This is a slightly different story. My husband and I have managed rentals for a number of years and we were thinking about signing up for Airbnb. I got an invite to an Airbnb meet and greet in our area. The location was at a house, which was hard to find; there were no markers outside, but we did find it. One of the folks attending asked the host if he had ever had his house damaged by guests. The host said yes. He then said that he contacted Airbnb, who told him he had to cancel the next guests, who were coming from out of the country, in order for them to process the claim. The host felt that would be unfair to the next guests and cleaned up the house with his own funds and kept that reservation.

Airbnb refused his claim for damages. Seriously? That’s the customer service you get with this company? Not only did they tell this host to screw the following guests, but they wouldn’t honor the host’s claim for damages? We asked what happened with the people that trashed his house. He gave them a bad review. Big whoop. A lot of hosts are hesitant to give a bad review because they don’t want to get kicked off the site. These folks are still renting and probably still trashing people’s houses. And this story is from a guy that works for Airbnb. We appreciate his honesty and we are looking into some other options for our vacation home.