On #3 it may be worth penalising those who do it during annual events like the Boston Marathon, Wimbledon, etc.
Accommodation is extremely hard to find and highly competitive at this time and the host should factor this in.
If it becomes an annual thing that hosts cancel and allow gazumping ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazumping ) then it will seriously damage the AirBNB relationship with renters as AirBNB will become an untrusted place for accommodation during such events.
It is so hard to find replacement accommodation during such events that the inconvenience is greatly multiplied.
(And annual things go for conferences too, SXSW for example)
I would go so far as to suggest that during events the relationship be inverted and the renter be given more weight than the host. Once the host has priced fairly, they should be penalised harshly for causing great inconvenience to a renter. The extra money during such events already more than compensates the host side.
This is a very good insight. Thanks for the suggestion. You are definitely right here. In the past during events (e.g. SXSW), we have actually booked Airbnb's ourselves, and some hotel rooms, just in case a guest got canceled on last minute and all Airbnb's and hotels were sold out, but we should definitely go further.
Accommodation is extremely hard to find and highly competitive at this time and the host should factor this in.
If it becomes an annual thing that hosts cancel and allow gazumping ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazumping ) then it will seriously damage the AirBNB relationship with renters as AirBNB will become an untrusted place for accommodation during such events.
It is so hard to find replacement accommodation during such events that the inconvenience is greatly multiplied.
(And annual things go for conferences too, SXSW for example)
I would go so far as to suggest that during events the relationship be inverted and the renter be given more weight than the host. Once the host has priced fairly, they should be penalised harshly for causing great inconvenience to a renter. The extra money during such events already more than compensates the host side.