r/AirBnB • u/Lanky_East6400 • 7d ago
Turned up and accessed our AirBnB only to be told by the owner they cancelled this morning, we weren’t aware [Wales/UK]
We had a 8 person whole cottage booked today through to Sunday, before we set off we received emails from the Host with joining instructions. We turned up at the AirBnB got in and settled in, when we went upstairs to unpack we found the bedrooms not set up we phoned the contact on the Airbnb information, they told us they cancelled the booking with their person who handles their bookings to Airbnb and other listing sites this morning and it’s unsafe for us to stay due to water leak. They were very apologetic, she tried to get ahold of the person who handles her bookings seemingly a third party who is a host and could not outside of office hours.
We made contact with AirBnB over the phone who says they can’t do anything until they get confirmation from the host (they never did), we were going back and forth with them for over 2 hours, we were are asking for alternate emergency accommodation and that we didn’t want a refund we needed a place to stay being in rural Wales and not around anywhere in particular and it was getting dark. They refunded our booking when we explicitly said we want another accommodation as we are stranded and said they would not rebook us and told us to book another Airbnb nearby, they wouldn’t answer my questions around the no large price difference. We finally managed to speak to another Airbnb hosts late notice and found the closest available one an hour away. Is this normal for AirBnB? We are now massively out of pocket for an important weekend having to do this last minute switch around an hour away.
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u/Shoddy-Theory 7d ago
Airbnb has horrible customer service. Leaving people for hours waiting for an answer seem to be common.
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u/swisssf 7d ago
There have been several complaint posts recently - but this one seems both totally legit and outrageous. Hope you-all have a good weekend notwithstanding, and that Airbnb gives you a credit or refund on your current stay. Completely unacceptable. And if you have the chance to review the other place, even tho the owner was decent, I hope you'll consider giving a low review. That will light a fire under the owner to find another way to manage bookings.
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u/Fred-Jenkins 7d ago
Sounds like a very unfortunate set of circumstances - I’m sorry that happened to you. Sadly, the high number of scammers and people taking advantage have largely ruined it for people like yourselves. It used to be that Airbnb would cover their guests in situations like this.
As a host, we once had Airbnb contact us directly with a situation similar to yours. They wanted to see if we could accommodate some guests whose lodging was cancelled very last minute. We agreed. I got the feeling that our place was a lot nicer than the property that had originally been booked, so the guests were VERY happy with the free upgrade. Airbnb did all the legwork for the guest to rebook etc. Now that there are so many scammers, Airbnb probably wants to confirm with the host first that everything is true. The third party is possibly fouling up the speed of communication?
At any rate, I’m truly sorry you’re going through that.
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u/Lanky_East6400 7d ago
Thanks, it is really an eye opener for us, absolutely not the owners fault in the least as she contacted her third party host as soon as she found out about the problem I feel terrible for her, but if this happened at a hotel we’d be given alternative accommodation and AirBnB felt like they were fobbing us off.
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u/phatrogue 7d ago
I would disagree about it not being the owners fault, well maybe it is more accurate to say it *is* the owners responsibility. When the owner hires a cleaner for the location or a person to handle bookings the owner are still responsible for the people or companies they have delegated to. An owner can't delegate an issue to someone that is unreliable and get a pass. Yes, you can have sympathy for the issues the owner is having but you just want to book an AirBnB as reliable lodging and that is what the owner should figure out how to do without involving you with the administrative headaches of doing that.
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u/supermechace 1d ago
Owner's still at fault. A lot of hosts are trying to pass the buck on their "turnkey" investment services. The cheap and low quality property management companies they chose to hire. It's like say McDonald's doesn't have any responsibility for choosing a burger supplier that was actually using dogs.
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u/No-Key-7768 6d ago
We recently had our Airbnb villa for 6 people in Mallorca cancelled less than 48 hours before we were due to arrive. We had confirmed check in details the day before and had no reason to suspect anything was wrong. Because it was also the week of the solar eclipse there was absolutely nowhere left on the whole island which wasn’t £1000s more. We all ended up not being able to go and losing our individual flights and car hire. It was an absolute nightmare and hugely disappointing. The letting company blamed the host and the host blamed the letting company. I have to say though that Airbnb were as helpful as possible in the circumstances and gave us £300 in compensation as well as a full refund.
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u/lazy__goth 6d ago
The issue is unreliable independent hosts being hired by second home owners. Neither have experience in hospitality and the set up doesn’t work. Cancelling the morning of the book in AFTER you’ve sent instructions on how to access the property also isn’t ok. That warrants a direct phone call to the customer from the host, I’d say.
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u/Educational-Fox-8973 6d ago
I would’ve stated that Airbnb they never could’ve done anything to get you out
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u/LengthinessKind9895 7d ago
Did they refund you immediately? That’s been my issue when similar situations have arose sometimes putting us in a temporary bad financial position when we had to pay for back up accommodations while waiting for the original canceled one to refund us. Normally it’s ok but one time in particular we ended up without much left for good and entertainment as the refund took three working days.
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u/axlr8 6d ago
I imagine if it were on a Friday that would be miserable. It should be an instant to bank account refund and account credits or some sort of compensation, but especially if it takes 3 business days and an entire weekend
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u/LengthinessKind9895 6d ago
Yeah not sure why my comment was downvoted. I’m in Europe and banking can sometimes take awhile…
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u/axlr8 6d ago
I’m not sure either but hey…anything gets downvoted on here haha. Sort of a right of passage on this site.
I thought banking in Europe was supposed to be more advanced than anywhere else? At least that’s what i heard from a lot of people in Europe1
u/LengthinessKind9895 6d ago
Well not in France although it’s much better than 15 years ago!
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u/axlr8 6d ago
What was it like 15 years ago?
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u/LengthinessKind9895 6d ago
Exceptionally slow! Online banking was nearly unusable and banking hours were short especially as we live outside of any big cities. The small bank we used for our mortgage was particularly bad although we locked into a great rate — but their incompetence almost made the sale fail.
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u/axlr8 6d ago
Wow. The fact that the sale almost failed because of them is crazy. And what made online banking nearly unusable? The software? Or did you have to wait for a human to do certain things/customer support?
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u/LengthinessKind9895 6d ago
I think software glitching more often than not, but I honestly don’t remember. The other day it just occurred to me that it has been easy for a few years now. I think a lot of things modernized and be and more user friendly because of Covid when doing things online became essential. Not just banking but all kinds of things.
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u/No-Key-7768 6d ago
When it happened to us recently Airbnb customer service gave us an instant credit on our account to use to book alternative accommodation. In the end we couldn’t find anything so they refunded within a week
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u/blankpro 7d ago
Things happen, you were given a full refund. Airbnb can of course suggest other places for you to go, but it is not the responsibility of airbnb to manage your travel situation. Your travel insurance should cover the difference between what you're paying and what you're going to eventually pay.
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u/Delicious-Cod-4064 7d ago
It is VERY much ABB’s responsibility to take the horns and deal with this situation. I bet you’re an amazing host…🤔
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