When I went to La Antigua de Guatemala in Guatemala, I booked an Airbnb (which is a cheap hotel) here. I never heard from the host (it was an automatic acceptance) but I was new and didn’t realize that was a bad sign.
Initially, I was going to arrive the city in the afternoon, but due to my Aeromexico flight experiencing severe delays, I was there after 7:00 PM (quite late.). I took a taxi to the location of the Airbnb, and I knocked on the door. A man opened and I told him I booked the place for a few days, showing him my receipt. He simply said, “We’re closed for the holidays,” and shut the door.
It was in the evening, I was a foreigner in a country I’d never been, where I didn’t speak the language, with my luggage. I also couldn’t contact Airbnb at the time (not that it’d make a difference), since I didn’t have a SIM or anything, being my first few hours there and being so late already.
Luckily I kept walking around and found a place for the night. I used the wifi where I was finally able to go on the Airbnb app, only to find that even to get a refund for the costs paid, I had to wait for Airbnb to contact the host. They did refund me of course, but nothing additional.
You got the refund so stop moaning.
When did I say I expect somebody to hold my hand? I expect last-minute cancellations to not exist – better yet, I expect hosts who cancel to actually cancel it, instead of just accepting all the requests automatically and not even being apologetic about their lack of care for their AirBnB page.
AirBnB shouldn’t allow hosts like that to have automatic acceptance on, or perhaps they should rethink whether they should have the option of auto-acceptance at all.
Even another time when I had another host who simply didn’t say or respond to anything, and I cancelled earlier because of this experience, I had to wait for AirBnB to contact them first before I could book another place (because if they somehow get to them and I book another place, I’d have to pay for both listings). There’s literally no possible win for the customer when last-minute cancellations happen/have to happen.
You’re fine. I just discovered this site and already it’s clear some people are here simply to attack anyone who complains. The site owner really ought to do something. Users like Sue Ellen really detract from the experience.
Why are you so nasty, Sue?
Sue, what’s your problem?