Airbnb

I checked into an Airbnb that smelled strongly like rotten eggs, which my partner immediately identified as a gas leak. We checked in late after having dinner with a friend, so after midnight we decided to call the emergency gas company to check out the smell. There was, in fact, a major gas leak. The smell was so strong in the apartment I'm unsure how the host didn't notice it before letting us check in.

We had to move to a hotel at 2 AM and since we were booking so last minute, the only hotels we could find exceeded the cost of the Airbnb by $250. We needed to leave, so we booked it anyways and left a message for the host.

The host responded quickly and did issue a refund, but on Airbnb you can't request more than the price of your stay, excluding fees and taxes. So when I got home I had to contact Airbnb to get the rest of our money back and ask to be compensated for the extra money we had to spend on a hotel.

It took Airbnb a week to process our refund and Airbnb wouldn't compensate us for the extra money we spent on a hotel.

So overall this was a terrible experience. Our health was put in danger. We were extremely inconvenienced. And we had to pay $250 more then we planned on spending. I'm disappointed in Airbnb and will never use this service again.

When I sold the cottage, Airbnb told me to deactivate the account in order for the new owner to establish her Airbnb account. The new owner was not allowed to use the address for her account until I took me account down, is what he said. It made sense to me at the time. However, five (5) months later when I'm trying to get an Earnings Report or find out if there was a 1099 issued for the money they sent me, they can't help. Airbnb Benny stated today, March 16,2022, that I have to reactivate the account to get the data. But this action is impossible since someone else owns and has the address listed under their name and Airbnb account now. I asked her to check for the issuance of a 1099 document in my name or social security number and she said she couldn't help me until I reactivated the account. I strongly encourage folks to use someone else for their rental support needs even though the Airbnb set up initially is easy. Plus, if you deactivate your Airbnb account, make sure you get all the data you could ever need in the future, before shutdown.

I used the airbnb website to find rental properties for my family vacation. We found several properties and tried to book them. Turns out that you have to wait up to 24 hours for the owner to respond, and in the meantime you wait and don't know if the owner will accept your proposal or not. Some of the owners declined, some of them did not respond at all, and one of them even accepted and later declined. In the latter case my credit card was charged. They sent me an email "asking" if I want a 10% discount on the next reservation, or if I want a refund. I did not notice that an action is required from my side. Only when I reviewed my credit card charges and saw the charge, I contacted airbnb who explained I have to "request" the refund in order to receive it. I got very angry. What if I did not notice the charge on my credit card? Maybe I was never going to get my money back. In short, I don't recommend using this website. Better use other website where you can make immediate booking and not wait until owners respond, let alone take your money before the reservation materializes.

When a smaller group or a family of 1, 2, 3,4,5,6 or even 7 people searches for a home like mine (four bedrooms, maximum eight guests) in Upstate, NY, AIRNB has imposed the ridiculous policy of suppressing the search engine. This careless action caused my family to abruptly lose all of the revenue from the home we just recently refurbished to better accommodate visitors. Thank goodness, VRBO is still a rental firm with more dissent management options. Our entire business is now conducted with them.
Michael Glickman
My listing is: https :// www.airbnb.com/rooms/*******?preview_for_ml=true&source_impression_id=p3_*******018_%2BLlcTP930AXyYihZ

Had a reservation for a apt in Seattle, arrived at 9 pm; used the entry code provided and had no issues. On entering, the apt had a terrible odor and we could not understand the ratings on AirBnB. Settled in to bed with sheets that probably we so worn that we were concerned if rolling over, they would tear. Left the next morning for a scheduled tour and received a call at noon by the management company indicating the apartment below the one we were renting had water coming through the ceiling. Interesting but nothing we could do. Arrived back to the apt at 6:30 pm or so, used the toilet and water started running all over the bathroom. Call the host and reported the issue and said we are cancelling. Found another place and requested help from AirBNB for a refund as the place was not livable. Refused and said the host was going to get a plumber to repair. Sent a note to host and said we are leaving. Two hours later, received a note that the plumbing has been fixed. By then we moved. Host indicated the alarm was set since we moved out. No refund and continued BS through Airbnb. Next time, will just use a hotel. Terrible business model for consumer and from what I hear, hosts as well.

I had to cancel and they agreed to 50% return of my money. Paid $496.68, refunded $149.31(missing $100). Minus their fee that I pay and NOT the host of $56(should have been $248-$56=$192). Still missing difference ($100) and they won't refund me, saying I received the whole refund. Complete scam and they are protected by their own cancellation rules and policies. There are better ways to do business and its not with them. Case managers dont have the decency to call you and discuss issue with you, only made their conclusions based on their notes.
***UPDATE***
3 weeks have passed and still no refund. I worked with 8 case managers over a course of 3 weeks. NOTHING BUT A WASTE OF TIME. I have their emails that clearly states my refund! Now, they have decided to close my account based on their privacy policy and with NO explanation. I never swore, or insulted or threatened anyone. The money is already in the host's pocket. They new they messed up and wanted to get rid of me. All hope is now lost for my remaining refund.
Not professional at all and to be AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS no matter if its cheaper! Not worth the stress and headaches because you will NEVER win! Even if you report them, their policies protect them and you will just waste your time and hard earned money. They are NOT there to make your plans easier but simply to protect their hosts and fees. No remorse, even if you have a valid reason "no passport". STAY AWAY!

