Airbnb

I tried to book accommodation in Glasgow and spent many hours retyping the two credit cards to use. The BOOK NOW button remained inactive, so I contacted the hosts to tell of the situation. They were communicative and did their best to help.

I contacted airbnb who replied "Hello William,

I'm sorry you've been having trouble with the site. If you have been viewing airbnb on a different browser, be advised that is best to view Airbnb in Google Chrome.

If you'd like, we have a help article on the topic: https://www.airbnb.com/help/question/446

In many cases, issues like this can be also easily solved by clearing your internet browser's history, cookies, and cache.

I see you just joined, welcome to Airbnb! I hope it brings you wonderful experiences. As a token of our welcome i would like to offer you a $100USD coupon for your first trip:

Code: LCSOQSVT
Expires: 2015-08-05

Let me know if I can be if any further assistance.

Happy Travels William!
Evie"

To try regain the booking I asked my daughter-in-law to make the booking for me.

With her iphone and previous airbnb app she couldn't even log in, so she had to delete the app and reinstall the latest edition before she was allowed in, The booking had been taken.

This shows that whoever writes their web software is only interested in the 18 to 20 year olds with the latest technology. The software engineer's manager should be informed of his narrow window of conception and operation.

Most websites manage to accommodate ALL operating systems without marginalising old fashion software platforms, or else their market would shrink.

I'm going to pronounce this failure of operation on various forums, as I'd hate anyone to experience what I've been through, my first and only time.

Yours unfaithfully,
William.

P.S. I successfully booked in to an hotel. It might be 29GBP more but a straight forward transaction is simple and without headache.

I found a cabin I wanted to rent near Yosemite. When I spoke to the owner for booking, they told be to go to airbnb.com…… That was the beginning of the end. First of all I have never had to give out so much personal information just to book a reservation and I felt very uncomfortable doing so but I wanted the cabin so I pushed forward. When I got to what I thought was the end? Well NOTHING! I got no confirmation that they had my information or that I had a reservation. Just nothing. So I went to FAQ which didn't help at all. I contacted the owner who said they had not received confirmation of payment and to maybe try tech support. I looked for Tech support but guess what? Nothing! I clicked on "Contact" but that took me back to the bottom of the page. To make a long, annoying story short, I kept going around in circles to no avail. I checked what I assumed was my status and it had "Verify me" still there as if I had not just provided my life's history and information so I clicked it again and yup, you guessed it…. Nothing. This went on for about 45 or so minuets while I tried to contact someone. I finally gave up and tried to call the owner back but no one answered the phone so I hit the big cancel button and moved on to another cabin that does not use this system. After I was all booked into another cabin with another company I decided to stroll back through the airbnb site. I was concerned about all my personal information floating around without knowing what happened to it. Then I notice in the upper top corner a little telephone icon with the work "Urgent" next to it. I decided to click on it and low and behold, it began to ring. A live person answered the phone. I started telling this person my woes with navigating their site and the man (Very condescendingly) said he was sorry I had problems with their site but he assured me my information was safe. I told him to please delete all the information and delete me from their files. I complained that there was no means in which to solve my problems, no person to talk to, no tech support etc. He asked me if I was using google chrome. I said no, I have a MAC and I use safari. Oh he said, sometimes that is a problem. I said well maybe you should say something at the beginning of your site about only chrome users need apply. He also informed me that the phone icon was for people with "Real emergencies". I also informed him, that their site directly cost his client a four day reservation and that I would not book with any company in the future that uses them. It was obvious he couldn't care less. Bottom line……An annoying site, a waste of time and a lot of personal information given out for no real reason! UGH Horrible to navigate, horrible customer service!

A SHAME!

I paid 1900euros for a room for one month and a half in London so I can do an internship at the French embassy.
When I arrived, the room was disgusting (I found a nail in one of the drawers of the bedside table, the desk was so dirty it was sticky, the wardrobe was so dirty I had to clean it for several days before I could unpack, the floor was full of stains...). The rest of the appartment was in a poor condition, the bathroom was disgusting as well, and the way to the balcony was dangerous (you have to go through a small window, the stairs are broken so you have to put your foot on a plastic stool on which lays a wooden board with nails on it). Also I didn't know they would be other guests in a shared room, and my hosts even put mattresses on the floor in their own bedroom so they can get more money! I started feeling insecure, when one woman came to me in the kitchen and told me she had to sleep tonight in the same room as another man whom she did not know, and was not aware of this before her arrival.

