When you write it like that, they sound generous. In reality, they tried to pass the hit for Coronavirus related cancellations to the hosts and then realized they were in for legal trouble if they followed through.
Iirc they passed the costs from the end user to the hosts by enforcing a much more lenient refund policy than what many hosts had put on their listings?
> Guests who cancel are automatically refunded according to YOUR cancellation policy—unless the cancellation qualifies as an extenuating circumstance or falls under our Guest Refund Policy.
Exactly. And they were not legally allowed to do that. Which is why they are reimbursing hosts. They were flooded with cancellations and did right by the renter, but wanted the host to take the hit, when in reality the broker (AirBnb) is liable.
Yes, particularly those with "strict" policy which was originally no refund, then Airbnb degraded it to 50% refund if cancelled before 14 days, then degraded to 100% refund if the guest had an "extenuating circumstance", then a full refund when virus-related things were added to the ECs.
Might you or someone else be able to elaborate? Did they simply tell hosts that they were responsible for refunding the money or was it that hosts were on the hook for AirBnBs percentage of the bookings?
Why would they do this? I thought this is what travel insurance is for, at least in Norway I think they are liable for the bill when the government deems an area unsafe to visit
