After hours of the host being unresponsive, another resident of the unit let me in the apartment, then broke into the room through the window AC to let me in (this guest does work for the host). The room was double booked. When the other guest arrived he was belligerent and said he’d call the cops on the host (and presumably also me). All the host ever said was “can I call you back later?” via text message.
I had to extricate myself from the situation and get a very expensive hotel room at the last minute. Airbnb’s phone support agent did not help me with this but simply gave me a $128 coupon, which was borderline offensive; the refund itself might take three weeks to arrive. This host also has a long history of plain awful and unsafe behavior and they still allow them on their platform.
I’ve used Airbnb for many years. This year alone I’ve spent $12,000 on the platform, but I’ve had enough. I will stop using Airbnb because of this incident (other than during my confirmed, upcoming reservations which I can no longer cancel, unfortunately).
Airbnb was a great platform when it had hosts that were available and knew how to manage apartment rentals or home shares. The fact that anyone can post an apartment or room and be live in 20 minutes, doesn’t mean they should be doing this business. It is a hospitality business and some people have no concept of hospitality.
As a former host, I can also say that many guests need to rent motel/hotel rooms for their trips. They have no idea what it means to rent someone’s home or understand that check out is certainly a definite hour and not an approximate time or suggested one.