The article says guests must rely on hosts to give them a (partial) refund. Even so the guests lose fees paid to AirBnB under the current policy. Texas may be under the same exception:
Charming how Airbnbâs messaging is to harrass hosts for a refund. (When they know damn well that hosts who are inclined to refund would offer to do so unbidden)
When their messaging should be, âAccording to our EC policy, hurricanes in hurricane-prone areas are foreseeable possibilities, and not covered. Therefore guests are subject to the terms of the cancellation policy they booked under. Airbnb offers travel insurance that guests should consider purchasing when booking to cover themselves for travel disruptions not covered by the EC policy.â
Why do they encourage guests to request refunds from hosts for things Airbnb itself doesnât deem worthy of a refund? (Not just regarding this hurricane, but in general)
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This has already been discussed on this forum. @SleepingCoyote
As already mentioned if there is a government lockdown of the area the guest will be refunded under Airbnbâs EC policy.
A fine example of a journalist inventing a story.
It would be funny if it wasnât for the fact that there are some people who believe it. For example, âfollowing a similar policy as other short-term rental businesses like Vrbo and Expediaâ.
Of course, but thatâs not mentioned until the end of paragraph three.
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If youâre not interested just scroll on by.
As someone who survived Superstorm Sandy, who had neighbors who almost drowned in their houses, I can tell you that the âgovernment lockdownâ referred toâI assume they mean the National Guard prohibited exit or entranceâcovered only the worst part of the cat area as itâs called. Cat is short for Catastrophe.
Outside the cat area were houses that were habitable, at least once the power was turned back on, but highly unpleasant to be in for a variety of reasons. Things like major trees, I mean 3-4 stories high, knocked over across the path to the house. The local Trader Joeâs filled with 4 feet of water, and almost all stores and restaurants closed because the workers lived in the cat area and couldnât get to work. But these houses were never under âgovernment lockdownâ or Guard blockade the way our property was. If you had gasoline you could drive right up to them and go in.
And @jaquo , That journalist did not invent anything based on my research and personal experience.
This part is news to me. I just learned that if a natural disaster is âforseeableâ in your location, the ABB extenuating circumstances cancellation policy does not apply. At least officially.
That is a loophole big enough for a tornado to roll through.
I happen to own property in an area that is vulnerable to natural disasters so I am interested in this topic. Again, if youâre not interested, people, donât waste your time here.
Since AirBnB will not refund, of course guests are going to turn to hosts asking for refunds.
For those of you who donât stay at AirBnB when you travel, you should know that guests can pay for the whole thing months in advance if they want. Or guests can leave a partial or a couple partial payments.
Now, if payout goes to the host the day after check in as is common, and a storm hits in areas such as listed below by AirBnB, and the guest wants out and wants a refund, then the host is apparently on the hook. Not AirBnB.
This is in contrast to a chain hotel. I would expect a hotel would refund me 100%. With ABB Under the best case scenario the guest loses AirBnBâs fee, which is not tiny, and the host loses their AirBnB fee as well.
This is good to know for me as a traveler. AirBnB properties are often tempting for so many reasons. But I should book hotels only in the months and regions that are not listed below by ABB if I want to protect my payment in the case of a natural disaster.
From the AirBnB website today:
Natural disasters. Natural disasters, acts of God, large-scale outages of essential utilities, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and other severe and abnormal weather events. This does not include weather or natural conditions that are common enough to be foreseeable in that locationâfor example, hurricanes occurring during hurricane season in Florida.
Weather events, natural conditions, and diseases that are excluded from our Extenuating Circumstances Policy
Our Extenuating Circumstances Policy allows for guests and hosts to cancel only where the circumstances were not foreseeable at the time the reservation was made. Foreseeable circumstances that are not covered include the weather events, natural conditions and diseases described in this article, as well as any transportation disruptions that result from them. This article is intended to illustrate the most common excluded weather events, natural conditions and diseases rather than to provide an exhaustive list.
