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Sometime host, current guest. Asking about refund etiquette. Am renting an apartment for one month. Wifi is down for one week, and then a leak occurs in the bathroom. Plumber is called, neighbours come in, wifi people come in; all this I have to deal with, as guest, since owner is abroad. Even today I have to let the plumber back in, to check up on his work.
Now let me know: is it fair to ask for a percentage off the top given all this? Or I am I being rude? If not, then how much is fair?
I think that the first thing you could do is find out whether these problems were caused by the hosts or a third party. For example, if the internet was down everywhere locally, then thereâs nothing the host could do. On the other hand, if he simply didnât pay the billâŚ!
I think that most reasonable hosts would offer you a small discount for your inconvenience.
Can you explain more? What would be different if the owner was there? Is the issue that you are being inconvenienced for having to meet the plumber and wifi people? Are you having to leave work or school to meet these people?
Would you prefer that the owner hire a friend to meet them instead and now you have strangers walking around the apt.?
Why should you get a refund? If this happened in a hotel, at best, they MIGHT give you a breakfast voucher for having to look at a plumber & a cable guy. Sounds like the neighbor has a key to let them in anyway so do you even need to be there?
I donât know where I read it but I think somewhere if wifi is out (amenity not delivered as promised) guest is entitled to refund.
That being said, I experienced lots of dodgy wifi during my recent travels and hotel stays (Seoul and Prague) and I sucked it up. I was not down pounding on the front desk for refunds, although we did let the management know so they could reset routers and such.
Well I learned afterwards, the place didnât offer wifi as an amenity. Nevertheless, I do think travellers expect this as a basic amenity. The host tried to organise it as soon as I mentioned it, but for various reasons, that took over a week. So I canât fault the owner entirely, but still quite inconvenient.
The leak canât be helped either. But as it happened, plumber took two days to arrive; then the neighbours (and their plumber) showed up at the door, alongside the building owner, speaking a language I donât understand. Then finally our plumber arrives.
Alright so still willing to let all that slide. But now the plumber keeps wanting to come back and check, and keeps rescheduling. This is now beginning to irritate me, because I paid money to do business here, and maintenance is not my responsibility.
To those asking âwhether I have work or schoolâ, thatâs beside the bleeding point, frankly.
I was asking because i didnât quite understand what the issue was. Itâs difficult to provide advice on a refund without having all the details.
The owner went out of his way to get you internet and didnât even provide it as an amenity? As far as I am concerned the plumber rescheduling is something to suck up since the owner went out of his way to get you internet. Not sure why you are saying you were inconvenienced for a week without internet, when it wasnât even advertised.
What would be your alternative to the situation? Would you prefer the owner to have the neighbor meet the plumber in your apt. so you donât have to be present? If so, then let him know that you have business plans and canât be there.
Iâve had all those things happen in a hotel. When the hot water went out & we couldnât shower? They couldnât care less so we checked out & got a different hotel and THAT is a big problem with airbnb. You have to call them to get permission to cancel, on hold for up to an hour. On top of that, thereâs a hotel usually right next door, no need to figure out a new airbnb when the 1st one becomes a problem. So I get that dealing with airbnb FEELS like you should get refunded because they arenât as easy as a hotel, but really, the guest could have moved if it was so inconvenient.
I donât list wifi as an amenity on my listing either for exactly this reason. I canât control when itâs going to have an outage and I donât want the hassle of having to be responsible for a failure. So itâs not listed but itâs there for free when itâs working.
âI learned afterwardsââŚis that code for âI didnât read the listing properlyâ?
Wifi is not a basic amenity in many countries⌠Thatâs why Airbnb have hosts add it in as an optional extra if they offer it.
Is it really that inconvenient to find a 5 minute slot in your day to let the plumber come in and check?
It is not the plumber, owner and neighbours fault that you travelled to do business in a country where you donât speak the language.
You havenât paid money to do business there. You paid money to stay in an Airbnb and are travelling to the destination to do business. Surely if wifi was such an essential for you - you would have checked the listing to ensure it was available or paid a little more and stayed in a hotel with business facilities. As a sometime host, you should know how things work.
Initially when we didnât have the full story I felt some sympathy for you. But wanting a discount when the host has gone to the trouble of getting wifi set up for you⌠And being a PITA about letting the plumber check that all is okayâŚwords fail me
The fact you have to coordinate with 3rd party people is pretty unacceptable to me. There should really be a better game-plan for incidences like that. I had a leak at my property once, and you better believe I was there to oversee all the work, touch base with the guest what I was doing, and making sure the times I wanted access to the property were convenient times for the guest to enter. At the end I left them a gift-basket apologizing for the inconvenience⌠but hey, I got a broken shower fixed in 6 hours.
Maybe ask for a 10-20% refund, say something about how the actual host as advertised on the internet was not the one who ended up meeting you in person. Things happen, thatâs true, but the expectations were not as advertised.