After Airbnb changed its policy to allow cancellation with full refunds, some aggrieved hosts are trying to cut it out of bookings or are planning legal action
Erin Griffith / New York Times : Tweets: @gregorynyc , @eringriffith , @nytimestravel , and @edercampuzano Tweets: Gregory Schmidt / @gregorynyc : For some rental operators, their relationship with Airbnb is broken beyond repair. “I was a true loyal fan, until I got thrown under the bus,” one host tells @eringriffith. https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimesbusiness Erin Griffith / @eringriffith : Frustration from Airbnb hosts has been brewing for the last year, spawning a movement to “direct bookings.” https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimestravel : For some Airbnb hosts, the relationship with the company has been broken beyond repair. “The trust is kind of gone,” said the head of a company that advises short-term rental operators. https://www.nytimes.com/... @edercampuzano : Will somebody *please* think of the property owners who operate 70 short-term rentals? https://www.nytimes.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Airbnb's full-refund cancellation change is an escalation of a policy line it started drawing at the start of the pandemic, when it launched More Flexible Reservations to make guest refunds easier as bookings slumped. The difference now is who absorbs the cost: guests got flexibility then, but hosts are being asked to eat cancellations they cannot control.
The host backlash is not new either — frustration during the 2020 wave of cancellations already produced hosts launching their own direct-booking websites, and earlier grievances over how Airbnb handles disputes, from bedbug outbreaks without a systematic response process onward, primed operators to see the platform as siding against them.
First-order effects
- Hosts bearing full refunds face immediate income loss on cancelled stays, and the named players respond by soliciting guests to rebook off-platform or preparing legal claims against Airbnb's policy change.
- Airbnb gains a stronger consumer-protection posture for guests while converting its most loyal supply side into adversaries — one host quoted says loyalty ended when the policy 'threw' them 'under the bus'.
Second-order effects
- Every successful direct booking weakens Airbnb's take-rate base and pushes rivals and property managers to compete on host-favorable terms, extending the circumvention pattern later documented among US hosts facing profit dips and longer stays.
- Legal action, if it proceeds, forces Airbnb to defend cancellation terms that shift refund costs to hosts, raising the litigation and reputational price of each future policy adjustment made on the guest side.
Third-order effects
- If disaffected supply keeps migrating off-platform, short-term rental distribution splits between a guest-friendly marketplace and a growing direct-booking layer — a structural decoupling regulators and cities would then confront across both channels, as New York's crackdown on listings showed hosts already scattering to Craigslist, Houfy, and Facebook Groups.
- Platform-host contracts become the contested terrain of the industry: whoever bears cancellation and dispute risk determines whether marketplaces can unilaterally reprice risk onto their suppliers without losing them.
The trend: Short-term rental marketplaces are entering an adversarial renegotiation with their own hosts, as platforms shift pandemic-era risk onto supply and hosts respond with direct bookings and litigation.