Tag Archives: airbnb customer service

After Cancellation, Never Again Airbnb

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I have had misleading and conflicting responses from Airbnb support since I cancelled a booking I made for an Airbnb listed property in South Hobart, Tasmania in late August this year.

The cancellation was made in early December, due to non availability of a stove for cooking; I only became aware of this just before I cancelled. This included amenities, pots and pans. Why would these be needed if there was no stove?

I should have checked more carefully before making the booking, but the inference I got from the pots and pans, led me to believe there was a stove, I believe this to be false or misleading advertising. We were supposed to be staying for ten nights and cannot afford to be eating out for every meal; we also prefer the option of home cooked meals occasionally.

This host has a strict (with grace) cancellation policy which means you only get 50% of the accommodation costs refunded if you cancel before 48 hours of booking and seven days before arrival. I paid $768 (AUD) as part payment, Airbnb has now concluded, after I escalated this matter through one of their “case managers”, that I will receive $177.81 refund, which is three nights’ accommodation (which they state was graciously agreed to by the host since he has now received a booking for three nights of the period I originally had booked).

My understanding of the strict cancellation policy is that I should be entitled to a 50% refund of the accommodation payment I made, of $592.65 + $175.40 Airbnb service fee. (Airbnb has refunded 30% of the accommodation fee ($177.81 (not $296.32 which is 50%) and they kindly retain the service fee.

I responded to the Airbnb “case manager’s” communication regarding the refund that they were arranging, as I did not agree with their conclusions. I asked for an explanation regarding the pots and pans inferences in the kitchen facilities as I thought this to be misleading, and asked for proper refund according to the cancellation policy.

Airbnb has now marked the case as closed and have not responded to my message. If anyone can offer some advice on pursuing this matter further with any regulatory authority or otherwise I would be most grateful as I have not been able to find anything suitable to date in Australia.

Airbnb’s Negligence Damages Equipment

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My wife and several of our friends recommended that I stay at an Airbnb for my trip to Barcelona. The apartment was exactly as advertised, and the host was very responsive to my inquiries. That is until a storm came.

I went to a museum and when I came back to the apartment, the entire dining room area was drenched, as if someone had opened a faucet from above. The table was drenched, the carpet underneath was drenched, and my photography equipment on top of the table was damaged.

I tried contacting the host and Airbnb. The host was nowhere to be found, and Airbnb refused to put me in another place. Apparently, there were no other apartments available in all of Barcelona, so I was forced to stay in this apartment and even clean the mess.

This was a month ago. I have been calling Airbnb for a month now, and I get the exact same response: “My apologies, sir… this should have never happened sir… this should have been resolved within 48 hours sir… you have all the right to be angry sir… I can see that Airbnb is negligent on this matter sir…”

Every time, they say that this issue has not been picked up by a case manager yet and that they are going to expedite this because the last rep I talked to didn’t escalate this. They repeat this every single time I call. I don’t know what to do. My equipment is valued at over 5000 dollars, and I am also asking for a full refund of my stay. I don’t know where to get help on this. If anyone has suggestions, please help.

$40 Airbnb Email Credit Offer Not Received

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I received an Airbnb email saying that I would receive a $40 credit the next time I traveled and stayed at an Airbnb for a trip that was $75 or more. Our family had travelled to CA to do college tours with our daughter. Since it was the week of Thanksgiving, there weren’t a lot of hotel options left in Southern California at reasonable rates. My husband wanted to book through Hotwire, which he uses frequently. I had only used Airbnb once when traveling overseas and everything had worked out fine for me, but he had never tried Airbnb.

I finally convinced my skeptical husband to let me find a place with Airbnb for two of the nights since we could take advantage of the $40 credit. Since we were already traveling when I made my reservations, I was using my new Android phone to find and book the house. When I clicked on the email link with the offer on my new phone, it asked me if I wanted to install the Airbnb app, which I did. After installing the app, I clicked on the $40 credit link and it offered me several different ways to log into the App, including Facebook, Google account, etc.

