Our B and B is in a town that has been threatened by catastrophic bushfire conditions for several days now, and of course, being Christmas, I have already had to cancel immediate bookings as we had to evacuate and don't yet know either when it will be safe to return ourselves, or even whether our home/listing will survive. We were amazed that we didn't lose it yesterday and it's not over yet.
My issue is the difficulty in getting a straight forward immediate cancellation for guests, either instigated by myself or them, where they get a full refund promptly, without a whole lot of red tape involved and this 14 days review issue before Airbnb may or may not agree to a full refund.
It would be easier to not cancel the booking at all and just reimburse the guests the amount that is paid to me, but we all still lose the booking fees and reviews impacted.
Has anyone a simple answer to all of this please? I have a lot of other issues on my mind and with a string of bookings to deal with for I don't know how long, I could really do without these obstacles!?!