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Can Airbnb cancel a booking at 4 a.m., lock your account, and keep your money? Nancy Kankindi wants to know after the vacation rental platform showed her the door without explanation.

Frankly, our advocacy team would like to know that, too.

Kankindi had booked an extended stay on Airbnb in Manila. However, two days into her trip, Airbnb cancelled her reservation and froze her account.

“I was shocked and confused,” Kankindi says. “I didn’t know what had happened to my money or my account.”

Kankindi’s case raises several questions:

Can Airbnb cancel a reservation and lock an account without notice or explanation?
What are the consequences of using a credit card to pay for an Airbnb reservation?
How can you protect yourself from sudden and unexplained account closures?

“Please begin the checkout process immediately.”

Kankindi had booked a month-long stay on Airbnb, paying $450 upfront using her Visa card.

Then, two days into her stay, Airbnb cancelled her reservation and locked her account without warning.

Then she received the following message from “Ivy” at Airbnb:

Airbnb has cancelled this reservation because we determined that we cannot support it.

Your host has been informed of the cancellation and that this booking is no longer accepted.

The decision is final, and the reservation cannot be reinstated. If you have already arrived at the listing, please begin the checkout process immediately. Once you have completed the checkout, please reply to this thread.

We truly apologise for the inconvenience. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reply directly to this thread.

Kankindi was only two days into her stay, and the actions happened at 4 a.m. She followed Airbnb’s instructions, left the property immediately, and found another place to stay.

But she wanted to know why she had to go. Why was Airbnb “unable to support” her reservation? So she asked. Airbnb sent her another non-answer:

After thoroughly reviewing the available information, we’ve determined that your account should be removed from the Airbnb platform. Removal means that your account will no longer be accessible, and you won’t be able to create another one.

Your account was removed because we determined that your reservation was paid with a payment method linked to activity that violated our Community Standards.

In this case, the Security section of the Community Standards, which you agreed to in the Terms of Service, was not complied with.

What did Airbnb think Kankindi was doing with her Visa card? I’ll have the answer in a moment. But first, let’s examine some of the questions her case raises, and there are a few.

Can Airbnb cancel a reservation and lock an account without notice or explanation?

In a word, yes.

Airbnb’s terms of service allow the company to cancel a reservation or lock an account at any time without notice or explanation.

12.2 Termination.

You may terminate this agreement at any time by sending us an email or by deleting your account. Airbnb may terminate this agreement and your account for any reason by providing you 30 days’ notice via email or using any other contact information you have provided for your account. Airbnb may also terminate this agreement immediately and without notice and stop providing access to the Airbnb Platform if you breach these Terms, you violate our Additional Legal Terms or Policies, you violate applicable laws, or we reasonably believe termination is necessary to protect Airbnb, its Members, or third parties. If your account has been inactive for over two years, we may terminate your account without prior notice.

In other words, they can kick you off for almost any reason. And there is no stipulation that the platform owes you an explanation. You are unlikely to get anything but vague answers.

I believe customers have a right to know why their accounts are closed, or their reservations are cancelled. Then, they at least have an opportunity to appeal the violation and get their accounts back in good standing. However, Kankindi’s correspondence from Airbnb seemed utterly arbitrary and completely wrong.

Airbnb does this with some regularity.

Consider the case of Solange Reyner. Airbnb wouldn’t even tell her why she was banned.

How about Jannick Vielleuse? She eventually found out she’d been banned because an acquaintance had participated in the January 6 riots.

Can it get worse? Yes, it can. Airbnb first lost this customer’s reservation and then banned her.

But this is how Airbnb rolls. And before you say, ‘it has to do this because it’s big and a lot of people try to abuse the system’, consider this: No other booking platform — not Vrbo, not Booking.com, not Expedia — has even a fraction of the complaints that Airbnb does.

This is an Airbnb problem.

What are the consequences of using a credit card to pay for an Airbnb reservation?

Typically, paying by credit card can protect you. Many countries, including the United States, have robust protections for credit card customers that allow them to file a dispute for a wrong charge.

But as Kankindi found out, a credit card can also hurt you.

I asked her if she had done anything with her card that would have caused Airbnb to become suspicious.

Me: Did you have any issues with the Visa card? Was it reported stolen or cancelled after your purchase?

Did you only use the Visa or combine it with some form of credit or a discount code?

Kankindi: No, it’s still in my possession and operational. I only used the Visa card.

Interesting.

I knew that when I asked Airbnb, it wouldn’t tell me.

Reading between the lines, maybe something about her credit card had triggered a fraud alert. Perhaps she had used the card to purchase something that somehow ended up in a law enforcement database. It might also have been something to do with the location of her rental.

The bottom line is: Be careful which credit card you use when booking an Airbnb. It might protect you, or it might get you kicked off the platform.

How can you protect yourself from sudden and unexplained account closures?

Fact: Every time you use Airbnb, you risk being kicked off the platform. I’ve watched it happen to many people, often without rhyme or reason.

To avoid sudden and unexplained account closures, you need to exercise caution. Here are some tips:

Read the terms of service carefully before booking a reservation—not just the Airbnb terms but also the house rules. I’ve seen cases where visitors broke a house rule, which resulted in an Airbnb ban.

Use a secure payment method. By “secure,” I mean a card that only you have used and that is definitely not involved in the purchase of anything that might be illegal. If Airbnb traces the card back to something questionable, you could lose your account.

Keep a record of all correspondence with the company. If Airbnb tries to call you with bad news, get it to put the message in writing. (It tried to call Kankindi to relay the message, but the time difference would not allow Airbnb to do that — so she got it in writing.)

Airbnb moves in mysterious ways. And the longer I work on these cases, the more convinced I am that even the company doesn’t understand what it’s doing. It’s like asking a Google employee to explain the search algorithms. They have no idea how they work.

How will this Airbnb cancel booking end?

Even by Airbnb standards, this is one of the strangest ones in recent memory for my advocacy team and me. Airbnb cancelled a monthly stay and appears to have kicked the guest out of the home after only two days. Its vague explanation makes no sense.

I contacted Airbnb to find out its side of the story. The response: no explanation, but the platform agreed to reinstate Kankindi’s account.

But what about her money? Airbnb said nothing about her money, but after a few more weeks of prodding, it also refunded the full amount of her stay.

And how does Kankindi feel about this?

“I’ll be more cautious now when using online platforms,” she told me.

That’s a nice way of putting it. I seriously doubt she’ll darken the door of another Airbnb rental.