Then my relationships with my hosts started detariorating, as they were aggressive towards one of my friend who came for 4 nights (my host had given me her consent). They started to make false accusations (literally "I think your friend borrowed something but I don't know what"), and lie (writing to me one month after my arrival that I "shouldn't go to the balcony because it isn't safe" the very same day she sees me taking pictures of the balcony to send to airbnb). I felt so insecure about them that I started getting home as late as I could.

I called airbnb to explain my situation to them and not only were they of no help, but they made me lose time, and made the situation with my hosts even worse.

I would strongly advise anyone not to use Airbnb services, as they really turned my stay here into a nightmare.

Used to love the Airbnb experience as a host until recently when I was enlightened with the real picture of the horrible customer service offered by this company.

Fully agreed with some of the comments given on this site - appalling customer service. One day out of the blue my account was disabled for no reason. I tried to call them to (1) understand what happened and (2) reinstate the listing as everyday of it not being active costs me reservations and $. Customer service line was always busy, and I ended up waiting on the phone for 30min for what must have been 10 calls to a US number within the course of 2 days (I am based in the UK). The reason why I had to call them 10 times is because half the time the person I was on the phone with was clueless about what was going on (more than one of them was adamant to me that my account was still up and running - and only after 10 minutes of closer look or so realised that actually yes it was disabled!). In addition, the whole process was hugely opaque - all they could do was to pass on your "case" to "a specialist department" to investigate. I never heard anything meaningful from this "specialist department" - they sent me back an email saying the account had been reinstated (without an explanation as to why it had happened in the first place) but when I checked it turned out it was still disabled. Appalled, I called back (and waited on the line for 30min again) to only find myself back in the original helpless explaining - waiting process. Nothing has been resolved or updated since.

Worst is the attitude of some of these call-centre people: When I expressed my concern that, because I can't even access my account and because the whole incident has been such a bad experience, I may consider delisting the place to avoid getting into the same trouble in the future, the lady on the line cheekily said "you don't have to stay with us - but if you cancel your future reservations we will charge you penalties". Helpful, isn't it? Considering I can't even *manage* my future reservations not being able to log into my profile. How am I to welcome my next guest in a few days when my account is disabled? Is it fair that they took down my business AND fine me for not being able to accommodate my guests?

But seriously, having thought about all the risks, the trouble of going through all of this again, and the appalling attitude of this company, the $200 cancellation penalty fee seems utterly small. I have decided that it's not worth it - so bye bye Airbnb, never again.

N. B. I am reading in this thread that many people have experienced abrupt and frequent cancellations from the hosts recently. I suppose those hosts may be going through the same thinking process as I am. Sorry guys but it's Airbnb who's screwing us all.

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DONT USE AIRBNB
The property was not even close to as described. We were welcomed by another "guest" living in the house while drinking and sitting on our bed. Check in process was not as described and we had dirty linens. We didnt stay 20minutes and decided to cancel the reservation and the host was kind enough to agree to refund us but unfortunately Airbnb decided to take it upon theirselves to refund only 80dollars from the 600+ they owed us. We continuiously try to call their customer service, which IS THE WORSE, and unfortunately ever day they keep changing our case manager and no one follows up! For the sake of your sanity and money, DO NOT USE AIRBNB. Pay the extra to stay in a hotel and be guaranteed a better service. Unfortunately Airbnb never follows up with the hosts to verify the apartment, condos and houses are as described in their posts!

