I am relatively new to Airbnb, but I’m already sick and tired of it. I have had two experiences from hosts who wanted to cancel the reservation, but are too disorganised and lazy to do so more than a week in advance. They concoct fake excuses to pressure the guest into cancelling the reservation themselves, saving the host paying a cancellation fee. My first experience was with Evelyne Chiarro in Saint-Quentin-la-Chabanne. About a week before I was going to stay, she asked me If I had a car. I replied that I didn’t, so she edited her profile description to say that a car was mandatory to reach her address, and if I didn’t have one, I should cancel. She then refused to give directions to her house, and ignored all my other emails. I requested she cancel, but she ignored that. Because it was so close to the non-refundable deadline, I had to cancel the reservation myself.
My second bad experience was with an Agnes Pingkan in Groningen. A week before I was due to stay, she sent me an email saying that she didn’t live at the address any more, she thought she had deleted the Airbnb account, and she was surprised it was still accepting bookings. I emailed her five times to cancel my booking, but she ignored them so I had to do it myself. Her room is still listed on the website. Needless to say, complaints to Airbnb were ignored too. Both these times caused me a lot of stress and I had to book expensive hotels in the area because of the short notice given. This makes me distrust Airbnb because I don’t know if my bookings are going to be honoured right up until the last minute. Unless Airbnb deletes these user accounts and cracks down on this sort of fraud, I can only recommend people avoid this website in the future.
If you read the spate of bad reviews for Agnes Pingkan in Groningen it doesn’t sound like you missed out on much.
Sorry you had issues but you obviously don’t know how Airbnb works. If you had contracted Airbnb through the number on the booking form they would have cancelled the booking, punished the host and re housed you. Why bag a great business because of your lack of research?
David – I’ve just had an experience where my booking was cancelled as I tried to check in (11am) in Vegas on one of the busiest days of the year. I didn’t have time to deal with this ********. Air bnb App doesn’t detail how to react in these circumstances. I’ve emailed them and heard nothing back (over 24 hours later). This is outright fraudulent behaviour. I’m astounded. I’ve used airbnb 4 times in the past month and whilst the first 3 were great I won’t use the business again.