I have been a host on airbnb for a few years, and i have also used airbnb four times as a guest.

This year, i did both. As a host, airbnb does not honour their cancellation policy - i had a cheap as chips guy from denmark ask me to work outside of the airbnb contract so he would not have to pay airbnb fees. I refused to do this. The night before his second months payment was due, he walked out with his wife and baby.

Airbnb's cancellation "policy" states that the host is entitled to 30 days rent if 30 days notice to cancel is not given.

I received nothing.

Two times this summer i reserved a room on airbnb and had to cancel - i notified the host in time to get a refund, but i have not received either refund.

So airbnb has gotten their hands on approximately £1500.

If there is anyone else out there who wants to go after them legally, let me know. They count on individuals who do not have the resources to take them to court. Lots of us don't have the resources because we have been so ripped off by airbnb!

The web site is set up in a way that is pretty deceiving, so BE CAREFUL. When you select a property you are interested in, there are 2 big buttons to choose from. One says "Request Booking", the other says "Add to Wish List". Since I was interested in corresponding with the host and determining availability, I selected "Request Booking". BIG MISTAKE... I am sure it is somewhere in the small print, but if you click this button and the host indicates the property is available, YOU ARE CHARGED! And good luck getting your money back! I seriously thought I was sending an inquiry and once the host told me it was available I would go back in and do the actual booking. As it turns out, you must scroll way way way way down to the bottom and locate the tiny little button that says "email owner" if you are not ready to have your money stolen.

The customer service is AWFUL! The host was nice and understood what had happened. He authorized for me to receive a 100% refund of the rental fees, but Air BnB was still going to only refund $390.00 (out of $882.00!). I am still fighting to get the rental fees refunded. I highly doubt they will refund the "Air BnB service charge" of $85.00.

This company is a scam! Be very careful!

We are a small Bed and Breakfast business in Cumbria in the UK. We have never given Airbnb our details and have never asked to be registered with them. Twice now we have had telephone calls from people who say they have booked our accommodation through Airbnb. In both cases they were advised that we had accommodation available and in one case they had already paid money and received confirmation by post on headed notepaper displaying the heading from our web-page. In neither case have Airbnb been in touch with us. AS FAR AS WE ARE CONCERNED THEY ARE USING OUR DETAILS WITHOUT OUR PERMISSION AND IN OUR OPINION POTENTIALLY MAKING FRAUDULENT USE OF THEM.

If I could give minus stars
If I could give minus stars, I would. I spend a total of 6 hours on the phone to customer services and it cost me £150 in phone charges. After getting locked out of my account, I explained that the email address is used when setting up the account was very old and now obsolete, along with an old mobile number. Both over 8 years out of date. When changing phones, the apps were automatically transferred to the new phones and id never used Airbnb, it had only occurred to me to make those changes now. We'd booked a property and paid a £1264 deposit, the remainder due in two days. As I'd been locked out of my account, I asked Airbnb to help me update my details and reset my password. They refused to help unless I could access the old email address, their was nothing they could do. Even though they could verify my identity, they refused to help me. It was easier to change my banking details than that on a property renting site. An absolute shambles. Very distressing for me. And then to find out I'd incurred a £150 phone bill, I was absolutely furious. I will never use Airbnb again.

Edited 12/31/14: Since my original post in 2011, I've used AirBnB 5 times easily and successfully in 5 different cities both in the U.S. and abroad. I'd probably use this site before trying to find any hotel. Seems like I just knew how to look for the right places/people.

2011: AirBnB is great in theory - rent from or rent out your apartment to travelers who need a couple days to a couple weeks of housing in a city. The site also looks fantastic, especially as compared to Couchsurfing, which feels like a dirty forum. You find the place you want to book (making sure the host looks like s/he's not going to murder you, selecting the accommodations that are to your liking, etc.) and then you wait for the other person to respond to your request. Your credit card isn't charged until after the fact.

However, what you end up getting is this - the people who are more likely to respond to you are charging up the wazoo for their place. One woman wanted $3400 for the month that I was looking to stay in NYC. Then there are specifications like you have to stay a month or you can't stay longer than 5 days, so it gets tedious dealing with their little conditions. The people that you are interested in won't respond to you at all. Terribly annoying.

