Airbnb

This is a scam company!
Charged credit card in February, then 6 hrs before check in-time on 15 April cancelled booking during major holiday, when everything was sold out and prices tripled for last minute bookings.
Host said is not their fault, Airbnb help center said something was mixed up! They were useless and did not help at all.
Fact is that they charged credit card for booking, used money for 2 months, then cancelled booking and offered to refund credit card booking amount.
During Easter had to pay 50 Euro more for new accomodation, which was very far from city center and spent several hours to find new accomodation, because everything was sold out and prices tripled.
Will never use airbnb company and will tell everyone at online communities to avoid this dishonest company.

Updated 9-29-2021. After careful considerating AirBnb decided my negative property review did in fact conform to their standards and chose to publish it after initially denying it.

I stayed at a place that was much worse than advertised. Dirty, poorly furnished, none of the promised amenities. There were few reviews in the past 2 years, prior to that there were a handful of positive reviews. There were NO negative reviews for this run down bait and switch property which is rather odd.

My review was unbiased, honest and factual, stating all the problems with no opinion at all.

I was finally told after several back and forth messages with AirBnb customer service that my review was removed because it was "irrelevant".

Yeah ok

AirBnB claims that they will reimburse hosts for damage done by guests. However, in three years I have only submitted one claim, with documentation, and in four months it has not been paid. The customer service department cannot even see the claim documentation or handling, and says that the claims department will contact me, but they do not. I am at least 12 calls in, and several discussions with supervisors, but they have no information or authority and I may as well talk to a potted plant. If I did not have so many positive guest reviews, I would change companies. If anyone is starting as a host, I suggest using a different service.

These scam artists are experts at ripping people off, then blaming it on their lame BS policies. Many people from both sides complain about airbnb being thieves. I was ripped off twice a was charged fees they stole from me.

Wish I could give this a Zero Star... Terrible customer service and when you are using a tablet and press "request to book"... You're screwed... Now your money is gone... Trying to rectify this has taken hours! The host gets to keep 50% and Airbnb a $67.00 non refundable cancellation fee...
Save yourself the aggravation and use Flipkey or Homeaway!

Tried multiple attempts to book multiple properties without success. Each time it would indicate open availability for the dates we wanted, then upon checkout would state the property was not available. The website and mobile app are confusing, frustrating, and poorly done. Tried to call customer service, no luck there either. We finally gave up and booked with another company.

I have been a 5-star rated AirBNB host for over 5 years, and a traveler with them since their first year. I was loyal for years, but I'm done. I've had two horrible experiences now, and will start working with local real estate, VRBO, and others.

1.) Had a listing that refused to provide me with a key or any way to access the apartment. There are scads of details that are going down the rabbit hole on how bad this experience was, but just that should be sufficient. A lodging company that charges you when they won't give you access to what you paid for?
2.) Had a listing that was listed innacurately. False description. False occupancy. False pictures. AirBNB would not help *at all*.

Will never work with them again. If you have a bad experience, it's going to be unresolvable as a traveler, and likely unsafe.

This company is great at taking your money and then leaving you to fend for yourself if you run into any issues such as no plumbing / no running water, as I ran into. They will sympathize with you but won't do a thing for you. Shame on you Airbnb! I've sued them in small claims and awaiting outcome. (Casey Antone)

Airbnb does not appear to check even the most basic claims about properties, such as their location. I booked a "Cottage near beach" only to learn that it is a 45 minute walk from the beach (2.3 miles). Even though "misleading location" is a violation of the Airbnb terms of service, after submitting a claim, Airbnb did not respond, and neither did the host, who has demanded a $300 cancellation fee.

I have filed a dispute with my credit card company. I will never use Airbnb again.

Airbnb seems to put their hosts before their customers. We recently rented a home for a week on vacation. The house was nasty, unsafe and had 9 cameras around the property even though the listing said no cameras. My wife and I talked about the cameras outside and the host apparently was watching us and started making changes to his profile to mention cameras. Airbnb refuses to do anything about it because we didn't contact them within 72 hours of our stay. We waited to deal with it all until after our vacation since we had nowhere else to go anyways. I will never use Airbnb again.

I have tried to book a few properties for next summer on Airbnb recently, and have had similar replies. Either the rates are wrong, or the property isn't available for some reason.
However, when I look at the same place again the cost to book it has risen considerably.
In the UK we have a law that says if you see something advertised, the price you see is the price you pay, or you can sue them. It appears this does not apply to Airbnb.
This is my first experience of using Airbnb, and I am beginning to think there are a lot of crooks and con artists on it.

