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I’m a superhost but do use Airbnb when I travel and had an absurd situation while traveling to Lisbon last week. I was staying in the unit for 5 nights. On the 2nd night around 11pm, the water was completely shut off to the unit. Given it was Sunday night, I didn’t want to bother him and would wait til the morning to address the issue assuming it’s still a problem. There’s 10 units in this building. In the morning it doesn’t work so I contact the host and she informs me they will fix it today and this is a new issue. We go out to explore all day and arrive home at 6pm. I receive a message at 4pm saying it was fixed. My friend showers and I hear pounding on the door from a nervous guy. He owns the restaurant that’s below the unit and the water is completely flooding his restaurant. The host turned back on the water without fixing anything after the fire department turned it off last night due to the broken pipe.
I contact Airbnb and want to move places and get refunded for the mess and lies. Airbnb refuses at first and expects us to stay there. I contact the property manager again and he has 40 units and won’t compensate me and expects me to stay at the 1 unit he has open for the last 3 nights. It’s significantly smaller and in a significantly worse location. I then ask Airbnb to relocate me to one of the Airbnbs available within a few blocks of my original place around the same price. I gave them 2 listings and Airbnb somehow claims they are unavailable despite being open on the website.
Reluctantly after 3 hours of this mess back and forth, we move into her 1 available unit at 11pm. Airbnb then contacts me and confirms I’m ok with this. I’m clearly not but don’t have options for that night and Airbnb claims they would give me 1 night free (but I haven’t seen it hit my account). Next morning I contact the 2 hosts that I originally wanted to move to, but didn’t hear back that morning before we left for the day. They both said they were never booked and Airbnb never contacted them. Is it fair how Airbnb handled the situation and how much should I push back for a larger refund?
I would definitely request more compensation since the ordeal lasted more than one night. It sounds like your trip was impacted two nights and two days. I would ask for a senior Airbnb Customer Service Rep to get involved to explain why they didn’t move you to an equivalent property and ask for a cash settlement for 2 nights plus inconvenience losing those travel days, say $500.
I suggest that if you find a problem such as no water, that you immediately report it. We hosts do not keep ‘normal’ hours and as a host, a problem like that would be extremely important to find out right away; for example, to make sure that a plumber was there first thing.
I seem to recollect, when you came on here as a host a while back with a plumbing problem, which meant you had no water available for your own guests, you decided to give your guests a 50% refund of the nightly rate for having no access to water.
In your case I think you said you were without water for a night and that Airbnb said they would offer you a free night for that. You then had to move into a smaller apartment. You don’t say what discount/refund you asked the host for as compensation for this?
I would suggest you agree that they refund the difference between the one and two bedroom and some compensation for your time such as a meal voucher or similar.
I do agree it would have been better for you to contact the host immediately rather than waiting till the next day to minimise the impact on your stay.
Yea I agree I should have contacted that night. Good memory Helsi! I did offer half off and I gave them advanced notice before check in. Luckily I had no issues.
The host was charging about the same amount ($110 a night) for the smaller unit so she wouldn’t budge on the price when I questioned it. When I went online and checked availability, it was only booked for 1 week in the next 3 months. The pricing made no sense relative to the listings surrounding it which were closer to $90 for something nicer. They both were 2 bed and 1 bath. The smaller one had a single and double bed vs. 2 double beds. But the single bed was basically in a closet and couldn’t move around in either bedroom. The other living spaces were a lot smaller than the original unit.
This sounds like the kind of place I won’t book on airbnb because there is some off site, disinterested property manager who can’t be bothered. And it’s beyond irritating that Airbnb isn’t helpful. I guess they want their cake and eat it too.
Just an update to the situation. They offered $150 back which is a day and a half refund. Airbnb claims their policy is 50% off for a night and since the issue was technically only 24 hours, they believe the host went above and beyond her duty. Since the host had a comparable unit, Airbnb views it as a fix and they don’t care if it’s in a different area or different set up. I think that’s BS but it is what it is.
I’m debating about leaving a bad review. Any thoughts? It would be along of the lines of the host lying to me about the fix, forced to move into another unit and not compensated for the move.
I’m 100% in favor of leaving an honest review. But don’t put in lies. Don’t say “not compensated,” say “only given 50% refund and nothing for my trouble.” State things factually. Not the manager lied but the manager turned the water back on without fixing the leak, etc.
I wonder how many airbnb guests even care. I’m really into the one host, one home concept. I know there are great hosts who manage their second home themselves even though they don’t live onsite. I rented a house in Albuquerque from a fellow who manages several homes but he clearly owns them and works them himself. He greeted us in person, worked in the yard a couple of hours and his house was perfect.