I have a continuing problem as a consequence of a reservation I made with airbnb. I wanted to inform potential users of this site of the difficulties I have had in resolving a problem i had. I booked two accommodations for six of us (three married couples) traveling to Ireland in late August 2014. Both of the reservations were accepted and I furnished payment for same in the amount of $2301. 00 on November 15,2013. I think that bound both Airbnb & me contractually. The reservations I paid for was for a trip we planned for August of 2014. I was informed it was "Company Policy" that trips had to be paid for when booked…even when that far in advance

On January 20,2014, some two months later, I received an e-mail from the host of one of the accommodations through Airbnb, cancelling my confirmed and paid for accommodations in Dublin for Aug 28-30. She claimed some misunderstanding on the dates that I had requested. She suggested another property and even went so far as to ask the host of that property to hold the space for us. Upon investigation I found it to be unsuitable since it had only two bedrooms and a hide-a-bed.

Since then I have made numerous contacts withairbnb company by telephone and e-mail. The e-mails were always answered by an automated response that made vague (& unfulfilled) promises of resolution. My telephone contacts, when I was able to wait long enough to get through the queue, were equally unproductive. I was often told that "senior management" was working on a solution and I would hear from them soon. The latest contact I had with your company was with an employee named Mitzi on 2-14/14. She said that the company had issued a refund for the cancelled/paid for reservation. I checked my AMEX account and no refund from Airbnb was posted. The representative then said that an e-mail addressing the situation had been sent. To date I have received no such e-mail. I asked for a mailing address for your company. After checking with someone, Mitzi unbelievably stated that she could not give out the address and that I should Google it. I also told Mitzi that I was unable to respond to the automated e-mails sent by your company. Her answer was that I should change my browser… which I found an astonishing response to a customer service question.

Never have had such a hassle trying to reserve a room. Please, everyone reading this...DO NOT USE THIS. TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE

I'm only choosing to do Airbnb because it's the easiest option while I look for an apartment but I think easy is an exaggeration as my second experience of Airbnb is a PTSD nightmare of my first experience which I won't get into but my second experience was just not great at all and I hadn't even checked in! Ok, so the host is called Annie. The picture she/they use is of a young Jewish looking woman. Modern, sleek kinda pulled back haircut. Probably not a great sign already if you know anything about Jewish people and real estate! That sounds awful to say but when you know you know. I had my doubts based on my past experience, the fact that the new listing had no reviews (I really should have read her previous reviews based on her past guests) and her insistent need to say no parties on her property. I have cameras all over the place. Blah, blah, blah! Usually people that complain tend to be the worst host/people themselves! They have intense demands while doing the bare minimum on their end! Ok, so let me try to keep this short. I messaged this person before arriving at the property to find out how I was even going to get in as there was no indication of this in the email. Never heard anything. Once my car arrived at the airport and I got closer to the location, I tried calling. Someone answers. It sounded like some rude much older Jewish woman with a smoky accent. I'm trying to find out where is Annie and the woman replies: I don't know in a strong accent. It was maybe a 20 second conversation that left me confused and angry before I just got frustrated and hung up. I wouldn't be surprised if this woman was the Annie I was looking for. People don't tend to use their own pics on these things. There I am, standing outside of this place in shorts in the cold in NY as I had just come from holiday in Florida and I thought it was going to be warm by now in NY in May!? So, I'm talking with Airbnb on the phone and I spoke to three different people. Two of them kept saying they understood!? One of them even had a baby in the background crying! I screamed; stop saying you understand. You don't understand! They offered a $148 coupon and I'll be requesting that they pay for the second car I had to take to get a hotel! Just madness! If I ever decide to do an Airbnb after this, please just push me off a cliff. I'm sure that would be less painful! If I could leave a crumb of a star, I would! Crumbs would be too kind. Perhaps dust bunnies!

