I’d like to know where I stand on this as Airbnb has created a situation where neither myself (the host) or the guest are happy. From my perspective, Airbnb has made two fundamental errors while handling this case.
Here’s what happened:
Guest checked in at 15:00 on Saturday and was scheduled to stay until Friday next week. Around 23:00 on Saturday night, an issue meant that nobody in the area had water. Thames Water were straight on this and everything was back to normal by 07:00 on Sunday morning.
The guest sent me a message at 23:10, telling me that she had just tried to pour herself a glass of water, but no water was coming out of the tap. I discovered this was an issue in the area and contacted Thames Water, who told me that they were already aware and were sending a team out overnight. I instantly relayed this information to the guest and paid for water to be delivered to her.
The guest then called Airbnb to complain about there being no water. Airbnb then sent me a message at 23:50, telling me that I had 60 minutes to respond, or they would make a decision without any input from me. I instantly replied, telling them that there was a water outage in the area, which was already being worked on. I also offered a 30% refund on the affected night. Airbnb accepted this and told me that they would see how things were in the morning.
Around 04:00, the guest contacts Airbnb again, complaining that there is no water. Airbnb treats this as a SEPARATE issue. I get an email at 04:13, telling me that if I don’t respond within 60 minutes, Airbnb will make a ruling without my input. Naturally, I am asleep at that time and Airbnb decides that the correct solution is to cancel the booking and provide the guest with a full refund. They also told me that I committed a severe hosting violation by not having water and ignoring contact from them about the issue.
I wake up at 08:00 and discover that this has happened. I also have a new booking from a different guest. My cleaner arrives at the property at 10:00 and finds the guest, who Airbnb has relocated, is still there. The guest doesn’t want to leave as, now that the water is back, she is happy to stay. I explain that unfortunately Airbnb made the decision to cancel the booking and I have a new guest arriving, so she will have to check out. She continues complaining about how she wants to stay as my listing is better than the one she has been relocated to.
Eventually, she accepts that she is going to have to move to the other listing, but she wants to stay in mine until 17:00 as she can’t check in to the new listing until then. I explain that I now have a new guest checking in at 15:00 and the listing needs to be cleaned before he arrives. She is not happy about this. My cleaner, who lives nearby, offers to look after her bags until 17:00 for her, but she doesn’t accept and storms out of the property telling my cleaner that I am going to get a one star review for this.
The way I see it, while Airbnb clearly made a mistake by treating her second call as a new issue, she also has to share some of the blame for calling them again at 04:00 in the morning to report an issue she had already reported. Also, while I wasn’t privy to the conversation she had with Airbnb, she definitely would have been aware of the fact that she was being relocated and would have agreed to it.
I have had a conversation with Airbnb regarding this and they are claiming that they had to provide a full refund for the night she stayed as she was without water for two full days. She wasn’t. It was about 8 hours, most of which occurred when she was asleep. They are treating it as though this went on for 48 hours. They are also claiming that I was given a chance to respond, but ignored them. They claim that the email I ‘ignored’ was sent to me at 11:13 and not 04:13, since they are completely oblivious to the fact that different countries have different time zones.
I suspect that I will be getting that one star review, which they probably won’t delete, and will also have to accept that the guest had a free night?