I had my first Airbnb trip planned for this week. I was very excited about the trip, but Sunday evening I had a head injury that required ten stitches. Thus, I couldn’t travel this week. I contacted my host and she has been wonderful, however, Airbnb will charge her a fee if I don’t report my “extenuating circumstances” directly to them. According to the policy on their website, I am eligible to cancel my trip and get a full refund. The problem is that they don’t tell me how to contact them with documentation. When I search “contact Airbnb” I’m routed to their list of help questions. Of course, the answers to these questions don’t help. I have responded to their help page feedback, but I’m not getting any answers.
I finally did a Google search and found the Airbnb phone number on Airbnb Hell – thank you for that. I called and talked to a representative who was very nice, but he had to put me on hold twice to get the answers to my questions (improper training). He told me to email my documentation, but I said the email isn’t on the site so I needed to know the email address… he actually had to put me on hold for this. He came back and said that he would have to email me and that I could answer the email and attach my documentation. He did send the email right away (from response@airbnb.com). If this does not resolve the problem, I’ll be back on this site to write a follow-up.
Gooood luck! Had the exact same experience – couldn’t find the number anywhere, had to dig and dig and dig. Finally got through and they asked me to document my experience via a response to the email they would subsequently send. I did exactly that and waited and waited and waited. Finally called them again a week later and was told someone would be reviewing my “case” – which I figure means they now have a file open. I wait and wait and wait. So I call AGAIN and am told they would put my “case” as priority. I finally hear back that they denied my claim because I did not contact them in time. That is the moment I got really pissed off. I then made it my job to call and bug them continually for some kind of logical response. The more I did so, the more I realized they had no “case” file and just made at will decisions, will lie, dismiss and ignore you in the hopes you will just go away. My new job is to tell the world just how much they suck. I would suggest you continue to plead your case – you might get lucky after some blood, sweat and tears – but don’t have high hopes. Then consider taking to social media to tell everyone just how terrible they really are.
Joan, the only way to get action from abnb is to Tweet or post on their Facebook page….they dont want the publicity. Someone will get back to you in less than an hour. I have had to resort to this with echnical issues…I am a host.
You can stillgo after them.