My family consists of my wife and my two children who are 2 and 4. I live in Maryland and booked with a host for a week vacation in Lewis DE next to Rehoboth Beach. Due to the COVID-19 restrictions I recently cancelled my trip scheduled for the week of July 4th and requested a refund which I received that same day from the host HOWEVER, the refund was short $526 which is what Airbnb charges for their service. After filing the appropriate grievance for the refund, I was told by a supervisor that due to canceling my trip outside their policy refund period of June 30, I cannot receive any refund. When I asked if restrictions force Airbnb to extend their policy into July, would I still be eligible for any refund and they said NO. I cancelled this trip in the first place so I could avoid any complications of gambling my family's health with a reservation that explicitly told me I should not have canceled so soon and instead pay my remaining balance to the host in hope that restrictions will be lifted by July 4th when they have already announced that as of today, anyone entering the state of Delaware will be sighted with out of state tags if not quarantined for 14 days before leaving. In addition, all 4th of July activities has been canceled. Why would I want to take my family on a vacation to a place where all activities have been canceled with restrictions in place? I continued to ask Airbnb management if they could refund half or offer any incentive to continue to conduct business with them in the future and they replied that their understanding of the situation was quoted to be "FAIR". Airbnb should be embarrassed of their moral standing when other businesses are forgiving and extending payments to those who are putting the customer first. We will never use their service again and will let everyone know utilizing every means of communication that their fairness is in the best interest to collect $526 from a family with 2 small children during a pandemic struggling to secure money in the name of safety.

I am so appalled by what happened with this behemoth of a company that I am inspired to share the story and write this review. I made a reservation with Airbnb in July and within 48 hrs cancelled it to book a larger rental with them. The paperwork on the rental agreement said 100% refundable under these circumstances. I put thru the other reservation and then cancelled the first, only to get a message that a service fee will not be refunded. I sent 4 messages to Airbnb, got no response, so i filed a complaint with my CC who investigated and blocked this fee. Airbnb then sent me an email THREATENING me that if I don't agree to pay it, I risk having my current reservation cancelled as well as my Airbnb membership cancelled.
Several weeks later I got a response from my CC, writing that they received documentation from Airbnb that their policy is non refundable service fee. The papers supporting their contended point were illegible. I just sent back my email completely legibly documenting that the reservation with service fee was 100% refundable: It clearly states right below the reservation code: "cancel before 3:00pm on Aug 2 and get full refund. After that, cancel before 3:00pm on Aug 11 and get a full refund, minus the service fee." (I reserved in early July.)
Then, for my new reservation, they quoted a price on line for a home rental with 15 beds. I reserved without giving a head count. The owner of the property several weeks later asked how many ppl i was bringing. I told him 13, and the owner responded that over 8 guests, an additional $30 /per person per night. When I asked him where that was on the agreement, he directed me toward some hidden fine print stating this. The owner himself responded that this is a recurrent problem with Airbnb: that they insist on advertising without transparency and many renters get upset when they find out that the advertised price was misleading, and have to pay extra.
This is a dishonest, fraudulent, corrupt company that swindles people by insidiously hiding costs and flat out NOT honoring its contract.
I am glad to cancel my contract with these cunning, devious, treacherous crooks.
I can more than afford to pay the service charge, but I feel indignant about their perfidious behavior and intend on sharing this story with as many people who care to hear it.
Airbnb can take its membership and put it somewhere.
Airbnb: Shame on you!

Me and a few of my friends booked through AirBnb for a Condo host by "Komffy" in Hollywood Beach, Florida. After checking the itinerary multiple times before the trip, we booked flights. For reference, we are all from Ohio. Once arriving to the condo, they stated that there was no reservation under our name and that they didn't have any room available. Even though I had checked the day before and everything was fine and I did NOT receive an email, I checked again and it stated that it was cancelled. Obviously we didn't cancel it. I got in contact with the host Komffy who refused to speak to me and said I had to take it up with Airbnb. Airbnb had the worse customer service I have ever experienced. They kept saying they would get back to me and would take hours, even though we were 4 girls stranded with now no where to stay during Spring Break when everything was booked out. Airbnb also stated they would help us find another place to stay for the week, but ended up responding hours later that they couldn't help. After a terrible night, we ended up finding our own place to stay and were only concerned about getting our money back which was almost $1000. I was trying to get into contact with Airbnb almost every day and they wouldn't answer their phone, but instead send texts through the Airbnb app stating, "We will get back to this issue tomorrow", and then never respond the next day. This all happened on the 14th of March, and I finally got a response yesterday on March 30th, that they are not providing a refund and have closed the issue. I cannot believe first of all that they would cancel our reservation without at least notifying us and then secondly not return any of our money for a place we weren't able to stay at. I have never had a problem with Airbnb before, but I also have never had to contact them. It was an awful experience and they let the host get away with keeping $950 from us. Will never be going through Airbnb again and be careful if you use them especially if the host is named Komffy!

