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There is more garbage on the internet about Airbnb than (it seems) any other subject. Some of the problem, as @bigappledude says, is fabricated - people with too much time on their hands and, most probably youngsters.
Also you’ll find that there are posts from people who have just started hosting, or who have not been hosting long, who have some very strange ideas about what Airbnb is and what it should be.
Then there are people who have a perceived grievance with Airbnb and just want to bad-mouth the company as much as they can and of course, people who write about Airbnb in the media or in their blogs because it’s a buzzword that generates hits and therefore views of their pay-per-view advertising.
This is nothing to do with politics and that is completely off topic. Also I can assure everyone that what I have posted on this issue is 100% true, I wish it were not so. I have all the emails, texts etc to back up my story. Funny that some of the posts on other site almost mirror my own experience and the worst part is that it seems to have been going on for a while. I have every reason to have a “perceived grievance” against Airbnb, as have some of our guests, who like me have tried to get them to play fair. This is an issue which all hosts and guests should be aware of and my post should cause them to be concerned and help enable them to print out copies of booking confirmations with contact info before Airbnb deletes them. That is what I have now done with the few bookings that still stand, and if they choose to ignore that advice that is their problem.
Is that not the main purpose of this forum to help and educate other hosts and make our grievances known?
Absolutely which is why we have been advocating this for years on this forum.
Yes.
You might be surprised to know that some people only show up when they have grievances and problems. And in the meantime they don’t read anything here or follow any of the advice meant to lessen the sting of problems or to completely avoid problems.
This is another characteristic of the forum, like it or not.
People are going to post their opinions here and unless it violates the forum guidelines it’s not going to stop.
Below is a copy of response just received from Airnbnb. I dont understand the bit about “restore your trip” as I have not tried to book trip with them within past few months. Yesterday when I went to calendar on their site I could not change anything. Obviously I will be contacting them again.
Dear (Name hidden),
We want to provide you with an update on the issue you experienced with your Airbnb account earlier this week. Again, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused.
Our team was able to restore your account, and it should now be up and running as before. If that’s not the case, please let us know immediately.
Unfortunately, we are unable to automatically restore any reservations that you might have already booked on the platform. While you should have already received a full refund, including any fees, for any cancelled reservations, we want to help you rebook quickly and restore your trip if possible.
I’m sure they sent you a form letter. This one happens to be a form letter that’s intended for a guest, not a host. I’m glad you’re not going to drop it.
You bet, the following is copy of my response sent to case manager. I am also mailing hard copy to main office in CA.
“In response to your apology and explanation. If you were sorry for whatever happened beyond your control, you would have taken steps to help reinstate those guest’s bookings instead of sending them messages stating that we as hosts were the ones that cancelled them, and that you would be seeking retribution against us and giving them $100 coupon for their trouble and suggesting that they use it to book elsewhere. We believe that you did allow a couple of guests to re-book. Why some guests and not all?
Ours, in Arizona is a short season i.e., Jan,Feb, March and this has affected us both financially and mentally having resulted in many sleepless nights and tremendous work in sorting out and trying to make contact with those guests. The fact that you tried to charge us cancellation fees of over $400 just adds insult to injury.
We have done our best to mitigate our losses and have narrowed these down to two guests at this point, Gary who was booked from Jan 28 for 12 nights at around $1000 total and Deb who booked for feb 7 for 8 nights at approx $400.
Contacts with case manager have not resolved anything, we contacted CS today as we were still unable to change our calendar, the rep did not know why, but was meant to refer it to whoever might be able to take care of it. She informed us that this issue with accounts and bookings being cancelled has been a global one, and our own investigation has uncovered many claimed similar instances.
Our main complaint rests on the fact that when you were informed on Monday that something was very wrong, you did nothing about it. By contacting our guests and telling them outright that we had cancelled their bookings is libelous. We are asking that you contact those affected and tell them the truth that it was Airbnb who cancelled them. If we are unable to to replace those cancelled with similar revenue we are asking for reimbursement. It might help us mitigate our losses were you to put our listings at #1 position in our area for the next two months.
In conclusion, you have misplaced the trust that we have put in you and dragged our good reputation down without good cause.”
We certainly will! We have , and are still spending most of this week on phone and PC regarding this.
The first review people see is one from Airbnb themselves which states that hosts (us by name) have cancelled booking, but they have permitted my rebuttal response to be viewed. They had agreed days ago to remove several other of their lying reviews but they left this one which is the first one people see, and most prospective guests would rather believe a multi billion dollar corporation over a superhost of over 5 years with great reviews. We have written to a Mr Hassell (yes, that is a real name) of Airbnb corporate, but of course, we are not holding our breath for a reply.