Since my Google account was already set up on my phone, I used that option. Instead of linking my Google account with my primary Airbnb email account with the $40 credit offer, I found out later that it created a new account using my Gmail address as the primary email on the account. Most software apps will link your Google, Facebook, or Microsoft account to your existing account login, but not the Airbnb app.

After booking my reservation for two nights (we did have a lovely stay… great house and view overlooking Pismo Bay), I realized Airbnb charged the full amount without ever applying a $40 credit. After spending at least an hour on the phone with Customer Support, (mainly them going around and around saying there is nothing they can do since the stay was booked under another email address instead of the email address that the offer was sent to, even though I accessed it through the link they provided in the promotional email), they finally only gave me $25 credit towards my next stay…if I book through them within the next year.

It was a very frustrating experience. They need to fix their login credential links so that other login options offered for Facebook, Google, etc., will actually recognize that you access their website or their app through the email link with the credit offer. When I let Customer Service know that I was going to post reviews of my experience on social media, they tried to withdraw the offer of the $25 credit. When asked about why I would “post bad reviews after giving me a $25 credit,” I let them know that I still had not been credited with the full $40 that was promised, instead the $25 credit will only be applied if I decide to book through them again in the next year, and I let them know that I was only going to post an honest review of the actual events that occurred.

In the end, I do have that $25 credit on my account, but I don’t know if I will have the opportunity to travel again within the next year. I still have not decided if I would try Airbnb again after this experience.

Unhonored Airbnb Cards as Wedding Gifts

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Recently married. On our registry we asked for Airbnb gift cards if people were inclined to gift us something; we love traveling and we’re in our 30s with most material items we could possibly need. A lot of people obliged and we received several gift cards in denominations ranging from $50-100/ card.

Today we went to load the cards to our account, and not one… not two… not even a few… but 13 of the gift cards aren’t able to be accepted. We called customer service and spent over an hour being told yes, we see seven gift cards accepted out of the 20+ new numbers you tried to enter (so they acknowledged the cards were only ever entered today, and that only a fraction were accepted). Then the rep proceeded to inform me she wasn’t trained or knowledgeable to assist us with this matter, and that we would ‘have to be escalated and transferred to payments center’.

I inquired as to whether I would be speaking with another person about this. The rep said “no, that’s not an option for customers” and that the only rep we would be able to physically speak with would be through the help center (which apparently was the number I had called to reach this rep). Okay… so then I requested to speak with a supervisor. I was informed there was none on site, or none with whom I would be able to speak period.

When in the history of business is there not a supervisor available to ever speak with? Then the rep informed us she never said she would transfer me, but meant that she would email the payment center. I asked when we could expect a response. She claimed within an hour (seemed really unrealistic especially since there was nobody but this person available to talk).

It’s been five hours, and I still have yet to hear from anyone. I have over $1300 in gift cards from family, friends, and coworkers that were given to us for Airbnb which this company has managed to swindle away somehow, and make unusable. There were zero real attempts to appropriately assist us. Highly unsatisfied here.

Airbnb Cancelled Our Reservation… Just Because They Can

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We are a family with a four year old daughter. We booked two residences through Airbnb in Bangkok. The first was for an 11-day period and since the first host was already booked from that point on, we chose the second residence for an additional two weeks. All bookings were made well in advance of our arrival in Thailand.

Upon reaching Bangkok and having spent the first three days in our first house (which was actually excellent), we received a cancellation from Airbnb for our second reservation (by now eight days away). Their explanation was that the host was being suspected as a fraud. They gave us a 10% credit and told us to either find a new residence via Airbnb or ask for a refund.

Needless to say, with all three of us still in the wake of our jet lag, scrambling to find new accommodation wasn’t exactly our idea of a good time. My wife and I have travelled extensively in all sorts of countries (including Thailand, where our Airbnb crisis was unfolding) and this was the first time ever to come across such a situation. We had repeatedly arranged for accommodation over the phone with hosts of all kinds in many locations and no one ever cancelled a reservation, even in cases where there was nothing but their word binding them. No credit payments, no deposits, nothing. They kept their side of the deal regardless.

