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Comment by post_break | Hacker News Reader

The $1000 will go to Airbnb, not the person who was cancelled on so you're still high and dry.

For comparison, if a Marriott/Hyatt/Hilton/IHG/Choice hotel is unable to accommodate your reservation, you obviously do not pay anything for that night, but they also have to pay and arrange for your first night’s stay somewhere else, and for a ride to and from that place (if they are bringing you back).

If the staff at the hotel does not abide by the walk policy, you can call the 800 number to complain, and they will send you a check for your expenses and then bill the hotel.

I assume that will depend on the local laws?

No, these are agreements between the franchisor (hotel brands) and the franchisees (hotel owners).

Obviously, exclusions to the walk policy are if you are banned at the hotel, or if you are walking in high with 3 prostitutes hanging off your arm, or any other reason that a hotel would want to refuse you because the hotel believes you will cause damage or disturb others.

> For comparison, if a Marriott/Hyatt/Hilton/IHG/Choice hotel is unable to accommodate your reservation, you obviously do not pay anything for that night, but they also have to pay and arrange for your first night’s stay somewhere else, and for a ride to and from that place (if they are bringing you back).

Like is that a law or something? I'm not sure it is. They may choose to do this.

Compare to flights and trains, where there are laws. For example is cancelled and you've started your journey, they must get you home, by law (in the UK.) I was in a five-hour taxi ride once after a train was cancelled.

No, it is not a law. Walk policies are standard for any half decent hotel brand. “Walk” is when you get sent from one hotel to another due to the hotel’s fault. Perhaps overbooking, or maintenance issue, or computer/clerical error, etc.

The one time this happened to me, the hotel gave me a $100 gift shop gift card and put me in a penthouse suite normally reserved for diplomats.

There was fresh fruit and chocolate, a kitchen, an office, a living room, and two bedrooms.

Regarding trains, it might be law, but my god they try hard not to take of you sometimes.

Often station staff will try their best to get rid of you and send you on to another station to make it their problem. And station managers can be hard to find. And they have sudden amnesia about the law etc

Meh, the point of a high penalty is to disincentivize behaviour, not to provide reparations.

Ie. someone gets a DUI, we don't directly pay out the fee to anyone near by who may have been affected.

We typically do pay a fee directly to the person/people who were injured by their actions.

"May have been" vs "actually was" affected are quite different from each other.

True, portions of fees go to victims funds.

However, in most cases, damages will need to be pursued civilly.

My point was, the primary goal of expensive punishments are not to make victims whole.

But the DUI penalty doesn't go to some private entity, eventually it goes back to the public.

The Airbnb penalty goes to cushion Airbnb's pockets.

>to cushion Airbnb's pockets

i.e., to their stock price, i.e., to investors, i.e., to pension funds both private and public (pensions are by far the largest AirBnB shareholders), i.e., it likely benefits the majority of the public (the majority of US households have stock exposure, quite often large pension funds or index funds - AirBnB is part of the Nasdaq 100, for example).

Do you know this or are you guessing?

"Fees are deducted from hosts' future payouts."

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/resources/hosting-homes/a/changing-...

That doesn't imply it's NOT paid to the guest. That only explains how and when the money moves out of the host's account.

Let's say for argument's sake it does go to the guest. What does $1,000 whenever Airbnb decides to credit your account, help you when you're stranded. I can only assume Airbnb pockets the fee because nowhere in their documentation do they state the guest receives the money, otherwise they would outright state it.

Before digressing, can you just first acknowledge that when I ask "do you know this or are you guessing", the answer is you're guessing?

Rereading their statement, these are platform fees, of course they go to Airbnb. Not guessing, just reading between the lines.

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/990/host-cancellation-...

It's plain as day, the fees are charged to the host, and thus Airbnb takes the fees.

I mean, it’s a pretty educated guess. The $100 penalty that’s already levied doesn’t go to shafted renters, so why would this larger fee?

Getting $1000 to put towards paying for alternative accommodations would be very helpful?

I had this situation come up like twice over here in Europe. In both cases Airbnb offered to assist with an alternative place to stay (one time taken one time declined) and in both cases provided me with credit of about the worth of the original stay

Good to know I could rent on Airbnb and unknowingly 100% of my expense could go straight to the platform, due to a host's previous cancellation on an otherwise unrelated reservation.

Do we really know that? I’m guessing it will give Airbnb the leeway to rebook people in more expensive accommodations as a replacement if needed. It’s not in their best interests for people to be left high and dry.

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