There are many reasons to be angry about Airbnb. This one has me extremely livid. When Airbnb selectively demands payment in the form of cancellation fees if you as a host cancel, this is simply another way to make money out of you. Why demand money as punishment if you have a legitimate reason to cancel, and the guest has had their money refunded anyway? After all, you are working for them, hosting for their profit. What’s worse, if you have a cancellation fee unpaid and have no hosting funds coming in, Airbnb will simply wait until you next host, so they can harvest that cancellation fee right out of your account in their payout summary. This just happened to me. It wasn’t obvious what the fee was from; I had to call and ask. Another little trick to treat hosts like unwitting slaves. Just think about this – as if they aren’t making enough profit from hosts’ labour already. This little tactic should have you angry, and I want to bring it to everyone’s attention.
How many people are going to claim “leigitmate” reasons just to cancel though? Probably every cancellation. If I had a legitimate reason, I’d be more concerned with that than to care about a small fee.
Re comments from ‘Tom’ and ‘David’. It’s actually a very interesting choice of language to call a host ‘flaky’ because they had a legitimate need to cancel. Are all hosts who do not robotically submit to the requirements of air bnb to be considered ‘flaky’ i wonder? Maybe that is part of the unofficial ideology informing the corrupt policies of air bnb.
The only thing ‘flaky’ is the excuses Airbnb offers to defend itself from unethical policies and practices. There are legitimate times when a host needs to cancel, why should they be punished? The guest already gets refunded. Air bnb is way out of line. Oh and this complaint has nothing to do with the ability to manage a calendar.
If you can’t manage your calendar you shouldn’t host. And you should be punished for screwing the guest around.
I guess it’s to weed out flaky hosts.