Why is Airbnb 'strict cancellation' so one-sided ?
Last October we chose a property near Huntingdon beach to stay 10 nights this Summer. To reserve the dates we needed to pay all the $4K rent upfront. Did this through PayPal and had a few Airbnb chats to the host confirming the make-up of our party and arrival time. Fast forward to 1/27 .. I get 2 messages on IPad, one from Airbnb telling me that my reservation has been cancelled and the other from PayPal telling me that my credit card was being refunded.
I've never used Airbnb before so was surprised (massive understatement !) that the owner can seemingly do this without any financial penalty, whereas I would always suffer some sort of penalty if I cancelled any time after the booking.
I used the Airbnb chat to ask the host why my reservation had been cancelled and .. Absolutely no response.
So, I have my money back after loaning out to someone interest free for 4 months. I'm very reluctant to rebook at another Airbnb property as there appears to be nothing I can do to prevent it happening again.
Only silver lining is that the cancellation was 4 months from start of holiday rather then 4 days or even 4 hours !!