I traveled from the US to Amsterdam for business and over the weekend I convinced my family (my brother and my parents who are over 60) to come and visit the city. We arrived at the apartment quite easily, by following the good directions of the “manager” of the rentals. I specify manager as this Brazilian guy, who handles many apartments for other people and they’re not his property. Well, we arrived at the apartment, and he opened the door. I was right behind him. We switched on the light and….. SURPRISE! A man was sleeping in one of the beds who assured us that the apartment was regularly rented from him. Well, the owner of the apartment nicely forgot to tell the manager that he rented the apartment to a friend of his! The manager got in contact with Airbnb to explain what happened and they called me.
At that moment my nightmare started. A certain Tina H at Airbnb tried to NOT help me by saying that she was sending me an email about how to book another place. I am from the US; how do you imagine I could find an Internet connection in the middle of a park in Amsterdam?
The very nice manager offered his phone and router. I then spent three hours, THREE HOURS, in the cold weather of Amsterdam on the damn phone trying to find another apartment with a reasonable price. This useless Tina H sent me an email with “suggestions”. Very smart suggestions. Since I was in Amsterdam and she was proposing options in towns far away from he city! What an intelligent service, eh? So, I did some research by myself but obviously no one was accepting my last minute booking! My parents started to feel bad, in a serious way, about the cold, the stress…!
In the end, the manager offered his apartment for free as he was feeling so bad for my family so that we didn’t sleep under a bridge. But if not for him, and the useless Airbnb customer service, we would have remained in that park for three days by sleeping under the fantastic sky of Amsterdam. This is unacceptable. They’re a nightmare! How could they leave people on their own in this way?