Airbnb on the other hand not only had the audacity to cancel our fully paid reservation while we on our behalf had done nothing wrong, they even acted like everything was cool and we should be happily going through the hamster wheel of finding new accommodation through their (so called) service, just because they gave us 10% credit. Just to clarify, we are from Europe. Imagine being stuck somewhere 15 hours by plane away from home and trying to resolve this mess.

Of course, trying to book a new place within a short time window (even though this wasn’t a high demand season), meant that we were left with poor options in the price range we had initially booked (i.e. places that were far from the city center or metro stations, or both). An equivalent residence via Airbnb would now be not 10% but 35% more expensive. We decided to opt for the refund – this was quickly devolving into a fully fledged scam – and book either via Booking.com or go around asking.

What would you know: Airbnb refunded our initial payment, but didn’t even give us the 10% credit back for all our trouble, or at least store it in our account for some later booking. We contacted their customer service through chat to complain and try to get some resolution. They initially tried to play it down and pretended we should be happy with their lousy 10% credit that we weren’t even entitled to anymore. We threatened to get vocal with our dissatisfaction unless they did something to set things right.

After several messages being exchanged and being passed from one “representative“ to the other two or three times (while we were arguing it was their responsibility to arrange for new accommodation, not ours) they finally obliged to at least provide a list of recommendations. When we pointed out we would take one of these alternatives, provided we were only charged what we had already paid for our cancelled accommodation, they ceased all contact. That’s quality customer service for you right there.

We know that online services of all sorts have their flaws. Airbnb is setting an all-time low, not so much because of their bad handling of bookings, but their inability to address the situation once the inevitable screw-up occurs. Giving a lousy 10% credit and forcing someone to an almost certainly more expensive last minute re-booking (which he is required to complete on his own) is an outright scam, not a valid method to appease dissatisfied customers.

All in all, I’d say our overall experience with Airbnb was atrocious and would seriously advise everyone to stay away from it. You will be far better served by respectable online services or go the good old conventional way of finding your own accommodation on the spot. Do not be deceived by the enticing price tags of Airbnb. This is an unreliable “service”, plain and simple, and it isn’t worth the risk.

Airbnb Admits There’s an Unfixed Bug on their Site

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When we first starting hosting a year ago, I noticed that when you put the name of our city into the Airbnb search engine, you get zero results, even though there are dozens of hosts in our city. When I complained about this, I was told there was nothing that Airbnb can do, that they rely on Google Maps.

Fast forward several months. I started looking into Google Maps, and noticed that the map is correct for our city. Airbnb put up the wrong map. The one they put up was for a city called Capacabana instead of Copacabana. Armed with this new information, I was sure Airbnb would finally listen to me.

Each time I wrote to Airbnb customer service, they acknowledged the error. They said they had reported this to the tech department and then closed the case. I finally got furious and insisted they not close my case until this was fixed and I got this response: “I apologize for my previous colleagues, but if you have any other inquires you can message me here and I will personally answer you. I won’t close this ticket until the issue has been fixed. I give you my word.”

The next message I received: “This support case is closed. Still need help? Visit our Help Center.”

I’m sorry but what is wrong with Airbnb? Not only do they not care, now they lie to me. A customer service representative gives me his word that he won’t close the case and several days later, case closed, with no resolution. You can imagine how much fun it is finding guests when your city doesn’t even exist on the Airbnb search engine. I have been complaining about this for a year and Airbnb does nothing to fix it.

“Smart Pricing” is a Zombie Algorithm from Hell

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As new Airbnb hosts, we set our base price at $50 a night – low for our area – and chose “smart pricing” and “instant booking” so that the algorithm would make our listing more visible in searches. We got lots of bookings right away and quickly became “superhosts.”

However, Airbnb’s “smart pricing” tool never respected our minimum, listing the guest suite for as low as $35. We called Airbnb for help. The Airbnb representative suggested switching off “smart pricing” and manually resetting our prices at $50 on weekdays, $65 on weekends. That was on September 30th.

