After hearing a lot about Airbnb, I decided to make a reservation. I booked a home in Loma Linda, Ca, confirmed with the host, and paid the rent. About a week later, Airbnb told me the host had cancelled, and offered a refund. I should have grabbed it then, but I was stunned about the cancellation. A few hours later they told me they would contact the host if I was still interested in staying there for the dates I had booked. I said yes. I also contacted the host, who told me she had never cancelled the reservation, but Airbnb had inadvertently cancelled it. I emailed Airbnb again, asking for some type of confirmation of my “renewed” reservation. Well, needless to say, this went on for some time, in which I kept emailing, and getting very delayed replies (2-3 days later) saying that they still had not been able to contact the host and confirm availability. Two different stories were floating around.
I finally decided to give up, and call and ask for my money back. If you like elevator music, you can enjoy sitting on hold for 30 minutes or longer with Airbnb customer service, listening to their selection. Then a representative came on, sounding like he’d just woken up. He was absolutely no help whatsoever, telling me that my case had been “escalated” to a level that he could not interfere with. I just finally got a confirmation of my cancellation, and hopefully will see a complete refund in the next five business days. However, I will never use this service again. VRBO is far better, in my humble opinion.
I agree, VRBO and HomeAway are much better portals. We have a somewhat similar situation with airbnb now. We had a guest cancel on THE day they were to arrive during a high income period for us (Dec.30-Jan2). airbnb had collected the reservation funds, approx $1800. Once the guest cancelled we agreed to refund the money and airbnb refunded the guest directly. We never saw a dime, which as it should be.
However, in 2017, we’ve had new guests who have paid through airbnb, yet airbnb has reduced our deposits by the $1800, the $1800 we never got in the first place. I call this ‘double dipping’ or outright stealing. We’ve gotten the same response, “escalated” and haven not heard back. We are looking into small claims if we don’t receive those funds shortly.