discussing for days about these new rules.
The worst thing, in my opinion, is that guests are not paying their fees any longer, in case of cancellation!
Not only we won’t be protected, but they will feel free to book and cancel, book and cancel, having no expenses nor penalties.

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This policy can easily be abused by hosts to make more profit.
Their new policy has a big caveat, it’s build on the fear they have put in the hosts the last few years, and the trust in the host protection program.

As soon as hosts know how to take advantage, Air will abandon the free cancellation.

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I hear your pain but sooner or later you will have to accept that Airbnb isn´t about “you” but about them, and by them I mean Airbnb. They are very confident that they are now the world leader platform in the vacation rental business so hosts will have no other choice than to accept whatever they think works best for them.

They started first with IB. Years of fight to push hosts into adopting IB. ¨Research shows that guests prefer to book without a confirmation and bla, bla, bla". It was all a bunch of lies. If that research was true then why they need to boost IB listings in the search ranking if, as they said, most guests will discard non-IB listings. The real true is that non-IB listings saw a drop in their bookings because they lost placement and in consequence visibility. An extorsive strategy in reality. You better choose IB, or will assure you have troubles gettings new reservations. Period. Now as a lot of people still prefer to keep non-IB listings no matter how hard it gets for them, they started to attack from another front: Discrimination. If you are able to choose who is going to stay with you, then you are to discriminate people and that´s not good. The result is that some hosts have seen their listings converted to IB automatically while new hosts can´t opt for something else than IB.

The second war is about price standardization. Instead of you and me defining how much our rentals costs, they would like to decide that too. At first, this started with price suggestions compliment with Smart Pricing which algorithm is so smart that is mostly biased to choose the lower value of your price range. Ok, you might say that you are still in control of your price but that´s not true. If you dismiss their suggestions but your neighboring listings don´t, you will be forced to drop your price anyway.

You can´t choose who is going to stay with you, you can´t define which is the best price for you but it didn´t stop there. Now cancellation policies. I have seen this coming long time ago, and I don´t know why they took so much time. They first attempt was about filtering. They tried to add a new search filter which allows guest to filter by cancellation policy. It was clear that the intention was to favor hosts that have Flexible cancellation but now they are decide to move further on this with this new changes in Italy. This is a complete no care about hosts. Not only putting in risk our ability to get new reservations if a guest cancels just a few days before their arrival time, but it is also a security concern for many hosts. It means that all our private data (full name, address, phone number, etc) will be available to anyone with a credit card that books our place and later cancels. He will gain access to our private data without paying nothing as now even Airbnb fees will be refundable.

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How does this work? This hasn’t happened to me so I’m curious. I was double their ‘price tips’ for a long time. Now their price tips are equal to what I’m getting.

I’m sure there are a few to which their price suggestions actually are in sync with the proper price but for each one of you there are 10 of us getting ridiculous price tips.

I don’t know where you are but their price suggestions have no impact in markets with low supply of hosts. Indeed Airbnb has no control over hosts in small markets. Their business is all about volume. They need more and more hosts. Once you set a huge competition they can force you to do whatever you want (call it IB, price suggestions, cancellation policies, etc). In highly saturate markets the Host Referral Program is still alive! Could you answer me why is that possible?