Cancelling a guest (at their request) and not blocking new reservations

[Kristina61]

A guest put in a cancellation request, which I accepted as I didn't want to charge them as the cancellation was not their fault (although our cancellation policy was moderate). But now our room is blocked for those 3 nights even though it's available. How do I make it available?

[Cynthia-and-Chris1]

Unfortunately, you are learning the hard way about the PENALTIES for host cancellations - even if you're doing them as a favor to the guest.  You NEVER NEVER want to cancel a reservation or agree to a reservation cancellation.  One of those penalties is having your calendar blocked.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Kristina61 you thought you accepted their cancelation but in fact you accepted cancelation ON YOUR BEHALF. it's like you canceled so you are punished . It costs you 50$, blocked days and not be able to become superhost for a year

You should decline. They can cancel without your approval

You are not the only one. Many hosts has done the same mistake by not reading carefully just accepting what was served . Be carefull on Airbnb, not everything is as it seems on first sight 😞

[Bob-And-JJ0]

This is the sh*ts, I have a whole week blocked that I should have available.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

If you click on"cancel" after recieving "GUEST requests that you cancel" this means YOU (=the host) are the one cancelling. 

What kind of people come up with this type of ploy to trick hosts?!?!? Seriously?!?!?!?!

Guest wants me to cancel -> Well, if the guest doesn't want to stay with me, sure go ahead~ -> Click "cancel".

Why would a host click "keep reservation" when receiving a "guest requests that you cancel" message?  

This happened to me as well, and I contacted Airbnb help to get the blocked days unblocked - this was handled fairly quickly. In about 12hrs? if I remember correctly. But they were not able to do anything about my commitment rate. They basically told me, I clicked on "cancel" and so there is nothing they can do. I should have just declined (in my case, it was an IB booking) using "not comfortable hosting this guest as a reason. Apparently, for IB bookings, I can decline without penalty up to a certain number of times.