AirbnbReviews 2,101

I was forced to cancel our family retreat reservation(very expensive) due to dire Covid-19 extenuating circumstances involving my family from South Africa, who were not allowed to leave the country due to Covid and my cousin's medical responsibilities as a Covid-19 essential worker in South Africa. I cancelled as soon as I heard that the family was not going to be able to travel to the US. I cancelled 3+ months before our reservation, as consideration to the host so that she would be able to rent to another party. She denied the refund, stating that she needed the money herself. After 3 requests with supporting documents from South Afrcia to AirBnB Resolution Center,(1 each month) and 2 letters to AirBnB CEO Brian Cheskty(who never bothered to acknowledge my letters), all I received was that AirBnB was sorry that they were unable to help me because the host has a 48 hour cancellation policy and she was unwilling to adjust it. I would have thought that, under the financial strain that we are all under due to the pandemic, and the community solidarity declaration of"we are all in this together", AirBnB would have been more pro-active in helping me with this unethical behavior. I am deeply disappointed. Gillian Cassel

Zero protection once you pay.
You would think that airbnb would offer a minimum of protection to its customers once they pay... I am left stranded with NOTHING I can do, ESPECIALLY since my cancellation is out of my hand(covid flight restrictions!). And careful who you deal with! My host(Michel, from Nice, France) was all smiles& friendly till I had to cancel. Now he doesnt even bother reply to me and dont expect airbnb to help! They dont really care as long as they get their fees! SCAM

With the Covid-19 pandemic creating havoc for many of us you would think companies would be working with repeat customers. Not Air bnb though. We booked accommodation in Northfield VT in November for an event at our sons' college (Norwich University). We were informed that they will not be going back and therefore all events are cancelled. We went to cancel our booking, with over three months' notice, and were told we would only get $67 back from our $583 deposit. Air bnb have not answered any of our attempts to contact them about this situation. Air bnb clients make a lot of off season booking through Norwich University families. I intend taking the matter up with the University and Parents Association to get them to remove Air bnb from their accommodation information recommendations.

I was forced to cancel our families stay due to COVID 19. I received a refund minus the $615 service fee. Why? They are giving out FULL refunds for the time of our stay but because I cancelled they say too early I don't qualify. WHY! I stated in my cancellation that it was due to COVID 19. I wanted to give the host enough time to get a new reservation, which he did within 2 days of my cancellation (May 26th).
I, my daughter and son have all tried to call Airbnb with no success after being on hold for more than 40 minutes. The one operator hung up on my daughter bc she was a third party. Excuse me, the reservation was for 16. All they had to do was contact me and verify that my daughter could talk for me. I am 75 years old and do not need this kind of stress. My children (who are in their 50's) were only trying to help. NEVER, EVER will we use Airbnb again. Seriously need to work on their customer relations.

Horrible service, extensive wait times, hands bound by service reps & they are shedding homeowners for being a big hotel. They are buying their own properties to convert to longer term stays. Cutting out homeowners for their new hotel purchases & servicing big hotels. Their conversion alerted hotel lobbyist knowing Airbnb was no longer serving homeowners, but directly competing with hotels. Airbnb is founded as an online business working remote across the world. Now Airbnb pretends they were a brick & mortar operation that is clueless on how to operate as an online booking company. They never were a 1950's call center. Now they make excuses, using Covid 19. Covid 19 just pulled the curtain away faster to prove they were already shifting out of servicing the residential market..

I booked a trip to OCMD when COVID cases were low and now that cases are increasing again I didn't want to risk my health and safety. I reached out to Air B&B numerous times and was told someone would call me back to try for a refund or credit. I also called the host a few times and she never picked up. She finally responded through the app after I have been trying to get ahold of her for three days. So now we are only getting a $130 refund for an $800 trip that we never got to go on. These policies are absolutely absurd especially during a pandemic. I will NEVER use Air B&B again! Customer service and host experience was terrible and what a rip off. This company should be ashamed of what they are doing to people. If I could I would give them 0 stars.

My family and I could not travel out on the check-in date due to flooding when a hurricane hit our area. I canceled the reservation hoping to get a refund. They had me back and forth between Airbnb and the host. Both insisting it was up to the other to issue refund and that I didn't qualify for a refund. At the end, they agreed to refund if we rebooked for different dates. We ended up enjoying our stay since back home we didn't have electricity, but it was stressful and crazy dealing with them. These people must be trained to have no sympathy for people's misfortunes and refuse refund no matter what. They push people to just give in and consider it a loss. You have to keep pushing and insisting if you know you're due a refund! Never again will I deal with Airbnb!

