Airbnb Service Fee non-refundable to guest even though Host cancels because of government obligation

[Zed1]

I made a reservation and book through Airbnb, however due to law in tokyo, the host has to cancel my reservation. I called the contact centre and the officer Vanessa told me service fee is not refundable to guest.

I felt this was really unfair since the host was force to cancel because Airbnb cannot operate in Tokyo and Guest who are not aware make the booking and suffers the lost of service fee. Guest takes all the risk of having no accomodation but Airbnb was unreasonable to ignore this condition.

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

@Zed1 - What you are describing is a cancellation initiated by the guest.  If the guest cancelled their reservation, then the service fees are non-refundable.  If the host had to cancel, they needed to initiate the cancellation and incur the host penalties.  

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/104/what-are-guest-service-fees?topic=220

[David126]

I agree with @Alice-and-Jeff0 you have it back to front and AirBnb do operate in Japan.