Post by High Priestess on Mar 17, 2020 16:23:57 GMT
As most of you who are hosts are aware, or will be aware if you watch the news, Airbnb has responded to the COVID-19 Coronavirus epidemic, by fully refunding most all guests' near-time reservations, at hosts' expense, citing "extenuating circumstances."
www.airbnb.com/help/article/2701/extenuating-circumstances-policy-and-the-coronavirus-covid19
Guests are being made whole, allowed to emerge completely unscathed financially, while hosts are losing ALL their income, in many cases seeing their entire business crumble. Some hosts report losses of tens of thousands of dollars.
www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/03/15/airbnb-coronavirus-cancellations-guests-cancel-for-free-hosts-pay-the-costs/#476ebdcd131b
This is an egregiously unfair approach by Airbnb, so much so, and so devastating to so many hosts, that some hosts are talking "Class Action Lawsuit": go to this Twitter handle to read more: @airbnbhostclass
While we recognize the extraordinary situation we are all in, and recognize the danger of travel at this time and the wisdom of cancelling reservations to remain sheltering in place, what we cannot condone is that the entire financial cost of the coronavirus epidemic is being borne by Airbnb hosts.
Let's step back a bit and realize, that hosts have for many years already, urged Airbnb to sell travel insurance to guests, rather than abuse an "extenuating circumstances policy" to cover more and more personal situations and travel issues that guests have, which for all normal tourism businesses, are covered by travel insurance: flight cancellations or delays, death in the family, personal illness, "acts of God". Airbnb refused to sell travel insurance to hosts and preferred to coerce hosts into being unpaid travel insurers: we have not been paid travel insurance premiums, but our income is taken away anyhow for an ever-increasing number of circumstances, until reaching the point of ludicrousness that we are at now, where every single reservation, everywhere in the world, that occurs during a certain point in time, is covered by extenuating circumstances and fully refundable.
Why should the entire cost of the pandemic be upon hosts, and none upon guests? There are a couple other ways that this could have been handled which would make far more sense.
First, let's realize that most all guests who book a reservation, have likely only booked ONE reservation during this critical period of time. By comparison, hosts may have months of reservations which were lined up, from mid-March on into the future perhaps for several months, which are now being all wiped out. So, if Airbnb had simply applied the standard cancellation policies which were in place on the business contract that is each reservation, then each guest who booked would lose nothing, something, or all of their reservation cost depending upon hosts' policy and the point in time they cancelled, while hosts would also lose nothing, something or all, depending upon when the guest cancelled and the policy in place. If the standard cancellation policies applied, hosts would still be much more burdened by guests in the instance of months of reservations cancelled, even if they had STRICT policy on all cancellations, as they would see their income for several months cut back by 50% at minimum. Compare this to the guest losing out only on the cost of ONE reservation and you can see the much heavier impact on the host.
Of course, those whose hosting is only a "side job" and not a primary form of income, are less heavily impacted, but many hosts are at a point where hosting is a primary form of income, and can ill afford all that being wiped out.
As well, Airbnb could have chosen to issue a 50% refund to guests cancelling due to the pandemic, rather than a full refund, and this would have been many times more fair. The burden would still be overwhelmingly on the host whose income for many months will be cut in half or less, while the guest only would have to lose half the cost of a single reservation.
Many hosts are indeed very upset, particularly those who've invested much time and money in setting themselves up to do vacation rentals or home hosting as a primary form of income. These videos by the man at Airbnb Automated are an intelligent and astute response to the wrong we are seeing being done to hosts on a global scale.
And
And
And
And here's one about coronavirus updates pertaining to hosts:
www.airbnb.com/help/article/2701/extenuating-circumstances-policy-and-the-coronavirus-covid19
Guests are being made whole, allowed to emerge completely unscathed financially, while hosts are losing ALL their income, in many cases seeing their entire business crumble. Some hosts report losses of tens of thousands of dollars.
www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/03/15/airbnb-coronavirus-cancellations-guests-cancel-for-free-hosts-pay-the-costs/#476ebdcd131b
This is an egregiously unfair approach by Airbnb, so much so, and so devastating to so many hosts, that some hosts are talking "Class Action Lawsuit": go to this Twitter handle to read more: @airbnbhostclass
While we recognize the extraordinary situation we are all in, and recognize the danger of travel at this time and the wisdom of cancelling reservations to remain sheltering in place, what we cannot condone is that the entire financial cost of the coronavirus epidemic is being borne by Airbnb hosts.
Let's step back a bit and realize, that hosts have for many years already, urged Airbnb to sell travel insurance to guests, rather than abuse an "extenuating circumstances policy" to cover more and more personal situations and travel issues that guests have, which for all normal tourism businesses, are covered by travel insurance: flight cancellations or delays, death in the family, personal illness, "acts of God". Airbnb refused to sell travel insurance to hosts and preferred to coerce hosts into being unpaid travel insurers: we have not been paid travel insurance premiums, but our income is taken away anyhow for an ever-increasing number of circumstances, until reaching the point of ludicrousness that we are at now, where every single reservation, everywhere in the world, that occurs during a certain point in time, is covered by extenuating circumstances and fully refundable.
Why should the entire cost of the pandemic be upon hosts, and none upon guests? There are a couple other ways that this could have been handled which would make far more sense.
First, let's realize that most all guests who book a reservation, have likely only booked ONE reservation during this critical period of time. By comparison, hosts may have months of reservations which were lined up, from mid-March on into the future perhaps for several months, which are now being all wiped out. So, if Airbnb had simply applied the standard cancellation policies which were in place on the business contract that is each reservation, then each guest who booked would lose nothing, something, or all of their reservation cost depending upon hosts' policy and the point in time they cancelled, while hosts would also lose nothing, something or all, depending upon when the guest cancelled and the policy in place. If the standard cancellation policies applied, hosts would still be much more burdened by guests in the instance of months of reservations cancelled, even if they had STRICT policy on all cancellations, as they would see their income for several months cut back by 50% at minimum. Compare this to the guest losing out only on the cost of ONE reservation and you can see the much heavier impact on the host.
Of course, those whose hosting is only a "side job" and not a primary form of income, are less heavily impacted, but many hosts are at a point where hosting is a primary form of income, and can ill afford all that being wiped out.
As well, Airbnb could have chosen to issue a 50% refund to guests cancelling due to the pandemic, rather than a full refund, and this would have been many times more fair. The burden would still be overwhelmingly on the host whose income for many months will be cut in half or less, while the guest only would have to lose half the cost of a single reservation.
Many hosts are indeed very upset, particularly those who've invested much time and money in setting themselves up to do vacation rentals or home hosting as a primary form of income. These videos by the man at Airbnb Automated are an intelligent and astute response to the wrong we are seeing being done to hosts on a global scale.
And
And
And
And here's one about coronavirus updates pertaining to hosts:
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