Hi, I have multiple guests asking for full refunds due to COVID-19. I contacted Airbnb in regards to the policy and I was told that is it hosts discretion to give a full refund. Only hosts in mainland China are instructed to give full refunds. However, my first guest cancelled this morning and was given a full refund. Has anyone else been experiencing this issue of Airbnb releasing full funds? Have you guys been issuing full refunds to guests or partial?
There are multiple threads on this topic already. If you read through the list you will get a wider variety of responses.
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Canadian host here. I’ve had two cancellations this week due to COVID-19, and for the first cancellation I was able to give a full refund because their event just wasn’t happening anymore (hockey tournament), so they wouldn’t need to travel, and my cancellation policy is set to flexible. Even though it was within 24 hours of their arrival date, I refunded them because it was the right thing to do, considering the circumstances. For my second reservation, the guest received confirmation from his company that travel was to be suspended. However, he chose the non-refundable option when he booked, so only the cleaning fee was refunded. I tried to call Airbnb support, but they are inundated with calls and said to call back later (it was a recording). I asked him to cancel the res because the system still says that if the host cancels, due to it being a non-refundable fare, that it will generate a public review stating the host cancelled, affect Superhost status for a year, etc etc. This is contrary to what Airbnb’s “Coronavirus Extenuating Circumstances Policy” says of course. Maybe I’m missing something, but I didn’t see an option to “cancel due to COVID-19” for hosts? For the last guest, the app generated a prompt to offer a full refund as opposed to the partial refund, which I did. Because of this, I asked the current guest to cancel and thought that I could fully refund him afterwards. However, his fare was non-refundable. I suppose I just need to go to through the Resolution Centre at this point.
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All my guests were automatically refunded 100% of their accommodations.
Oddly, my April 1 guest was not refunded anything. March guests were refunded 100% today.
In the US, and it says
If you’re traveling to or within the USA, the extenuating circumstances policy applies to reservations booked on or before March 13, 2020, with check-in date of April 1, 2020 or earlier.
So not sure why that guest was not refunded 100%.
So much for being nice 
Multiple threads … I can’t help see the irony that it keeps expanding like the virus each of the threads are discussing.
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Huh? Are you saying that it’s not nice? We moderators have discussed the best way to approach the influx of brand new members who join to post and don’t read first. I’d argue for letting each post stand and not closing or merging threads. It’s also been suggested that there be a waiting period between joining and being allowed to post.
Established members are going to tire of answering the same question time and again so reading the forum should provide the greatest number and diversity of replies.
I welcome your constructive input on how I can approach this better.
I’m happy to see the new posters. I hope they stick around and contribute.
I’m sure this is nothing new to the forum though, it just all happens to be on the same topic right now. I think what you (i.e. moderators) are doing is working just fine.
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My bad - I was being snarky and referencing a prior topic where there was some conversation about the multiple Covid19 topics. You were and are nice and the moderators are doing their best in managing this growing influx of topics talking about the same thing.
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I just had two bookings cancel, same weekend in April (Easter weekend, quick flip between their stays). For the first one, I got an email saying the guest was refunded half, but the second cancellation resulted in this email:
“Fully refunded $0” … 
Guess it is a mystery what we will actually get paid, if at all … What a cluster 
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I’m expecting more expansion of the policy.
I’m expecting changes, even to emails that we receive with detailed amounts. I can’t figure why two bookings, literally overlapping, would be treated differently. Booked close together, before the crazy set in and both after mid-April.
I agree. I thought the policy was in place for guests with reservations before April 1, but seems as though this isn’t consistent with what’s doing refunded. I’ve reached out 2 days in a row to Airbnb support and haven’t gotten a response yet.
I can’t even imagine the kind of disarray that exists at Airbnb right now given how competent they are in normal times.
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Lol right! They now have automated answering services that hang up instead of directing you to an actual person.
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Perfectly understandable. I’ve tried calling Airlines during a winter storm and have gotten the exact same thing. Airbnb has no miraculous powers apparently.
Speaking of “nice,” new member “nice” doesn’t think I’m “nice” and I think she’s right. My high tolerance for BS has reached it’s limit rather quickly. So, maybe that’s not going to work out after all.
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If you’ve reached your limit, I don’t fault you one whit. You provide an excellent service under what are undoubtedly the most trying circumstances. I appreciate what you do.
Thank you. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that new people are going to come each day, they aren’t going to read anything already posted and they are going to complain about the Airbnb refund policy. Those of us who have been here months or years already knew not to expect Airbnb to do anything other than what they are doing. But hey, bookings are down, lots of people have nothing better to do than send Airbnb messages and complaints that they have no one to address.
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