Irmely I.

I booked an appartment in LA. It was cancelled 1 month before the travelling date. I booked another room (more expensive, of course, nothing 'cheap' was left!). It was cancelled less than 1 week before the travel!
This shows that airbnb does not carefully checks their hosts. Airbnb has a nice webpage, cashes in on quite a nice fee, withdraws the money right away from your credit card... and then delivers nothing but cancellations!
I think it is telling that airbnb does not give me (or anyone else) the opportunity to comment on hosts who have cancelled reservations... in other words, there is no way for me to check whether a potential new host is 'reliable' or also prone to short-term cancellations.
STAY AWAY! There are other platforms that are MUCH more reliable!