After cancelling a booking five days after I made it and after messaging Airbnb about this, I waited over a week my refund. The host’s cancellation policy clearly stated “cancellation within 48 hrs. of booking and 14 days before check-in to get a full refund”.
I notified my credit card company, who promptly issued me a refund. I thought all was well (I love Mastercard). Three weeks later, a charge was posted to my credit card for $487.00 (the amount of my first deposit). I messaged back and forth many times to Airbnb asking them to remove this charge and got a whole string of double-talk but no refund.
I opened a dispute with Mastercard and they collected the money from Airbnb. However, I have never experienced so many stalls, lies and downright BS from any company before. I do not recommend them and please be extra careful if you do decide to book – they are not reputable.
I just had a similar problem. I booked and paid half the amount. I then cancelled (after the 48 hour time frame) about a month before the booking. I was told by AirBnB that because of the strict cancellation policy that I would get 50% refund. But the 50% that I paid was the non-refundable amount. In other words, they based the 50% refund on the amount of the booking NOT the amount that was actually paid. What kind of shady business is this?
I have went through the same I booked with them and cancelled within 6 days and requested a refund, for which I had to try and get help with airbnb which was a joke because all they kept saying is about the “strict cancellation policy within 48 hours”. I could see if I waited just a week or days prior to my initial reservation but the wording on the so called strict policy can be misunderstood and should be reworded so that no other future potential customer loses out on their money. This feels like a scam. They took my $450 I told them my party of 4 changed to a party of 2 and I no longer needed a 2 bedroom accommodation and the host flat out refused to refund even part of my money back smh. This is completely unfair!
We just experienced trying to get a refund for 6 days for a booking that was not as advertised. We booked for 7 days and left after staying 1 day. It has been 1 1/2 months now and they communicate about every week. I believe it is a third party that deals with this. They stall and offer repeated apologies. Spread the word to people to only book for one night and decide if you want to stay another night. Otherwise you will have a very hard time getting your refund. They are expecting us to give up. Does anyone know the 3rd party handling the complaints?
As you mentioned it yourself, you made the cancellation FIVE days after you made it and not within the first 48 hrs.
i’m going through this right now. they are trying to keep $400 cause i cancelled 32 days ahead of my booking, the host let me cancel with no issues or fees. they are giving me the run around once blaming the host, now saying since i chose the 2 payment booking process that they did their job as a book website & they get to keep my money…really $400 for a booking fee i could’ve done myself i don’t think so. So they flat out said i’m not getting my money back. i did not know i could contact my credit card and have them refund or dispute it for me, so i will be doing that in the morning. Airbnb last year gave me a refund when i had changed my mind on another trip, but gave me my money back. so its like their trying to be shady. its not good business to screw people over, and cheat them with b.s. stories about why things are they are, when their not. do they think we won’t google problems, word of mouth, or contact lawyers. so glad i found this site, n found so new hope in how to try to handle them. after this i will never use them again. thank you.