My host won't accept the cancellation request.

Stacy23
Level 2
Cambridge, United Kingdom

My host won't accept the cancellation request.

I made a booking with a host last year but her prices were incorrect, so we agreed on the price and that i would pay for the remaining amount later.

 

When discussing the amount left to be paid she was asking for more than I expected so I queried this with her and she told me that the price she had given me excluded the Airbnb fee. I pointed out to her that we had agreed on a different price and that I didn't expect to have to pay on top of what was discussed. I had assumed she had included the charge in the price suggested but it turns out she didn't but didn't tell me that.

 

So she agreed that we could wave the service charge and only pay the amount that was originally agreed.

 

Now we are 8 weeks before the booking and i got back in contact to pay the remaining amount as agreed. However she is now asking for even more money than the second time around! She then said she can't lower the prices anymore because Airbnb won't let her.

 

We agreed that we would cancel the booking but if i do it from my side I lose the Airbnb fee that I have paid. I am not willing to do this because it is not my fault that she doesn't know how to use the pricing system correctly. She will not cancel from her side because she said it affects her ratings.

 

So now what do I do to get this resolved? The resolution centre doesn't even let you submit anything.

 

The phone number that my host found and is making me ring up doesn't work correctly because when i put in the '4 digit date reference' month first date second, it jsut says it doesn't recognise it. 

 

So I don't know what to do.

11 Replies 11
David126
Level 10
Como, CO

There is a telephone number on your confirmation use that.

 

There are a number of other odd things, you can not pay a deposit, apart from long term bookings you pay in full when you book, also AirBnB always charges it fees on top and apart from a minum per night price have no input to what a host wishes to charge.

David
Gerry-And-Rashid0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Stacy23

 

It's a bit of a mess - she didn't have her calendar and pricing correct, you didn't realise that Airbnb charges you a fee which is not seen nor taken by the host. Suggest that if you are unable to sort it out between yourselves then contact Airbnb on Twitter for fastest response: search for Airbnbhelp

Helen3
Level 10
Bristol, United Kingdom

@Stacy23 as others have said this sounds very odd. Unless you are making a long term booking. You pay in full when you book. When you book the total price is shown so I don't know what you mean when you say 'her prices were incorrect'.

 

You can't pay a deposit and then pay the rest later.

 

All I can suggest is you call Airbnb. The number should be on your booking confirmation or you can look at the Contact Airbnb post at the top of the forum you are posting in.

 

It sounds like both of you haven't really understood how Airbnb works.

Stacy23
Level 2
Cambridge, United Kingdom

Hi Helen,

 

Her prices were at least half what they should have been, she said she didnt know how to change the pricing. So we agreed over messages that i would pay more money to her to make up the cost that she wanted it to be.

 

So i requested the booking, she approved, and i paid the full amount shown. She then told me that I could pay the rest 8 weeks prior to arriving, so i said ok, i will pay the remaining X amount. This is when she told me it would be more than that. I did the math of agreed price - the amount i had paid. Where as she did the agreed price - the amount she would recieve. So this is where the misunderstaing was. When we agreed a price i took it to mean the TOTAL price, not just the amount she would recieve, as whether the money goes to her or Airbnb isnt relevant when you are trying to compare costs.

 

So after some back and forth she agreed to lower her fee so that it was brought inline with what we had originally agreed (with the service fee included).

 

That was back in Sept 2016. Now 8 weeks ahead i have contacted her to pay the remaining amount that we had agreed but she is now asking for the agreed amount + an even larger service charge (because the initial booking amount is now larger). 

 

Now I know I was wrong to enter this booking in the first place and certainly wont be making the mistake again of trusting a host to stick to their word again. However we could have cancelled this booking back in Sept if she had actually said truthfully she wasn't going to reduce her price. Instead of 8 weeks before my family go away.

 

So we would both like to cancel but I am not taking the penalty for someone who doesn't know how to set up their pricing.

 

I have contacted Airbnb on Twitter and tried to call them but nothing back so far.

 

So technically I paid £260 for a booking that she was meant to price at £650. I can't cancel as she has the strict cancellation policy on it so I will lose the airbnb fee and 50% of my booking.

 

Thanks David I will check my confirmation email to see if that has a different phone number on it.

Stacy23
Level 2
Cambridge, United Kingdom

ISSUE RESOLVED

 

I contacted Airbnb through breach of policy. They cancelled the booking, refunded me in full and are going to investigate what happened.

yay, good for you @Stacy23. lesson learned, huh?

if ever any such thing happens again, before involving Airbnb, check out the resolution center where host and guest can come to an agreement: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/767/what-is-the-resolution-center.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/251/what-if-a-host-asks-for-more-money

Stacy23
Level 2
Cambridge, United Kingdom

Thanks Annette,

 

I did try to go through the resolution centre but i was only offered one option, and that was to choose "change dates" which i didnt want to do!

 

And yes I have learnt my lesson! But people should probably learn how to change their prices before they make bookings available.

thx for the extra info re resolution center. with lesson learned, I meant to not go outside the Airbnb platform and make side agreements. yes, absolutely, that host sounds like a fruitcake, sorry you had to deal with all of that. 

If you dont mind me asking, how did you contact Airbnb to resolve the issue? I am having a problem with my host on mislisting on how many bedrooms their home home had and went ahead and changed it to one bedroom less after I had already booked their home for my trip. The host is asking me to cancel for the reason that they cant cancel from their side because "Airbnb wont allow it".

It needs to be said, you made a booking request for 260 and she accepted it.  You had EVERY RIGHT as far as Airbnb is concerned to keep that reservation at that price.  The host cannot request more money nor collect it outside the Airbnb system.  While it may have been uncomfortable showing up, she was required to take you at that price because she accepted that price.  You were very kind to offer to pay more, but were under no obligation to do so at all.  If she didn't want to accept that price, she most definitely needed to cancel and, yes, that would affect her rating - AS IT SHOULD!  You were very nice to handle all of this for this host.  Please make sure you go in and flag her listing as being inaccurate if the prices have still not changed.  

exactly, @Alice-and-Jeff0 , I couldn't agree more, and I was going  to suggest something along that line, then realized it had become a mute point, so I dropped it.m