Things improved for us today when we heard from a cancelled guest who had been given a $100 coupon to book elsewhere and who took them up on it. Their new “elsewhere” booking has also been cancelled out . They have now booked directly with us as we were able to establish contact info. Up until this time we had no intention of booking airbnb requests outside of their site. It suited us as up until now they have taken care of the accounting etc., but we now have no alternative as if they cancel our confirmed bookings and we are able to (in some cases) enable guest to book direct, why shouldn’t we? As a guest, I would appreciate that myself.
I can empathise. Last June we were messaged to say that we booked a trip to Thailand. We contacted CS and told them that we already had a booking that day and we couldn’t possibly be going to Thailand. They investigated it and told us it was a scam and to click on the link they were sending us so that we could reset our Account.
This we did and for the next 15 days we couldn’t access our account, manage confirmed bookings, or service the numerous booking requests we received during that time. The outcome was we lost approximately £2,500 gross income.
Like you, we literally spent most of that time trying to resolve the issue with Airbnb. We only made progress when we drafted a press release and sent it to the UK press office. Within 24 hours we finally got ourselves a case officer. Progress was still very very slow and we were still losing money, so we sent the press release, saying it was going live in 24 hours unless etc… to the US bosses of AB and once again it did the trick and our account was suddenly fully functioning.
No compensation, no apology, bar an email offering us a gift for our inconvenience. We could choose from a month’s holiday in the Maldives or the Seychelles. JOKING!
The choice included an Airbnb mug, water bottle or similar crap.
So maybe worth considering threatening to go public.
Thank you for posting this, as I will now be very suspicious of agree/don’t agree AB questions!
The following is the response I received from the email I had sent to a senior executive at Airbnb San Francisco office
Airbnb Support
5:08 AM
Thanks for contacting Aisling. My name is Sergio, senior case manager at Airbnb.
I am sorry to hear about the impact that this error had on your end.
We reached out to all affected guests, however, we can only reinstate the bookings for those who gave us consent. That is the reason why were unable to reinstate all reservations.
Our systems are automated and notifications are triggered upon cancellation. Airbnb did not intend to send the re-booking notification.
I will outline the steps we have taken:
1 - We have informed all guests about the error and assisted them re-booking your listing.
2 - All cancellation fees, applied automatically by the system, were reimbursed.
3 - All cancellation reviews were also taken down from your profile.
Please respond back this chat if you required further assistance.
My own comments are that they certainly did “reach out” to all affected guests and offered a coupon in varying amounts so long as they were to book elsewhere. As we understand it the coupon could not be used to reinstate the original booking they had made with us.
Yes, they have waived all cancellation fees imposed on us!
The cancellation review which was the top review potential guests saw, was removed, but only AFTER I had sent my post to a senior executive of Airbnb.
Website “glitches” will happen from time to time, but it is how a company takes care of it that determines their sense of responsibility and commitment towards their clients that matter. Clearly Airbnb have no goodwill, empathy, or ethics towards their hosts and guests. As far as they are concerned the case is now closed. As far as we are concerned we will not forget as we are considering getting out of the bnb business altogether or looking for alternatives to Airbnb after our season ends in March. In the meantime, we are saving our reservation details to paper or pc immediately and advising guest to do the same as well as informing them that if we have to cancel due to a catastrophe we will always notify them direct along with Airbnb and if they get a message that the “hosts have cancelled” to contact us immediately and we will honor their reservation privately. It is still a big coincidence that the day after we complained about them blocking our calendar for inquiries ie., unconfirmed bookings, that this happened.
Just received a message through the Air webmail from a booking that was made over four months ago from a guest which we accepted and was cancelled by Airbnb but we were unable to send reply as guest was blocked. We feel bad for this guest, but we are completely helpless. Thank you Airbnb!
Most of us record the name and phone number of the guest in our records. Many of us also get email information from the guest.
Also the guest should have a record of your contact information and address. So if they are savvy and really want to book your place directly they could contact you.
Not really, as detailed above. However, if it was cancelled by Airbnb it was probably for a very good reason such as payment problems, unable to verify ID or they have stayed somewhere recently and and trashed it, stole things, assaulted the host, that sort of thing. Airbnb doesn’t cancel reservations for “no reason” unless it’s a technical glitch.
