Customers who obey the rules and abandon UK trips have lost thousands as it puts the onus on its ‘hosts’ to pay
Before the second lockdown in October, NHS worker Lex Karlin and his wife Annie decided to treat themselves to a Christmas break. They booked an Airbnb house in Suffolk and paid £4,709. Four days before they were due to travel, tier 4 restrictions were imposed on London, where they live, and overnight trips were banned. Suffolk went into tier 4 on Boxing Day.
The couple cancelled the booking to comply with the rules, but were told that they would not get their money back because the host operated a no-refund policy. They were also required to forfeit the £185 cleaning charge, included in the booking cost, and the £625 service fee retained by Airbnb. “If it had been allowable to travel we would have done so, but it wasn’t,” said Karlin. “It seems that Airbnb is trying to penalise us for not breaking the rules.”
