Danielle B.

First off had a place booked for a stag party in Colombia, which was all approved and great. Until suddenly one day the listing was taken off their website and we had not been contacted to say it was. When we contacted the letter, he said he'd withdrawn their property over a payment dispute with AirBnB. If not for our research we would have just continued to rock up overseas to nowhere to stay and none of our money back.

We were told we had to wait until AirBnB contacted the letter to get our deposit back, as if we were to cancel ourselves we would only receive 50% of our deposit back. This all happened 1 WEEK prior to travelling overseas. Slow email service meant we called and were forwarded to their Sydney office, where the girl behind the phone marked the email as urgent. 3 days went past and still nothing, We called again. Finally the letter gave us our deposit back and we transferred to another booking. We tried to deposit to another booking but due to a really buggy website, it would not. We had to get another person to sign up and book it in their name, which was accepted.

This booking was deemed all fine until the day we actually rocked up. We had paid for the entire property for the 15 of us but the owner was adamant that he needed "somebody" there 24/7 to deal with anything should it go wrong. We then argued that wasn't part of the deal as we had rented out the place privately, meaning we would have it to ourselves. The owner begrudgingly agreed. For the 3 days we were there we felt like nothing but a burden to the owner. Which was not how we all wanted to start our trip.

Case in point, do not use AirBnB. They have the worst email response time, they don't seem to pay their letters properly, their website is so buggy you can't get anything done, and they don't seem to properly screen their letters. Worst website I have ever used. Stick to Hotel comparison websites.