New Airbnb Guest Complaint Policy Tries to Balance 2-Sided Marketplace
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Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, Executive Editor and online travel rockstar Dennis Schaal will bring readers exclusive reporting and insight into the business of online travel and digital booking, and how this sector has an impact across the travel industry.Airbnb at the end of next month will install a new policy for handling guest complaints and refund requests upon discovery of a problem — and up to 72 hours thereafter — at the property, once again showing the challenges and perils for any online player trying to balance the conflicting needs of two vital constituents, guests and hosts.
Under this update to Airbnb's guest refund policy for bookings made starting April 29, guests will get 72 hours — up from the current 24 — upon discovery of a "travel issue" to contact Airbnb and request a partial or full refund. These sorts of issues might include the host failing to provide the passcode to the lockbox, the owner having an undisclosed person or pet present during the stay, unsanitary or unsafe conditions at the property, or the swimming pool being above-ground when the listing described it as a private in-ground pool, for example.
"Where a guest demonstrates that timely reporting of a Travel Issue was not feasible, we may allow for late reporting of the Travel Issue under this Policy," Airbnb stated in its UK help center, meaning in some cases guest might have longer than 72 hours to complain.
Hosts can contact Airbnb to dispute the complaint, but the elongated complaint window has some Airbnb
