Airbnb

Without a doubt the worst booking site I have ever been on in my life, spent 1 hour trying to book a property, they want photos of you that have to be confirmed then after all the hassle i'm none the wiser that I have booked. Avoid..

My husband and I are going on vacation i was looking at Airbnb as I have never used them before but heard great things. I found a place, created my account and then we booked. Our card was charged. I got a confirmation email then not 30 seconds later I got an email saying my account was deactivated. Spent 45 min on the phone with customer service to have no resolution. We created an account with my husband and the same thing happened. Now we have 2 charges on our credit card for Airbnb and are expected to wait up to 15 days for our refund. Stay away from Airbnb. We like many work hard for our money and they are quick to take it but don't want to return it. No reasonable explanation was given as to why our accounts where deactivated. STAY AWAY.

Horrible experience with a host and unit, host did not care, dirty, lots of non working things, air bnb did nothing, I ended up paying full price, I left a negative review and airbnb took it down for ridiculous reasons and the host posted a negative review on me! So in the end I spent a ton of $ on what should of been a nice unit, and got no customer service from air bnb and myself got reviewed negative. I will never use them again. Their reviews cannot be trusted! They don't care about you or your stay, they just want to prop up their slum lord hosts and continue bilking money from consumers.

They put ‘free' cancellation policy - full refund without telling us the hidden info. Then we chose a cheaper booking and when we cancelled the first booking and they charged us $100 for services fee due to overlapping booking. Why would you charge $100 if we still choose booking with your website? That's ridiculous. It is difficult to contact them, then the rep Jonalou, the worst representative (useless, unhelpful, and didn't answer my main query) said it was my fault for not clicking to the hidden link with several confusing paragraphs when booking. This website is not user friendly and tried to scam money when people cancel. Charged services fee of $100 but didn't deliver the services. Terrible experience, never happened in any other hotel websites for overlapping booking.

I have tried to use the site and in order to reserve a place, even if the owner does not require it, you must load a picture. I am a private person who does not want their picture plastered over the internet so I cannot use the site. I would be happy to say I am an older white woman if that helps, but the policy of adding pictures is not only invasive, but it also supports racism and xenophobia. If you are black, or color, muslim, etc. you will not have renters nor will some people rent to you. This is not based on a landlord requirement, but just in general. It is offensive and I would hope, illegal.

I have decided not to use airbnb anymore because despite my multiple contacts about deceptive over charges on one of my past stays in a miami airbnb, I was never refunded my money and their customer service persons (apparently in India and somewhere else) just kept dragging and not any resolving my complaints.
I will also be recommending to my relatives and friends not to use airbnb.
Ray

Airbnb is such a cool concept, I've stayed in three places so far that I found via airbnb. May put my own place on there once I have more free time! I had one 'bad experience' with a host that canceled my reservation last minute and the airbnb customer service was not super helpful, which is why I gave it 4 stars and not 5.

Because my train was 2 hours late, my host refused to check me in, leaving me stranded at 10pm. Then the next morning they cancelled the entire reservation. Airbnb did not help me find somewhere else to stay, so I had to pay for an expensive hotel. Airbnb offered me $32 and informed me that their policy did not require refunds in these circumstances. This trip was to help my mother during an illness. I wasn't given the opportunity to leave a review on Airbnb so who knows how often this happens without customers knowing about it. It is shocking that Airbnb does not cover unavoidable travel delays, given how common they are. There is no penalty to the host for doing this.

I had to cancel our trip due to a possible retina tear in my left eye which I explained fully to all three reservations we had. It happened suddenly. We took a loss on the first 2 because it was so close to the time but the 3 one was within the cancellation policy. Below is only one of the nasty responses I received from him. I was shocked but I guess he doesn't care about his guests only the money. Don't use Clark, in Marion, MT.! He isn't as nice as he portrays himself to be.
"You waited until one day before the seven day cancellation policy went into effect to cancel. I hardly think that is a coincidence. People like you are the reason people like me have to impose strict cancellation policies and deposits on other travelers. It's really sad when folks won't do the right thing. It ruins it for everyone. And of course you won't be staying at my home. As I said, you aren't welcome."

DO not trust the general location pins for properties. Just found one over 20 miles from the pin location. Property owner says Airbnb sets the pin locator, Airbnb says owner sets the actual location. Who knows the truth. Missed the 48 hours cancellation. Fee is $700 or drive hours during the week. Airbnb offered $30 coupon for their HUGE mistake/action to reap cancellation fees. Will contact owner for exact location before ever booking with them again. DO NOT TRUST THEM.