As a guest... you never know what your are getting at a stay with an AirBandB host.

Some venues are lovely and clean... while others are dumps.

While on one hand I endorse the idea of cottage industry within the hospitality industry, I do have security and quality concerns about this concept.

I think from now on I will only go by word of mouth... as images can be misleading.

Three stars from me...

They had some random person list my home, which I was clearly unaware of until my door bell rang and a family was ready to stay for the week. Through the investigation process they could not send me photos that were listed and were very scripted with their answers to law enforcement as well as myself.

This people are crooks! They take your money and will have no remorse and show know compassion after they get paid. They don't care and could care less if you get kicked out in the middle of the night on a cold and rainy when it's their own fault. Nobody was professional to try and contact me to clarify anything about my situation and when I called them, they we get rude and hang up on me. Im very disappointed and would not recommend them even to my worst enemies

We rented a vacation property from Airbnb and paid 100% of the cost at least three months before it was due. One week before we were scheduled to leave for the beach, we received an auto cancellation from them because of an error with their billing department that did not recognize the split billing between our two families vacationing together. They have not offered any refund, they did not find us a place to stay, and their customer service is the absolute pits. We will never rent from them again

It is a true sign of an incompetent monopoly when useful features disappear. Without map search this thing is not worth it. I use booking.com and expedia now. We need government regulation of monopolies like airbnb. They should not be allowed to own (and damage) what really is infrastructure of modern society.

Stay away is right. Although we did book with a host from airbnb, the host forgot to mention that machinery and noise in the surrounding area of the Waikiki townhouse is constant and one is unable to get away from it for a moment. We had the possibility of a hurricane coming our way so were advised to leave three days ahead but our host simply said, "tough luck!"... I would NEVER do that again. Uncomfortably hot during the day as well. No view at all... whereas it was listed as having a view.

Customer service is absolute disgrace! I would not even give one star. No matter how seriously you follow the policy and guidelines in spite of having explain over and over the same thing, I have just been told I will not get any refund for my cancellation which was well within the the refund policy time limit! With all the rising costs and other challenges world is facing this experience has been one the worst experience. Do not book with them at any cost.
I feel sorry for some of the good hosts who have gone above and beyond to get their customers the best experience.

Must be the worst company out there to deal with. Very unhelpful. Take your money for your booking in full plus their costs without it showing it properly on their website. When you contact them and try to get a refund oh they will only refund 50% even though you have not taken the holiday. Also they don't even pay the holiday owner until you have been. Luckily we have been in direct contact with the owner now and all is ok but I would never ever ever recommend using Airbnb for anything. They are rubbish

Airbnb is not good for guests. It will do everything to protect the host's side, but not the guest. Our host blamed us in stealing her old towels and wanted to charge us almost 100 euros for this. Airbnb was entirely on host's side and they blocked us from placing a negative review about the host. We were trying to place it every day and were getting an error message. Called customer service multiple times and none help was given. Try to avoid their services

My reservation was cancelled by the "host"... That's it. No reason given, nothing. This company Airbnb is really asking the public to take a chance and if the reservations are cancelled, well too bad. Go and find another place.

I had a 2 months reservation for Romania, the host seemed friendly and understanding, and everything was going great and shiny. Just until the moment I had to cancel my trip, because just 1 week before the flight my passport got stolen.

To be honest, when I filed for refund and applied for extenuating circumstances, I didn't expect much. Just "hey, it can't do any harm, right?" attitude.

You can imagine my surprise, when one of the support team guys contacted me and went through length to get all the details of the situation and give me the best deal possible!

As a result, I had a partial refund AND a voucher for the next trip. But, most importantly, Taylor was incredibly HUMAN in understanding the situation and her actual support.

You could feel that you are not talking to some automated response human machine on the other side of the globe. That's what was really precious.

Thank you, guys, I will definitely travel with you again!

Airbnb did nothing to help our situation, they only side with the hosts, we paid over $2300 for 11 nights, stayed for 2 as the place was not suitable, it was not 3 bedrooms as described, the balcony room was cold and constant noise from the street, the door didnt lock, the other one described as a den was a converted closet, too small for an adult. The host stated the homeless people were harmless, we were approached a couple of times where we felt unsafe so we left!
I would not recommend Airbnb or this Host.