Beware of AirBnb on 30+Day Stays, Guests Can Leave Early
I am running a 30-day minimum property on AirBnb/VRBO and just had a bizarre and bad experience with AirBnb that others might want to look out for. A guest booked my property back in April from June 15th - September 15th (90 days). The guest was relocating from California, and moving to St. Petersburg, FL to find jobs and look at local housing. Everything was good until July 5th, when the guest reached out to me and asked if they could cancel the reservation because they wanted to move to another property that was "closer to work" and "closer to where their kids would go to school" even though they were happy with the house. I told them I wasn't sure, and I contacted AirBnb who told me yes they could cancel early but they would need to pay a 30-night penalty per the AirBnb long-term stay rules. I reported that to the guest, so then the guest called AirBnb and this is where it gets interesting:
AirBnb rules allow guests to "amend reservations, but not cancel them" as long as they are greater than 30-nights away from the check-out date and the host does not have to approve the change. With this, the guest simply changed their check-out date from Sept 15th to July 15th in the system and they are getting to walk away from the reservation with zero penalties. Upset at this bad policy, I have called AirBnb several times asking what is different between an "amendment" and a "cancellation" when the end result is the same for the host---the guest is walking away early.
Booking 30-day stays isn't easy, and AirBnb has put me in a bad spot with basically 7-10 days to rebook my 30-day calendar that this guest had 100% locked down since April. Has anyone had this happen before on a long term stay with AirBnb? Am I overreacting? I just feel this guest should have paid "SOMETHING" for walking away from a 90-day reservation at the 30% point, but they are literally only paying the # of nights they actually stayed and then AirBnb is leaving me holding the bag....