I was a superhost. My listing was always booked which means I was making Airbnb the 18% commission they get from each booking. My reviews were amazing, averaging to 4.7 Stars. My location prevented getting 5 stars. I am 6 miles from the local attractions and most found that 6 miles was worth not giving 5 stars, but that’s okay. Many of my guests just raved about how I was the best Airbnb experience they ever had. I was listed with instant book, meaning that I welcomed anyone into my home that booked. I never cancelled the first guest. My criminal background is clean as a whistle and I never did anything that would go against Airbnb’s Terms of Service. Hurricane Matthew came around and I had many guests cancel. That was all good. Of course this applied as extenuating circumstances and guests received full refunds. The Hurricane was on a Friday. On Monday I checked my inbox and saw nothing but cancellations. I was panicked, scared, and in disbelief. So because I was a superhost I had a direct phone number for Airbnb that got priority service. I was panicked but I knew that Airbnb would help me fix this right away as I figured it was just a glitch in their system. The customer service representative who answered the phone was also shocked, said that they would escalate it, and a manager would call me in a few hours.
So I waited. The call never came so I called back in four hours. I was then told that I do not exist in the Airbnb system and they could not find my account. However, I was told not to worry; they would take care of this and a manager would call me back. We played this phone tag game for three days. Finally I received an email from Airbnb and told me I had been dismissed from Airbnb and this decision was irreversible. I was told that no further support would be available for me and that they were under no legal obligation to provide a reason. They cancelled my account.
I was devastated. I was in love with hosting. It was the best experience of my life. I never received any bad guests or reviews. I had one guest whose father in law passed away a few hours before boarding a flight to come and spend the weekend with me. Needless to say, calling Airbnb to cancel was not her highest priority. I offered her a full refund and she refused. So I told her when she is ready to rebook, the trip would already be paid when she arrived. I advised I would just credit her the money towards a future booking. The greatest sadness I felt through all of this was that I could not honor that lady’s booking. I do not have her contact information as all of that was removed when Airbnb cancelled my account without warning or explanation. One guest cancelled six hours before his arrival time and Airbnb gave him a full refund and a $100 credit to stay elsewhere. I feel abandoned and just saddened by the loss of hosting and all that the Airbnb community stood for. Despite all the horror stories you may read I was in love with the program. I still do not have anything negative to say about the company other than the way they cancelled the guests with no explanations and no warnings. I live in a major city so the chances of finding last minute accommodations are slim to none.
The same thing just happened to me after 3 years 2 houses! I’m ready to sign with vrbo but I called them to find out WHY? and nobody KNEW! they’re a menace and told me someone would call back , no one ever did .super host in 2 great markets San Diego and Yucatán .
Just weird! I went to their website and told them about their terrible “customer service”
This happened to me also cancelling over $6500 in bookings. I had all 5 start reviews . I am left not knowing what to do to fill these dates. Any suggestions
The very same thing happened to me this month. There was no previous warning, no email and no phone call from Airbnb. All my reservations were cancelled. At first I thought it was some kind of mistake in the system. But Airbnb had actively sent cancellation notices to all of my guests. Airbnb is not obligated to reveal the reason(s) for their decision. If they tell something it is at their own discretion and of course so vage that it is almost impossible to argue over it. This makes them invulnerable. One of my prospective guests received an email stating that my place would not be safe. They even called her up advising her not to come to my condo and book somewhere else. They offered a substancial discount in an email with links to comparable places to persuade her to book another location. My ratings were a little over 4 stars. The spaces I offered had ‘great reviews’ at the time it happened. Airbnb did not dare to meddle with the ongoing reservations but were rather effective in causing a high cancellaton rate with my future guests. It took me some time to contact every guest individually. I could not write back to them over the Airbnb site because they were so smart to block this function. I could write them from my cell phone Airbnb app but not being able to use a keyboard blindfolded made it very time consuming. After a booking I always stored the guests’ phone numbers. So I could reach out to them by texting or via Whatsap or by calling them up what I did. I saved many bookings but also lost lots of them which proves how strong and powerful Airbnb has become. I apologized to my guests for the inconvenience and informed them that Airbnb had decide no longer to manage my bookings and payments. To discontinue a business realationship is one thing but doing this on the back of customers is another thing and a sign of bad business ethics. Airbnb knows that they are one of the most important sites and they let you know it. Their decisions are final and they disengage from furrther discussions.I believe in communication and resolving issues by talking.
MY ADVICE. :
– be sure to have your listings on more sites to reduce the rist of being dumped by Airbnb.
– too much power is never good for a functioning market
The exact same thing happened to me earlier this year. I have a post on here about it as well.
Makes no sense but i gave up trying to find a solution with a totally unreasonable and shady company and just switched to VRBO which has proven to be just as good in terms of bookings. Best of luck.