I just thought I would post this recent experience I had with AirBnB customer service to give everyone some hope.
I mention three times in my listing (my pre-booking message, my house rules, and the listing itself) that since I am a shift worker, guests should message me before booking to confirm their planned check in time as my availability can vary. Normally, this causes no problems. I don’t do self check-in because I list private rooms in my shared home, and I like to meet the guest before I give them access to my space.
I had a instant book on August 11th for a one night stay on August 15th. The total cost for the reservation would have been $60, including my cleaning fee, minus Air’s fees. I attempted several times to contact the guest via Air to give the guest the check in time window and to confirm his arrival time. No response.
On August 14th (the day before check in), the guest finally gets back to me and says that they can’t make it during my check in window. He then cancels his booking. No problem, I think, I should still get my one night’s rate.
I checked the booking to find that Air wasn’t planning to pay me out anything, so I sent them an email to ask why. I didn’t expect the cleaning fee back, but I felt I should be paid for the night’s stay, especially since the guest didn’t read my listing info, reply to my messages, and I wasn’t able to re-book the room when he cancelled at short notice. It wasn’t an urgent thing, and I didn’t expect to hear back right away, but I got a call from them the very next morning. When I explained what happened (which they could see from the messages and the info in my listing), the customer service rep agreed and paid me $124 - double the total cost of the stay - to make up for the “inconvenience”.
Needless to say - I was very happy with the service and the outcome. Since we’ve all heard plenty of complaints about Air’s customer service, I thought I’d share a happy experience with you all!