We have had several smooth situations with airbnb, but we definitely learned after our last experience, that we will be left high and dry if things don't go right and we need help.

We found ourselves in airports for two days and a night with our kids, and when learning all hotels were full in the middle of it, decided to try airbnb. After paying for a rental car by phone from our gate, we booked the only home we could find available on airbnb, and made our way across the airport and outside to the car rentals. The host communication was above and beyond the entire time we were updating her on our circumstances and making our decision to stay, and bent several policies for us in order to allow us to book in the middle of the night. Upon getting to the car rental counter, however, we were told that because of all the canceled flights and weather, every company had NO cars available - including ours - no buses were running that time of night, and uber was going to charge $400.

Less than an hour after we pressed "book" on the app, I let our host know that we were unable to get to the property and had to cancel. However - somehow now that they had the $700 that we paid to use the house for 10 hours, no policy bending happened!

I would have hoped that by getting airbnb involved, airbnb would act as a middle man to help us work with the homeowner and advise each side in order to come to an agreeable compromise. But the message was - too bad. The homeowner doesn't want to give you your money back.

So we slept on the cold airport floor with our kids that night, and the house cleaners had a real easy day the next morning at the house we paid for with their $300 cleaning fee.

Each time as an airbnb guest we always go above and beyond with our communication and our care of the properties we rent. It's disappointing that airbnb wasn't there to help us when we faced a really big problem as we encountered several obstacles during this event, including the entire month after getting home that we spent communicating around it. The added financial strain of the $700 to our trip because of the issue with airbnb was a big one, and we are definitely highly disappointed with the outcome. After this experience, we won't be as trusting of the goodwill of homeowners toward their guests, or of airbnb's ability to step in and help when it comes to gray areas that aren't covered by general policy, where it seems guests are only being treated as commodities rather than human beings.

We have used airbnb for years staying at places all over the world. We have been fortunate to have found places to stay that are interesting, clean and well priced. In many cases we were able to meet the host and find out about the home's history as well as the history of the area. The last time (and it will be the LAST TIME) we used airbnb, we went to San Antonio, TX for a weekend. The AC in our coach house apartment was not working and outside temps were in the 100's; we contacted the hosts and they immediately refunded our money as well as gave us recommendations for hotels in the area. We decided to find another airbnb rental and after a short time were able to find one close although it was in an apartment building. After booking we discovered that the cleaning fee for this 400 sq ft place was $124. But we thought it would be a super clean place, right? It took us 45 minutes to find an obscure place to get the key in this massive apartment complex with multiple buildings and ambiguous parking signs. After walking through an open hallway with bags of reeking, fulminating, leaking garbage bags in front of doors and piles of bird droppings we arrived only to find that the keypad on the door was difficult to operate because the keys stuck so badly that the lock wouldn't accept the code. After about 15 minutes we were able to get the door open and decided that it was best that we didn't leave because we might not be able to get the lock to work again. The apartment reeked of stale cigarette smoke as well as garbage in spite of the air conditioner set on recirculate. The wine glasses as well as the dishes and silverware were coated with a film and not at all clean. Everything in the apartment was coated with a greasy film. What was the cleaning fee for? We reached out to the contact person relaying this information and notifying her that we wanted to check out in the morning instead of staying an extra night. The agent refused to give us a refund and said that instead she would send out a cleaning person. We responded that it was not an acceptable solution and that we would check out in the morning. We felt confident that airbnb would back us up and facilitate a refund on our behalf. The next day we attempted to contact them only to be routed to another country after a long and arduous process. We were, after much effort, given a "representative" who "mediated" our case. They were no help at all, and sided with the agent. Although our previous experiences were favorable we can no longer do business with a company that does not help the customer. The fact that we had stellar reviews from previous agents had no bearing on our case; something that they never considered. We firmly believe that a company is only as good as it's customer service. If we could give them negative stars on this rating, we would.

