I finally logged in. To my horror, I had 14 booking received within a few days, all confirmed with dates and availability that were not correct. I had the nightmare of contacting all these people and be ashamed to say we had technical issues. To my horror, for each booking that I cancelled, I had to pay a penalty of 50 dollars. Do the math for 14 booking and see how much I had to pay Airbnb for cancelling.

I had no email confirmation for any of these bookings and no notification or any chance to accept or deny any of these bookings. Some of the guests were very helpful and some just pain and unhelpful. Airbnb technical issues turned into nightmare and Airbnb has no compassion to not change the penalty when you have a genuine problem. I had no idea about any booking or how to fix the problem. Not happy at all.

The post Airbnb Host Nightmare: Cancellation Penalty for Hosts appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

Fully agreed with some of the comments given on this site – appalling customer service. One day out of the blue my account was disabled for no reason. I tried to call them to (1) understand what happened and (2) reinstate the listing as everyday of it not being active costs me reservations and $. Customer service line was always busy, and I ended up waiting on the phone for 30min for what must have been 10 calls to a US number within the course of 2 days (I am based in the UK). The reason why I had to call them 10 times is because half the time the person I was on the phone with was clueless about what was going on (more than one of them was adamant to me that my account was still up and running – and only after taking a closer look realised that actually yes it was disabled!). In addition, the whole process was hugely opaque – all they could do was to pass on your “case” to “a specialist department” to investigate. I never heard anything meaningful from this “specialist department” – they sent me back an email saying the account had been reinstated (without an explanation as to why it had happened in the first place) but when I checked it turned out it was still disabled. Appalled, I called back (and waited on the line for 30min again) to only find myself back in the original helpless explaining – waiting process. Nothing has been resolved or updated since.

Worst is the attitude of some of these call-centre people: When I expressed my concern that, because I can’t even access my account and because the whole incident has been such a bad experience, I may consider delisting the place to avoid getting into the same trouble in the future, the lady on the line cheekily said “you don’t have to stay with us – but if you cancel your future reservations we will charge you penalties”. Helpful, isn’t it? Considering I can’t even *manage* my future reservations not being able to log into my profile. How am I to welcome my next guest in a few days when my account is disabled? Is it fair that they took down my business AND fine me for not being able to accommodate my guests?

But seriously, having thought about all the risks, the trouble of going through all of this again, and the appalling attitude of this company, the $200 cancellation penalty fee seems utterly small. I have decided that it’s not worth it – so bye bye Airbnb, never again.

N.B. I am reading online reviews that many people have experienced abrupt and frequent cancellations from the hosts recently. I suppose those hosts may be going through the same thinking process as I am. Sorry guys but it’s Airbnb who’s screwing us all.

The post Not worth the trouble – taking down the listing appeared first on Airbnb Hell.