AirBnB should be more explicit about the illusion of booking a place to stay, having that booking accepted and approved by a host, and actually having a guaranteed place to stay. This service is all a gamble. Sure, you can a book a place to stay and even have the host approve and accept your reservation, AirBnB will even hold the money for you so you know the host is just running off with it, but all this does not always equate to having a place to stay. It is within the hosts’ right to cancel on a guest, whenever, with no penalty towards them that would remotely benefit the guest who now has nowhere to stay. AirBnB does not take responsibility for the hosts, therefore allowing the hosts to do as they please when it comes to cross listing their properties elsewhere, double booking, misrepresentation of who there are, and providing false or inaccurate information about the listing. AirBnB should be more explicit that they are not responsible for the validity of anything the hosts posts on their respective sites. AirBnB and their hosts will give you the impression you can secure a place to stay but if it falls through at the last second, you are pretty much up a creek in most cases. Numerous reassurances would be made on their part that they would find you a place to stay if it falls through, but when there is nothing out there, too bad. Or if there is anything left out there, it’s twice as much as you paid originally and/or an hour away. AirBnB will expect you to pay the difference because it’s “not their fault, its the “host” you chose that cancelled on you. We just put you in touch with the host.” AirBnB is not accountable for any of the hosts, just as they are not accountable for the guests. As a frustrated and duped first time user of AirBnB I feel that they have little to offer in order to protect guests from being stranded without lodging. But just as the feeling of being bamboozled and stepped on sets in, you’re offered a form of coupon to put towards the “next time.” As much as one would like to put it towards an immediate re-booking, what if there is nothing to re-book? And how can there be a next time if you couldn’t come through the first time? Ultimately, this coupon is like luring in a sucker for another gamble at the game of “will you actually have a place to stay?” while AirBnB holds your money until you find out days, hours, minutes before your check-in for an actual confirmation of having a place to stay,(which I believe involves physically arriving, being able to check-in and stay. Any other implication that you have guaranteed yourself a place to stay via AirBnB is just an intangible sense of security). What does AirBnB have in place for guests who have the rug pulled from beneath them by a host who cancels last minute? Another gamble at whether or not there is any other options to choose from that again, may or may not fall apart yet again. So far, in my experience as a first time user, AirBnB does not seem to be interested in going ‘above and beyond’ for their guests. I feel as though they go through the motions of helping out and when there are no solutions within their network of properties, they dole out a coupon towards the next reservation within (what a new user such as myself would now deem) their unreliable network of hosts.
