Airbnb Abandons Its Superhosts

I am an Airbnb Superhost. This means that all of my reviews are five stars and I have never cancelled on a guest. I’ve been doing this for four years. My listing has a very clear rule: if you smoke anything in the apartment, you will lose your $250 security deposit. This is substantially similar to the penalties imposed by every major hotel chain and, until recently, was never a problem. I actually don’t care if you smoke; just if it smells like smoke when you leave. And this guest not only smoked in the apartment but left ashes on the window sill, rolling papers on the counter, and tobacco crumbs on the floor. I submitted photographic evidence to Airbnb through their “request money from guest” function. I was immediately met wit hostility from the support team. It didn’t matter that the listing explicitly stated the smoking penalty IN ALL CAPS or that the guest had implicitly agreed to this by booking. Airbnb demanded evidence that I had incurred costs (receipts? I pay my 70 year old Jamaican house cleaner in cash, sorry). I explained the listing is clear about this penalty but that didn’t matter. All they offered me was $40. I appealed the decision. The appeal resulted in the $40 being revoked because I had not submitted any evidence that I even incurred that expense. All I can conclude from this is that Airbnb doesn’t care about its hosts anymore. They’re building their own apartments and don’t need us anymore. Thanks, Brian.