I turned 70 years old and received $400 in Airbnb gift cards from our sons. Now you would think – how cool! I did too. However, if you spend day after day trying to use them for accommodations in England on a much needed break and they never are applied, you may be about pull your hair out. At 70 years of age I am losing my hair so that is the last thing I need to happen.
Each day the bill is either charged or put in PayPal. As a minister, I teach and preach kindness and patience and to not let things cause a person to behave in a wrong manner. I am close to losing my cool.
Dealing with Airbnb on a daily basis has stressed us and now we have the added expense of paying out of pocket for our rooms. Then when I couldn’t access them for support and tried another option, my account was deleted and all my trips and records have now gone into Airbnb purgatory. Who knows?
Now I have no records nor a way to leave feedback or comments on my hosts. Some were really nice and would love a review.
So, am I happy with Airbnb? No way. Not at all. This has been the most frustrating experience while traveling. I was planning on being an Airbnb host, but this trip has made me wonder if that is a wise idea. I would want to use a company that had a good support system. Airbnb does not. So I still have Airbnb gift cards and cannot use them. I’m not impressed with Airbnb support. It doesn’t exist.
Here is advice for any persons not so savvy with peer to peer platforms. Do NOT expect airbnb to have much of any services beyond the automated website. All of the verification’s, insurance are fake ways to make both traveler and host feel more secure. Any enforcement of rules or payouts per rental agreements are optional for both host and traveler. Neither have any rights to appeal or for fair representation upon agreeing to give all rights away as you become or update your terms of user agreement.
Please do not lose hope for peer to peer platforms and the shared economy for this recent behavior by the monopoly site of AIRbnb.com Our governments and laws are much to blame for this evolution of evil corporations legally allowed to take rights away and change rental laws!
We are in great need of gov regulation for online business … especially renting sites! Instead what we see are random bans of STRs (short term rentals) by the even bigger corporations that control even more laws and removals of individual rights to choose what type of accommodation they desire.
That said it can still work most of the time, using online skills and filters to avoid fraud.
As a host I really miss the AIrbnb from 2 years back, before they got rid of customer service and created what I call an AIRHEAD experience. They actually changed the “service” word to “experience” before they discontinued services! It is all about getting more profits to get more value in the 2020 IPO. Everything is “fare game” including deleting “in house mssgs” and accounts with no notice.
Think of Airbnb like ebay, but you are risking your home or life in an agreement with no transparency in the recent AIRbnb policies. They are reducing liability and claiming various reasons for it like racism. They have never required a real face pic for host or traveler. It has always been optional! They really only require a valid credit card in any name! I have tested and documented this as a new user making a reservations in less than 5 min! Now they claim to hide them until after bookings. Now they are splitting invoice operations into another corporation. They are basically a website with near zero phone services. When money is a problem they well start to tell you it is automated and nothing they can do to fix the algorithm!
The sad part of all this is that millions of hosts have invested moneys to furnish rentals in an agreement that airbnb changes on a whim. They do not have to follow any laws as an online entity. There might be some laws, but they are rarely enforced or lost in the acceptance of your terms to not have any rights.
What “other option” did you try? Your account would not have been deleted unless you violated airbnb’s policy. I would cancel the transaction via paypal or your credit card until you get answers. However, it sounds as if you’ve done something here, too that needs reckoning.