That night at midnight, every open date on our calendar reverted to a sub-minimum price. Every time we’ve tried to fix it since then, the algorithm overrides our prices while we’re asleep. We have worked with five customer service representatives and counting by chat and by phone so far, and no one can fix it. Each has insisted on manually resetting our prices for us, or having us do so, with the same result.

For 30 days now, the correct prices have disappeared again each morning and our listing has been advertised at far below what it’s worth – an exhausting, stressful waste of time. None of these customer service representatives has been able to explain why “smart pricing” keeps posting our place at sub-minimum rates, rather than our desired $50 or more. They all promised to try to find answers, but no one seems to have access to anyone with the authority to resolve it.

We now have a guest coming at a rate of $35. We are asking Airbnb to either cancel this reservation with a full refund to the guest, or pay us the difference. One said she would try to get Airbnb to pay us the $15. We appreciate that. It’s not much, but it’s the principle at stake. When we’re cleaning the toilet between each guest, we do want that money.

I’ve told them by phone and text messages (all saved, along with images of the bad prices on our calendar) that we’ll be demanding the difference from Airbnb for any future reservations made at below-minimum prices. One representative also asked if we would switch off “instant booking” to avoid getting more reservations at sub-minimum rates, but I pointed out that our listing is already harder to find with the “smart pricing” button switched off, so removing both that and “instant booking” could send our listing in some sort of oblivion, and Airbnb could then simply forget about resolving our problem.

She did relay that a software developer insisted this isn’t a bug. The developer apparently wrote that once ‘smart pricing’ is applied, those prices will remain after “smart pricing” is switched off, for every date initially affected by the pricing tool, until those dates are history. Apparently, each time we try to make a pricing change, this outcome is extended in time, into the future.

They also acknowledged, finally, that this should be bumped up to a “senior” developer. For more than a month now, customer reps have asked for our patience while Airbnb’s software denies us the right to either set our own prices, or use a dynamic pricing tool that doesn’t go below our minimum price. This is a major bug that contradicts what Airbnb promises its hosts. We are running out of patience. “Smart pricing” truly is the zombie algorithm from hell.

Two Scams in One Summer: Airbnb’s Non-Existent Security

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This summer I booked a vacation house in France on Booking.com and an apartment in Ibiza on Airbnb. For the first time in my extensive travel life, it turned out that I booked two scams for non-existent properties. I had paid a substantial deposit for the house in France. For the apartment in Ibiza I had not only paid a deposit but also the full rent, together a few thousand euros.

I had booked a beautiful vacation house in France on Booking.com. As indicated on the website, I had to pay a deposit of euro 2,200. I transferred the amount to the ‘owner’ of the house. Due to certain circumstances, I had to cancel the house, and requested the ‘owner’ refund my deposit. There was no response and certainly no money. I contacted Booking.com, who asked for different evidence. After a long process, and emails with apologies stating that they were investigating the case, Booking.com refunded the total amount of the deposit.

With Airbnb, the first email from the Trust and Safety team started with the sentence that Airbnb was working hard on a reliable and secure website, but that in rare cases attempts at fraud happen. If you look at Twitter accounts and websites detailing circumstances like these, there are daily reports of new scams. There are certainly not only attempts and it also is not rare. This does not seem to interest Airbnb.

The email continued with a number of standard tips which might have been useful if they pop up when you open their site, but certainly not after all the misery has happened. It’s closed with the announcement that this transaction took place outside the Airbnb platform, and therefore they can’t provide support or compensation for offsite payments. I think that Airbnb forgets that the scam started on their website. What does Airbnb do for fraud prevention?

Therefore, the question that remains for me: how could this apartment end up on the Airbnb website? That is where the scam started. Wiser through my own research, I took one of the photos of the scam apartment and scanned it through Google images; this apartment also appeared on another site with a different owner and another location. A very simple and quick check.