I had a very negative experience the first time I used Airbnb as a guest. However, this was over 1 year ago so I decided to give it another shot. I booked a house for 30 days-extended stay, and it was wonderful: clean, private, and the owners left a welcome gift. Absolutely amazing! (I did pay a significant amount of money for it, but I was looking for cleanliness and comfort in the middle of the pandemic). After this, I wasn't able to book the same place for another 30 days so I had to look for another place. I decided to continue using Airbnb since this experience had been perfect (I also paid a significant amount of money for the second place, it wasn't one of the cheaper properties). As soon as I arrived to the new place (which had good reviews) I realized I had made a huge mistake. The home looked great on the pictures but once I actually got there, I felt scared and very unsafe. It was located in a very bad and old part of town. However, I didn't want to immediately be negative, so I decided to just brush it off, hoping the inside of the house was better. As soon as I opened the door I realized that the place was dirty, there were dead mosquitos on the windows and wall, the furniture was barely functional and dirty, the place had a very strong smell of perfume mixed in with a smell of humidity in an old and not well ventilated home. I immediately felt dizzy. I walked to the bathtub and there was still hair from someone else, I'm assuming the previous guests. Later on I also realized the refrigerator wasn't working property (and this was supposed to be an extended stay during the pandemic). It was old, smelled bad, not properly cleaned (in the time of covid) and the furniture was in really bad shape. I immediately contacted customer support and after trying to fight this for several days, I finally gave up and understood that Airbnbn would do anything to keep my money even if this was a very unfair situation and had completely ruined all my travel plans. 2 horrible experiences out of 3. What angered me the most is not that I had to stay at a property where I was constantly completely grossed out but that Airbnb made no effort to apologize, offer me at least a partial refund or credit for the large sum of money I paid to end up staying in a really bad neighborhood and an old, dirty and plainly disgusting home. Airbnb only cared about keeping my money, not about keeping my business or being fair. Huge waste of money and time I was planning on using to relax a little bit. I will simply never again use Airbnb and have already told all my friends and family about this horrible experience so they don't have to go through the same thing. Please think twice before using Airbnb as a guest, there's other options out there. It's simply not worth the stress and the terrible customer service.

I was recently scammed for over 1500 USD by a fraudulent posting for an apartment in London on the AIRBNB site. I share much of the blame for this as I went outside of the AIRBNB site to communicate with the prospective host. But I am not inexperienced with AIRBNB, nor do I consider myself uneducated when it comes to internet buying. However I felt safe with this prospective host and I feel that I felt safe communicating off-site with this host largely because of some conflicting policies and procedures that AIRBNB uses. I am concerned that AIRBNB has become successful enough to be targeted by sophisticated scam artists who mimic the AIRBNB website, language and page formatting. This included using the AIRBNB name in fraudulent email addresses and on fraudulent bank accounts. Unfortunately, at least in my experience, I don´t feel that AIRBNB is doing enough to police it´s site, and to provide a safe and trustworthy format for connecting hosts with guests. After more effort than I think appropriate in my circumstance, I finally was able to contact AIRBNB to first confirm that the reservation I thought I had made was fraudulent, and then secondly to lodge my complaint and concern over this event. The response I received in both cases expressed regret for my experience but was focused mainly on indemnifying AIRBNB from any responsibility. It is of course common in cases of fraud to blame the victim for lack of vigilance, but AIRBNB has been disturbingly uninterested in my experience, how I might have been led to feel safe with this posting, or how a multiple user might be confused by the policies of AIRBNB. At this point it is my feeling that prospective users of AIRBNB must be extremely cautious with any connections that are made through this site. Hopefully AIRBNB will place effort and resources into making their site safer for users. I have been a very happy user of their site and think that their business model is very interesting, but with their success comes the responsibility to be more proactive to protect users from site predators. It isn´t enough to claim to be a third party platform user anymore. They need to up their game when it comes to user trust and security.