Airbnb Ends Covid-19 Refunds Under Its Extenuating Circumstances Policy (April 2022)

From the record. This is a look back at April 2022. The desk wrote it on 11 October 2026 from sources published at the time; Stay Gazette opened in July 2026 and did not report this as it happened.

On 29 April 2022, Airbnb said it would stop treating Covid-19 as a reason for a refund under its Extenuating Circumstances policy. The change applied to bookings made on or after 31 May 2022, and it covered both sides of a stay: a guest who caught the virus, and a Host who did.

For those bookings, the terms a host had set on the listing would decide what a guest got back. “Instead, the Host’s cancellation policy will apply as usual to these bookings,” the company wrote in a post on its newsroom.

The Covid coverage dated from March 2020, when Airbnb said it activated the policy around the world. In the two years that followed, a guest who caught the virus could cancel for a full refund even where the listing's own terms said otherwise.

What was to change on 31 May

Airbnb's post drew the line at the day a booking was made. A reservation made on or after 31 May 2022 would no longer be refunded on Covid grounds, including where the guest or the Host was sick. One made before that day might still be refunded if it met the policy's terms.

One exception sat in a note at the foot of the post: domestic reservations in South Korea and mainland China, where the company said certain Covid-related circumstances would continue to be covered.

Until then, the extension had worked in two directions. As Airbnb described it, a guest who contracted the virus could cancel for a full refund, and a Host could cancel an upcoming reservation without penalty. The Points Guy reported that the rules had often required a guest to supply documents verifying the illness, and that a host could cancel a stay at the last minute without an effect on Superhost status.

The Points Guy also reported that Airbnb told it the change applied only where someone came down with Covid-19, so that a refund could still be available if travel to a region was restricted. Asked by TechCrunch to clarify the announcement, an Airbnb spokesperson said there was nothing to share beyond the post.

Why Airbnb said the time was right

The company gave two reasons. The first was the state of the pandemic. Almost two thirds of the world's population had received at least one dose of a vaccine, it said, and many countries had adopted plans for living with the virus.

The second was the rest of the travel business. Airbnb wrote that some companies had dropped this kind of policy months earlier and that others had never offered one. “After consultation with our medical advisors, as well as our community, we feel the time is now right to take the same step,” the post said.

It also argued that most guests already had room to cancel. Almost two thirds of active listings carried a moderate or flexible cancellation policy, Airbnb said, which gave a full refund to a guest who cancelled at least five days before check-in, and in some cases up to 24 hours before. It pointed guests to a search filter that showed only listings with free cancellation.

The Washington Post noted the limit of that argument: none of those options gave a refund for a last-minute cancellation.

Two years of refunds outside host policies

The coverage had a cost for hosts from the start. TechCrunch reported that early in the pandemic Airbnb put up $250 million toward Covid-19 cancellations, which paid hosts 25% of what their cancellation policy would normally have brought them. Airbnb's own post listed a Superhost Relief Fund that had awarded $17 million in grants.

The coverage was still in force during the Omicron wave. In a post dated 20 January 2022, Airbnb said it continued to let guests who contracted Covid cancel for a full refund even where that fell outside the Host's cancellation policy, and said none of its peer short-term rental companies did the same.

In the same post it acknowledged what that had meant for hosts, writing that many had lost income, and the chance to market their listings over the holiday season, after last-minute cancellations.

That January post also set up a Guest COVID Support Program, funded with $20 million at first. It gave a travel coupon worth 50 percent of the unrefunded part of a booking to guests whose trips were stopped by government mandates such as border closures. Illness stayed with the Extenuating Circumstances policy, the coverage Airbnb said on 29 April it would end for bookings made from 31 May.

The insurance that was not ready

Airbnb paired the announcement with a product it did not yet sell. In the January post it had said it planned to launch travel insurance for guests in Spring 2022. On 29 April it said it expected to launch in the coming months, that the team behind its AirCover protection for Hosts was building the product with an insurance carrier, and that it would be available to guests in certain countries.

“Until this new product is available, guests can consider purchasing travel insurance outside of Airbnb,” the company wrote. The Washington Post described the insurance as not yet launched.

How it was reported

Coverage at the time set the decision against the state of the pandemic. TechCrunch wrote that health experts were warning against lifting Covid measures too early, and that caseloads in New York City and Washington, D.C. had risen.

The Points Guy placed Airbnb among travel companies that were moving away from the flexibility they had offered at the height of the pandemic. It added that the Omicron surge of the winter of 2021-2022 had reminded travelers that flexibility could still be useful.

Airbnb's post listed the measures it had brought in during the pandemic, among them a five-step enhanced cleaning process that it said was mandatory for all Hosts.

The Gazette Verdict, looking back

Airbnb was right to give the refund decision back to hosts, and wrong to do it before the insurance was ready. For two years the platform had refunded sick guests in full even where a listing's terms said no. Hosts carried much of that: early in the pandemic Airbnb's $250 million paid them 25% of what their own policies would have, and in January 2022 the company said many had lost holiday income to last-minute cancellations. For bookings made from 31 May, a host's policy would mean what it said again. But the product meant to protect guests, promised for spring, was still months off on 29 April, so a guest who fell ill on the day of check-in would have the host's policy and nothing else from Airbnb. A host should take this: the cancellation policy on the listing is the refund policy, so choose it on purpose and decide early how a sick guest will be handled.

The other side

The strongest case against the change is Airbnb's own. In January 2022 it wrote that its guiding principle was that people should not travel or host while sick with the virus. A refund is what makes that principle affordable. A guest who tests positive on the day of check-in is past even the 24-hour window Airbnb described, and without a refund has a reason to come anyway. A Host who caught Covid would lose the right to cancel a new booking without penalty. Health experts were warning against dropping precautions early, and the guest insurance did not yet exist.

What it meant for hosts

For a host in April 2022 the change was a date to mark and a setting to check.

Bookings made on or after 31 May 2022 would fall under the listing's own cancellation policy when Covid was the reason. Bookings made before that date could still be refunded under the old coverage, so for a while one calendar could hold both kinds.
The cancellation policy was about to become the working refund policy. Airbnb said almost two thirds of active listings were on moderate or flexible terms, and it pointed guests to a filter that showed only free-cancellation listings.
A host who fell ill could no longer count on cancelling a new booking without penalty on Covid grounds.
Guests had no Airbnb insurance to buy yet. The company's own advice to them was to consider cover from outside.
Domestic bookings in South Korea and mainland China were outside the change.

The practical step was to read the listing's cancellation terms as a guest would, and to decide ahead of time what to say to someone who tested positive the week before arrival.

Sources

Airbnb Newsroom, Updating our Extenuating Circumstances policy (29 April 2022).
TechCrunch, Airbnb will no longer offer COVID-19-related refunds beginning May 31 (29 April 2022).
The Washington Post, as published by the Anchorage Daily News, Airbnb’s COVID-19 refund policy is ending (29 April 2022).
The Points Guy, Airbnb ending refunds for guests who get COVID-19 (30 April 2022).
Airbnb Newsroom, New insurance product and COVID relief program to support guests (20 January 2022).
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Airbnb, Inc. definitive proxy statement (Schedule 14A) (22 April 2022).

Airbnb Ends Covid-19 Refunds Under Its Extenuating Circumstances Policy