Airbnb,

I am not happy with the news I received today.

I dont know how your company is okay with robbing people for their hard earned money.

I have been reading countless reviews from frustrated customers from all over the world on how Airbnb is taking advantage of people during these difficult times. They are even taking advantage of their employees who feel that ignoring and avoiding people is the best way they can get through their work days.

Your customer service representatives are on the front line of fire while the executive teams can set back with their salaries and allow this injustice to go on.

It is not fair to your team, to your customers, your host who will not have alot of repeat business and countless others. Even some of your hosts have been conditioned not to show empathy for people.

AirBnb writes outrageous policies to benefit them and take advantage of their customers!(READ THAT AGAIN)

I have never in my life had this kind of experience with any other operating business.

AirBnb brand and reputation is lacking integrity, compassion, ethics and human decency.

I will not be silenced.

I will warn other people of the injustice taking place and make it my own personal mission to warn others not to do business with this company.

I hope that is worth the $305.00 your brand has stolen from me and my kids.

AirBNB does not care about their hosts. They can't figure out their taxes and how and what they want to collect. They continually change it leaving it up the us hosts to figure out what "Extras" need to be collected. Then having to explain to the guests why they have to pay more taxes on top of what the already paid. They will not allow you as a host to talk to anyone who deals with the tax collection portion of your bookings, only by email which are generic emails they send to you. They allow someone to cancel the DAY BEFORE their CHECKOUT date, not their check in date, their checkout date and give them a full refund with out even notifying me as the host that they would be doing this. The guest never even showed up and they refunded them 100% of their reservation. When called to ask them about it they told me the guest was pregnant and because of Covid couldn't come, even though this has been going on for months and the guest didn't cancel until, again the day before her check OUT date. I'd rather take all of my business to VRBO and leave AirBNB

As a first time airbnb customer, i booked a nice place in Cape Coral, Florida about 3-4 weeks before my trip. My friends' flights and mine, just like our reservation were scheduled for Friday. A day before, on Thursday morning, i received an email from Airbnb stating that my reservation was canceled because i supposedly violated their terms and condition with no other explanation as to what terms and conditions i had violated.

I reached out right away to the airbnb customer service requesting information. They apologized on the phone and said that the they will create an expedited ticket for the terms and condition department to reach out. In the meantime there was no way i could get the same booking.
My friend was barely able to get some other house through her account, a lot more expensive so we didnt lose our plane tickets and missed on the 4th of July weekend. They finally reached out to me about 1 week later that my account was finally reinstated, but no explanation as to what happened. They had about three weeks to reach out since i booked regarding this unknown "violation" but they reached out last minute. With everything thats going on, you would think they would be more careful with the way they deal with things.

When they finally reached out a week later, I asked about what i violated, but their only response was that my account was reinstated, like that was enough. Guess what, you can go ahead and close that account airbnb. No need for it when I am not planning to use it. At least i dont have to deal with this when i book a hotel. Thanks for nothing airbnb.

Delete your Airbnb app - NOW. Switch to VRBO. I am a super host / manager for 8 properties with Airbnb they are great to work with. But when I switched to guest mode totally different deal. So my husband and I had to travel to NYC area during the height of the pandemic. We booked an Airbnb, thinking it would be safer than a hotel and arrived to find out we had a roommate - okay I clearly messed that up and missed clicking the private button and I own that. The representative of the host (who is not the roommate) explains that the roommate is a nice young woman who is working in NYC treating COVID patients. Now, I'm in healthcare and I am grateful for everyone of the clinicians and workers who risk their lives everyday but I also know a lot of them are choosing not to stay with their own families at this time to keep them safe. The place shared a kitchen and bathroom so I simply did not feel safe. We had booked for 9-days ($1264). I immediately called the host, and she agreed to a refund after trying to tell me how safe it was to stay there. We left. No refund, host refused to communicate. Airbnb backed her and went so far to say that clearly clinicians know how to protect themselves from COVID and had plenty of PPE so there was no threat to us and the host did not return their inquires so nothing they could do. Clearly they are not even aware of what was going on. My son works at a NYC hospital so I had first hand knowledge that the Airbnb information was completely false. That property is simply not safe until we have vanquished COVID and either guests should be informed at booking about the roommate situation or they should delist that property. What's even more frustrating is how much money we have refunded as a super host during COVID because I don't think people should be charged for changes they have no control over. Go to VRBO. Having worked with both - much better. Stay away from roommates - be careful and wary. Airbnb does not put guest safety first.