January 2020, I reserved a condo with Airbnb in Panama City, FL. When the world went on lock down, I emailed the host and we stayed in contact almost every week. Yesterday I got an email saying Sad News, the governor has suspended short term rentals in FL and security will not allow anyone in the Majestic unless they are owners. She said I would have to call Airbnb and they would give me a full refund. I called and was on hold for 30+ minutes and when the rude woman listened to my explanation, she started reciting the Airbnb policy. I could not get a full refund but I could get a credit. I read an article and seen that several people had gotten a refund and she just got more aggravated. Basically I told her what she could do with Airbnb and her attitude. I took the credit because I don't want to lose $1300. I did find another place in a different state and I will use my credit. This is my first and you can bet money it will be my last time to use Airbnb. I think they are operating illegally and they are scamming people during the worst days this world has ever seen. In the future I will got back to the company that has always taken care of my travel arrangements. Hotels.com

My family stayed at a place that was both unsafe and unsanitary. Airbnb removed our review because we stated things that were on the property that were unsafe that were not listed.

My tale begins with a failed attempt to rent a cabin in Eureka Springs through Airbnb. In the middle of going through a divorce my wife filed false harassment charges against me without my knowledge and Airbnb cancelled my reservation and refunded my money due to the charges against me. "Ok" I thought "understandable" as I figured they didn't look specifically into my legal case to find the falsities. Well the deactivated my account. Enough time has passed, my case was dismissed due to the judge seeing through my wife's lies and I thinking I'm going to try using Airbnb for another stay in eureka and my upcoming trip to Lake Tahoe. WRONG. Even though I started a new account it was immediately flagged and deactivated. Customer service was NO help at "Zoey" spent no time looking into the matter and immediately responded with saying they had no obligation to offer explanation and had barred me from any further use of their platform. Ok. I get on Homeaway's site and I booked both my trips with confirmation in less than 15 minutes. Congratulations Airbnb. You lost a customer and added a nice blemish to your already poor reputation. HOMEAWAY for ALL your vacation rental needs! Lol

Had a booking that I made a mistake on. The seller told me to make a request to cancel and he'd cancel it. Once I made the request he rejected the cancellation and replied "we pay for our mistakes". Obviously I had to follow up with Airbnb about this trolling. They say he did nothing wrong and didn't violate any policies. I guess being an understanding human isn't an Airbnb policy. The agent told me that he can't help and to try my luck with a covid excuse because an honest mistake that I caught minutes after making the booking wasn't going to cut it. Unbelievable. I asked to speak to a supervisor, they told me the supervisor would have to call me in 5 minutes. It's been over an hour and 30 minutes, no call. I tried to call back and after waiting to speak to someone for 13 minutes, the call was dropped. The online messaging system isn't working either anymore as they stopped replying there too. Lol, pathetic organization, all for a $125 booking. Sad, garbage organization hungry for any coins they can lay their fingers on.

Their app got hacked a lot of time, and they did not fix their security, My account got hacked and opened from Latvia, China and TX, They changed the email address and turned off all the notification, I was charged $700 for a trip to China, luckily I noticed the extra charge on my bank statement, so I called them, I took them forever to refund me and they just asked me to change the email and the password, and I told them is that all what you can do?, I'm opening the app on my phone only, so that means there is no way in the world that someone hacked into my computer and changed the my account (I'm software engineer, so i'm not dumb).

I booked a place and 24 hours of my check in date received an email from saying that my reservation had been cancelled I tried to call them all day long through email through the phone they will hang on me several times and the only response I would get a 4 number code which I would put in in space and said one of our customer service specialist will get back at you all day long they piss me so much can't believe it then I call the host which promptly responded and told me that she had nothing to do but airbnb did the cancellation I been trying to find out why they did that haven't avail to nothing cero response and they said that my refund will get it in 15 business days and to top it off they blocked me to get to other properties definitely if I could give 0 most definitely will do it in this last experience that had with AIRBNB.

First time booking with Air BNB, never again! I booked a reservation three months ago, yesterday I received an email that my reservation was cancelled. One week before my trip. I tried to call and the representative stated that they could not verify my identity, not sure why this wasn't done three months ago and they waited until one week before my stay. Instead of putting my reservation on hold until this was resolved they completed cancelled on me. I had to try and find alternate accommodations which of course with one weeks notice were double in price, not to mention the location was different so other excursions had to also be rescheduled. Not only did the new accommodations cost me double but I will not receive my refund for at least 15 days, so now I have paid for a room that is cancelled and have also had to pay for the new accommodations. I also tried to log back into their app so check on my refund and they have me completely blocked. Lesson learned I will read all reviews in he future.

I rented a flat in Barcelona thru airbnb.com. I have checked the description of the flat very carefully and read all the reviews. People was generally happy in their reviews.
When I arrived, I got shocked. The flat has no any view. It's in the basement floor which probably was used to be a doorman quarter or a cellar. The window in the living room is facing to a wall. And the window in the bedroom is opening to the buildings hole. So, in the bedroom, you can very clearly hear almost all the neighbors, the barking dog on the first floor. It's always so dark inside the flat... And many other. In overall, I had a big disappointment.

After I turned back, they asked for a review. I spent my time and left a very descriptive feedback. After a while, I saw that they didn't make it public. When I asked them, they explained that the reviews are published only after both the host and guest have submitted theirs. So, you must expect the approval of the flat's host to make it public)))
It is really nonsense to expect the host to let a negative publicity for his/her flat. So, I understood why all the comments were good and positive for such flat.