Flaky host leaves Airbnb ecllipse viewers in the lurch

Holy Smokes, he's screwed, along with a tad bit of new information I found regarding cancellations.

#1: Regarding "Mr Don't do business with family"...

Cancellation fee. The fee will be waived for your first cancellation within a 6-month period. After that, the following fee will be deducted from your first payout after a cancellation. The amount deducted will depend on when you accepted the reservation and how soon before check-in you canceled it:

More than 7 days before check-in, we’ll deduct $50 from your next payout
Less than 7 days before check-in, we’ll deduct $100 from your next payout

That is what I was thinking, he not only has to refund, but also penalized $100 per guest cancellation, times 'hundreds'.

This is new:

For Instant Book hosts only

You can cancel instant bookings penalty-free an unlimited number of times if you’re uncomfortable with a reservation or if a guest breaks one of your House Rules. “Penalty-free” means you won’t pay a fee, lose Superhost status (or eligibility for it), or receive any of the other penalties mentioned above.

You may not cancel reservations penalty-free for any other reason, including reasons that violate our nondiscrimination policy.

To cancel an Instant Book reservation you’re uncomfortable with:

Go to Your Reservations and find the reservation you need to cancel
Click Change or Cancel
Select "I’m uncomfortable with the reservation or the guest has broken my House Rules"
Click Next and provide a reason for your concerns
Click Next and write a message to your guest
Click Cancel reservation
Once you complete these steps, the host cancellation penalties for this reservation will be waived, and we’ll help your guest find another place to stay.

If it's within 24 hours of check-in, contact us instead.

Note: If we observe abuse of the policy, we reserve the right to turn off Instant Book for your listing, and you may be subject to other penalties, up to and including suspension and deletion of your account.

Newly stated: penalty-free an unlimited number of times

Apparently no more limitation of 3 times per year.

Thanks Deborah for the interesting camping read.

Thanks Rhonda.  It's about time Airbnb changed that senseless policy of penalizing hosts who choose to place their personal safety first and want to cancel an instant booked reservation. I have complained to Airbhb many times about this flawed policy and worded it specifying that after 3 cancellations the Superhost is penalized for choosing to cancel a reservation she feels may endanger her or her business. I didnt know that they had updated that policy. Where did you notice it?  Perhaps they realized that forcing hosts to use Instant Book if they can't afford to get dropped in search rankings, comes with some responsibility of not subjecting that host to unfair risks by doing so.

I should chime in too about the improvement to being able to cancel an IB booked host, an unlimited number of times. That's good...and it's sensible. Really glad to see that!

And yes Grace, what you said about people who do clueless things that others know well not to do...and then feel prompted afterwards to lecture to others when it blows up in their face from playing with a chemistry set...don't play with the chemistry set. Annoying.

The new IB rules are in discussion on the forum. It seems you can cancel 3 times online, but then you have to call the service and do it with the rep.
Already before, if they cancelled for you, it did not count. I had that with two fraudsters, one girl with a fake name, picture of an actress, wrong country, nothing else and no reply. The other a third party, which I was prepared ho switch to the real person making him join, but airbnb looked up the history and suggested strongly to cancel the reservation alltogether from their end. In both cases they confirmed ig dif not count.