My BFF and I booked our first ever Airbnb for a trip down to Los Angeles for a race we were both participating in. We booked in advance, but realized we hadn’t heard anything from our hosts until we were on our way down to LA (again, it was our first Airbnb experience, so we had no idea what to expect). We texted, called, and messaged our hosts for hours, only to get nothing back. Finally, after hours of already being in LA (it’s a four-hour drive from where we live) we got a response that an unexpected emergency came up… yeah, right. We ended up having to pay for a hotel room at the last minute. We requested a refund multiple times, and never heard a word from the hosts. They have now stopped being hosts… I wonder why. Airbnb has not been any help either.
Angela is totally right. Againe, Airbnb “freezes” your money when you pay online and doesn’t transfer it to the hosts until 24 hours after your check-in. So if this happens again, simply call Airbnb and they’ll refund the money back to you.
I don’t think it’s right that the host hasn’t returned your money, but if you didn’t do your own due diligence by calling Airbnb in the alloted time, it has to be taken as a learning experience.
How do you know an emergency didn’t come up? You don’t. Derp.
Very surprised that Airbnb haven’t helped.
They state clearly that if you book and the host cancels you will get a full refund.
When you called them at the time to let them know what had happened. What did they say. They normally offer a 10% credit on top of the refund and help you find something else. Did they not offer you this?
The normal procedure is that you call Airbnb within 24 hours of check-in to report that the listing is unavailable; you’ll be issued a full refund but indeed you’ll have to report within 24 hours.