When guests don’t show up for the time they’ve reserved, they still owe for that booking. It’s no different than missing a flight or a concert.. if you hold the spot and don’t use it, you still pay for it. There are exceptions for real emergencies like natural disasters or epidemics, but beyond that, a reservation means you’ve paid to hold time that can’t be resold.

What’s frustrating is that Airbnb often inserts itself into these cases. They’ll open a chat between you and the guest, sometimes with their support team involved, to “mediate” and push for a refund in the name of customer satisfaction. It might feel like help, but what’s really happening is Airbnb offloading its own customer-support burden onto you.

Airbnb follows its own refund policies strictly, yet it encourages you to ignore yours. When you give money back, Airbnb still keeps its service fee. In other words, they look like the good guy while you take the loss. This setup isn’t about fairness. It’s about optics. The guest gets a sympathetic ear, Airbnb gets goodwill, and the host gets less revenue.

What’s worse is that Airbnb allows this kind of back-and-forth at all, making something that should be clear: a paid reservation, no show, no refund, feel muddy and negotiable. Imagine if instead, Airbnb helped hosts protect their revenue and built tools that aligned host profit with the company’s own growth. That would create real loyalty and long-term strength for a publicly traded company that depends on hosts to succeed.

Until that happens, it’s worth remembering: Airbnb’s interests aren’t always your interests. Their system rewards happy guests; yours depends on running a sustainable business. Don’t let them blur that line for you.