In addition, Airbnb also does not advise you to contact the owner directly. Why is it possible that this option is offered on the Airbnb site? This is a safety check that does not seem so difficult to build in. Last but not least, how does the identity check go when placing a house on Airbnb? In my second email with Airbnb I asked for the full name and identity check of the person I ‘rented’ from. I did not get an answer to this question and the mail ended with ‘this is our last email regarding this case’. Indeed, I did not get any answers anymore.

Aside from the fact that this is very customer unfriendly, I have no evidence to go after my money. I have a strong suspicion that Airbnb cannot provide me with this proof, simply because it is not there. On the aforementioned Twitter page, it also appears that it is very easy to open an Airbnb account with a fake identity. Scammers even use Airbnb photos of bona fide placements on Airbnb.

It is no surprise that the Airbnb has to adjust their conditions of the European Commission for better consumer protection. Exactly the same case is reported in an article of The Guardian on July 15, 2017. A businessman lost £4,139 through an Airbnb scam. Following intervention, and in the face of a threatened social media campaign by the businessman, Airbnb performed an about turn: it agreed to send him the money he lost. Apparently you have to put a lot of pressure before Airbnb takes responsibility. Not everybody is in a position to do so, which makes it unequal treatment.

To conclude, I believe that Airbnb cannot hide behind warnings and the fine print. I and many others would not have been scammed if Airbnb’s screening process was good. After all, the misery starts on the Airbnb website. With a few simple checks – and especially good identity checks – a lot of suffering can be prevented. The European Commission, which has already taken steps to protect Airbnb consumers, should certainly also pay attention to this. At this moment, I would advise anyone to book on Booking.com or another reliable website. Booking.com does not offer only hotels, but also very nice apartments and houses.

Airbnb Refunds 100% of Hosting Charges but not Service Fee

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I have used Airbnb a couple of times but recently discovered a few things while booking accommodation for our North America trip. Normally we would set a price range to search and compare accommodations. You are ready to pay what is shown while comparing but this is not the case with Airbnb. With Airbnb, you have to pay a charge for accommodations + cleaning fees + Airbnb service charges + city tax. It adds up very quickly; make sure you have compared prices properly.

What is a fair service charge for a broker/middleman or platform provider? I booked accommodation in Beverly Hills. The accommodation charges were less than $2000 but Airbnb’s service charges were around $200, which is a shockingly large fee to facilitate a deal. What was the $200 service charge even for? There was no reception, no room service, no linen changes when staying for multiple nights. On top of that, we also had to pay cleaning fees.

What pissed me was after booking I had the option to cancel and get a 100% refund for all the charges from the poor host but Airbnb didn’t want to refund the service charges after just 48 hours. That is a total rip off.

Now comes my worst experience of getting in touch with their customer support. Even though I run an IT company, I had to struggle to reach to a screen where I could write a complaint in my words and the robot didn’t try to take over my session. I literally had to go on their Facebook page to get some attention.

Finally, Airbnb gave me a refund but with the caveat that they could refund me only once or twice in a year; this was not acceptable to me. I asked to speak to a supervisor or manager in charge of policy to present a case for everyone, but no joy. There are a lot of such stories which I came across only because of the situation. My intention here is to highlight and inform everyone to be aware of Airbnb’s service charges, refund policies, and customer service. I am better off paying a little more for a hotel and get proper service provided by a human.

Double Charged, No Help from Customer Service

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I made an Airbnb reservation and had trouble booking with my credit card information. I kept trying until my card was accepted and the reservation was confirmed. I checked my credit card and saw that the charge went through. My trip was confirmed. I went on my trip and all was well. About ten days after my trip, I got a notification that Airbnb had charged my credit card again for the same reservation number and the same dollar amount that I paid before the trip. I contacted Airbnb and they tried to blame my financial institution. Then I explained that the reservation was paid in advance. I also submitted copies of the charge from my actual credit card statement. They still claim that the charge did not go through. I was then dismissed by Airbnb and told that they would no longer talk to me. Thankfully my credit card allowed me to dispute the second charge and I got my money back through my credit card company. Airbnb did nothing to resolve this.