Scam! Mitra allowed a change of date as I was sick and not able to fly in Canada with symptoms. I pushed it back a few days. I ended up getting way sicker and requested days that were open for her another week back (no one had booked for this entire month) and overlapping my original requested days. She denied it and as I couldn't fly she kept $2500 of the $3500 that I paid for the week. I apologized for the circumstances and asked if she could even pick the dates and I would make it work but she ignored all communication. She stole that money and now I can't go on vacation because of her greediness. It's really sad that someone would steal like that. Air bnb was unable to help at all as they encouraged me to cancel so I'd get that little bit back but because I did canceled they had to abide the cancellation policy.
I def felt scammed by both air bnb and the host.
If you won't want to allow a change of date then the host should cancel it and keep a small deposit say one days worth