Originally Posted by milepig

Things are slowly happening. I don't know how all this works behind the scenes, but the owner is apparently in contact with airbnb and they've declared this to be an unavoidable event, and therefore the extenuating circumstance clause kicks in. My "case" has been forwarded from the airbnb help desk to the "customer assistance" team who will "work to provide additional assistance." The owner also indicated that he's "working on solutions". I have no idea what either of those statements mean, since if airbnb is accepting the extenuating circumstances clause as far as I can tell all they have to do is hit "refund". Normally the owner would be the one to process the cancellation, so maybe they are working on something for me, but it would be nice if airbnb would say something as simple more directive like "we're working on options, please don't book another unit until you've heard from us which will be withing 24 hours" or "we're processing the refund, you're on your own."

Seems that they can take your money within 5 seconds of making the reservation - getting a refund/cancellation, not so much.

The credit did come through. They gave me some extra credit if I wound up with a more expensive place, but in the end the one I have a request to book out for was pretty much the same cost as the original.