We booked a 3 bedroom 2 bath condo through Airbnb for Steamboat Springs colorado. We paid in full. The person who messaged us was Ryan with Short Stay Resorts. When we arrived we were told that no such unit or reservations existed. In fact the lady at the front desk told us we were the third family that day that showed up with a fake reservation through Airbnb with the name Ryan. My family was left out on the street in 17 degree weather with no where to go and they had our money. We made multiple calls to Airbnb only to be put on hold, told we would get a call back and never did, and simply got the run around. I will never use this company again and warn you against using them. We were the ones treated like criminals.

Airbnb customer support "Ambassadors" don't know anything they are truly ignorant Peabrain's. The don't even sound like they know what to do or how to handle any situation. There was a lady who kept reading a script sounding like an idiot and not comprehending anything I told her. The host that rent out rooms are unclean and scammers looking for a paycheck. They don't care if you cancel from a bad experience they just continue to do the same thing other in a cycle to make money in a dishonest way.

Booked accom could only book with payment made. The host refused booking but did not cancel. Refund was $345 short. See text messages. It appears the host was unaware that she needed to cancel for me to receive a full refund despite my message. I have requested a refund from the host. Max $93. Air bnb system owes me $251 and there is no way I can get it back. The booking was live for less than 2 hours.
This type of system ripoff has made me suspicious of the integrity of airbnb. Take care of this.

I booked a 2-bedroom apartment almost 2 weeks ago for Thanksgiving weekend. The owner had some questions about my granddaughter and my small dog. Every time I replied to her through airbnb's platform, I got undeliverable replies.

The owner just cancelled my reservation because she didn't receive answers to her questions. We will probably have to cancel out trip because I can't find suitable accommodations on any other site and we're running out of time.

Did my first on line booking with Airbnb and it will be my last! Not familiar with the system and having looked at several locations, I clicked on the wrong location and it was IMMEDIATELY caught. The host was gracious but Airbnb can't even be contacted to discuss a full refund... Their alleged 3% fee was an actual $25 fee on a $76 reserve... Ridiculous. I can see if I made the mistake and didn't catch it for some time but this has no logic at all.

After checking into a studio in SF for 4 nights, during the 1st night i encountered bed mites continuous itching not able to sleep in the studio. Next morning took a hot shower and called host to explain i was uncomfortable and not staying any longer. Host could have cared less, he has his money. Never got support from airbnb, no refund for unstayed nights. Then I posted a review and it got deleted. No support for guests if any issues exist. Never using site again, beware and stay away from this site!

Accused me of violating their platform without telling me how it is that i did such a thing. Took down my listing without telling me. Now, they think I'm going to upload my ID onto the internet for them to have at, when I was already verified to begin with, having successfully rented with them the previous year. Clearly, the site has been taken over by fraudsters.

Sellers often advertise rates only to find out that they are really higher once the reservation is requested. This is a bait and switch in my book. Unfortunately, AirBNB is no help at all. This is infact acceptable in their book. There's no accountability for hosts or protections for renters. Save yourself the headache and book a hotel. At least they honor advertised rates.

I rented a house and the next morning owner cancelled and said that it had already been booked and airbnb still had it up for rental. They took my money anyway and then tell me it could take 15 days for it to be credited back to my account. The owner of house said her bnb account had been hacked by someone in Hong Kong, so I am now afraid to put any of my information down to rent anything through airbnb.

I've had a decent experience with the site. I used it to find housing in Asia and it worked really well. I think it depends which city you're looking for. For example, in Berlin there are almost no listings and people want a lot of money to stay there. So it depends on how desirable the location is and what the level of inventory.

I had to cancel today due to Covid restrictions now in Scotland. Airbnb allowed host Simon of Edinburgh to not refund our full cost £301. We lost half the fee. Having to pay full fee when booking then not being refunded when the trip becomes impossible. Should be illegal if enough notice of cancellation is given. Will never use Airbnb again.

I rented a place in Paris October, 2013 for 4 nights. The problem with AirBnB is their lack of vetting the hosts and probably their guests as well. When I couldn't get in touch with my host the night before my arrival because up until then I had no response about where the key exchange would take place, I made a transatlantic phone call to AirBnB for assistance. They were no help and told me to work it out with the lessor... and that they were merely a "platform" for the hosts and guest. I finally heard from the host at midnight by email the night before I was to arrive. It went downhill from there. Yes, you could get lucky with a good host, but AirBnB gets no credit for that. They are absent after you give your money. Will never use this service again! Beware!

Our stay got cancelled one week before the trip. We were left in a major jam. Had booked 2 months back and were staying in the Christmas Holidays and they just cancelled. The host didn't care. Airbnb didn't care. Called them multiple times and no one helped us. And by then everything in the city was doubled. They need to be reported. These big companies don't care about customers and get away with this. Very unethical.

Tahnya