We encourage guests to research their destination before booking, carefully review the hostâs cancellation policy, and consider buying travel insurance to protect against unexpected travel disruptions.
Tropical storms, cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons
Tropical cyclones are storms that typically form over bodies of water in the tropics and impact many coastal regions around the world. Depending on their location and strength, these storms are also known as hurricanes, typhoons, tropical storms, tropical depressions, and cyclones. Below are examples of the regions most frequently impacted and their storm seasons.
| Region | Season |
|---|---|
| Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea | |
| Examples: Belize, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, The Bahamas, the United States (Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas), U.S. Virgin Islands, and the British Virgin Islands. | June through November |
| North Atlantic Ocean | |
| Examples: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, and Virginia. | June through November |
| Eastern Pacific Ocean | |
| Examples: Mexico, Guatemala, and Hawaii. | May through November |
| Western Pacific Ocean | |
| Examples: Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, and Vietnam. | May through September |
| Indian Ocean | |
| Examples: coastal regions in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. | May through June, and October through November |
| South Pacific Ocean | |
| Examples: Fiji, Solomon Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Vanuatu and Australia (Northern Territory, Queensland, and Western Australia). | November through April |
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Exactly. AirBnB should remind guests about travel insurance.
As far as hosts giving refunds-----One thing this forum has taught me is that hosts vary considerably in how generous and understanding they are toward guests. Some hosts will hardly give an inch.
Some hosts would encourage guests leave for an area not impacted by the natural disaster.
Your host is everything with AirBnB.
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This policy has been in effect for a long time. Things like the EC policy should not be ânewsâ to hosts- it is our responsibility to inform ourselves of Airbnb policies.
This does not require having travelled as an Airbnb guest to know. I would venture a guess that almost all hosts are aware of this. All it takes is hosts informing themselves of Airbnb policies, those which affect hosts as well as guests, because hosts are impacted by guest policies. I have never travelled as a guest, and I have always been fully aware of the fact that guests book often months (or even a year) in advance, and that guests pay in full, or in some cases half-up-front, at the time of booking.
All that said, I wouldnât consider what just happened in Florida as a âforeseeable eventâ, simply because it is an area prone to hurricanes. When a natural disaster is of proportions never experienced in hundreds of years, or ever in recorded history, I would consider that an extenuating circumstance.
And it is quite true what you say about areas that are locked down or deemed by the govt. to be an official disaster area. There are many areas in proximity, but outside that area which are impossible to get to, and one would be foolishly risking their safety to attempt to get there, or there could be damages or power outages which make fulfilling a booking impossible.
However, it is also supposedly possible for hosts whose properties become uninhabitable or impossible to reach for one reason or another, outside their control, to cancel bookings without penalty.
But if guests plan to travel to a hurricane-prone area in hurricane season, or a tornado-prone area in tornado season, they should purchase travel insurance, not expect the host or Airbnb to refund them. I believe that is Airbnbâs thinking on this subject, and I donât really disagree with that.
As the policy reads, which you yourself quoted here, guests are now encouraged to take out travel insurance- it isnât either Airbnbâs nor hostâs responsibility if they choose to ignore that. Guests bear some responsibility for prudently covering themselves for their travels, just as they need to get the required visas, or vaccinations, in order to travel to some countries, or on a more trivial note, pack appropriately for what will be needed for the climate or culture they are travelling to.
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I am so thankful that I came very close to reserving a month in Fort Myers late in the winter, but held off due to a cost concerns. I canât imagine having reserved a destroyed property and then having to harass the owner for a refund. Many of those people could not afford flood insurance.
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I think a lot of folks would agree with you, but ABB does not.
And @Christine_Shirtcliff as my mother would have said, you must live right, my dear.
TikTok reported that Disney World hotels forced their guests to leave early to make room for line repair workers and search teams. Guests complained they had no where to go.
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