Airbnb HQ, San Francisco CA

**TRAVEL WARNING with Airbnb Abroad or at Home**

Airbnb does not vet their Hosts properly and does not vet neighborhoods at all. This can put you into a potentially dangerous situation like it did me. When a problem arises with a Host, Room or a neighborhood DON’T count on Airbnb for assistance, your on your own.

My personal experience and I hope it doesn’t happen to you.
Traveling through Mexico for four months looking for a home or condo to purchase I decided to use Airbnb for the first time, what a mistake.
The 1st Airbnb was fine because I knew the area but the 2nd was a disaster due to Host, neighborhood and Airbnb.

Pictures of room and kitchen look nice, obviously old pictures. There are plenty of restaurants and stores close by so I booked for 10 days. When the Uber driver pulls onto the street and pulls over he asked me if I am sure I want to stay here was my first sign of a looming problem.

The neighborhood was littered with trash and beer cans, Host’s personal vehicle was blocking the path into the apartment and the entry key code was wrong.
Upon entering, the apartment was dirty, kitchenware and coffee maker unusable, towels and bathroom nonfunctional and the bedroom the same. Got there late so didn’t have an option but stay the night.
Leaving to get food and drinks, due to kitchen unusable, I was harassed by several neighbors.
After being up all night due to the extremely loud music until 3a.m. And being on watch for problems I ventured out about 4a.m. To investigate.
Got harassed again by two drunk neighbors and followed by a local dog pack.

*Notified the Host and left the next morning. Tried Airbnb’s app to cancel and request a refund.
The App didn’t work and I’m sure that’s by design and Unethical practices to extend it past the 24 hours you have to cancel and request a refund.
After calling Airbnb I was told to contact Host which I did and the Host would not reply.
Contacted Airbnb by phone and they have been everything but helpful.
Not getting money back due to the Host has it and not giving a refund due to Unethical Airbnb’s policy.
I left out many details to keep this short.
Final note: DON’T use Airbnb unless you know the neighborhood or physically check out the neighborhood AND are able to check the room out FIRST especially when traveling abroad.
Travel note for dogs: Carry treats.
Happy Travels

Wanted to leave this feedback, as it is very contrasting to my previous perception of AirbNb service. We booked a place for 3 months in Miami for my wife's parents who are coming for the first time from Europe in the last 2 years (and haven't even met their grandchildren due to the pandemic).

While they are in flight on the plane - the host suddenly cancels the reservation - a few hours before the check-in. We made this reservation a few months ago, and now obviously all prices are 2x or 3x that as everything is booked.

I asked a direct question to the customer service representative: "are you going to reimburse the cost difference" and he said "we can do that" - a call on record. After hours of searching we finally found another place on AirBnB to book.

After that - the customer service representative issued us a voucher for 200 USD. And that's it! The cost difference between the two bookings is actually a couple of thousands of dollars!

I feel slapped in the face twice: first time when a host cancels on us on the day of arrival, and second time when AirBnB customer service confirms on record that they will reimburse the cost difference, and then just give you 200USD. That is simply ridiculous and unethical.

My advice - if you want to be certain that you have a place to stay - never ever use AirBnB! You risk not only being surprised the last minute, but also you are risking a lot of money if that happens, as you have no choice but to pay 2x or 3x the original price.

That ruins your day and your entire vacations! Book a hotel instead!

AirBnB has the worse customer support and customer experience. If you ever need to contact them they will push you to different customer agents and "ambassadors" who will sometimes not reply back. Subsequently when you push for a reply they will arbitrarily make a decision and will give you a Templatized response back which is very disappointing. And even if you ask to speak to them they will say "Our review is complete now, and we won't be able to offer additional support on this case at this time. " More importantly, everyone, please take screenshots of the listing that you are signing up for because Airbnb does NOT keep a record of the listing that you signed up for and will instead ask you for proof of what you saw. This means that the Host can change the listing even after you move in to reflect what you see after you move in. Please BEWARE.

The host insurance policy is not what you think and does not cover damage by guests, for example, a $3,000 refrigerator replacement requires to continue to rent my home damaged by the guests. Airbnb indicates they will nit cover it, to include other damage.

I do not recommend Airbnb for hosting your home.

Airbnb has become the worst service ever for its hosts. I had to cancel two bookings because I needed to make use of my apartment to take care of my mother who has been diagnosed with a severe illness. Spoke to the guests well in advance who were more than understanding with my situation. Yet airbnb found it necessary to charge me $100 for the cancellation. Apparently their $bn of revenues are not enough and they think the community of hosts are their cash cow. Can’t wait for a new startup to appear that knows how to treat their host community

Unethical business practices. I booked a reservation on airbnb based on a location, date, price, etc. I then booked my airfare for me and 3 other family members. Later that same day, the airbnb host canceled my reservation. This may have been racially motivated or profit driven because later that evening while looking for a new accommodation, I noticed the original place and dates I booked were available again and the price per night had doubled. I contacted airbnb to see if they could do something about my original reservation or help me with a new one. After 23 minutes on the phone, I was told there was nothing they could do. Now I am stuck with airline tickets for 4 people and no accommodations. Hotels aren't allowed to operate this way. They would have resolved this issue. Why is airbnb allowed to operate without the same rules and ethics? They are a huge corporation and need to be held accountable like everyone else. I have non refundable airline tickets and airbnb does not care.

An owner had his property listed as available. I booked. I paid. I then received an email stating that the property was not clean nor was it ready for my stay. The owner said he would cancel. He failed to cancel. I contacted Airbnb and their response, "A specialist will get back to you". I have heard nothing from Airbnb. The fraud that occurred is appalling. To advertise that a unit is available and it is not should cancel this host all together. Instead, Airbnb has allowed him to continue hosting. His unit is still available in Chicago. Airbnb is clearly protecting his fraudulent behavior and $400 of my money has been stolen. This is truly the last time I will book through Airbnb. Truly disappointing.

Was helped quickly by AirBnB after a host tried to have me accept a different place than the one I booked without giving a reason and without responding to my request for a refund instead. Issue resolved in a day and refund received after 2 days.

If I could post ZERO stars I would. The host cancelled my reservation and the air bnb support team has been essentially unresponsive. Multiple phone calls have been left unreturned, after I was promised a call from a supervisor in 5 minutes. They are refusing to uphold their policy that if the host cancels, the guest gets a full refund. I do not recommend traveling with this company. The hosts are allowed to scam guests with no recourse. There are no supervisors on duty for Airbnb support and it could take days to get a message back. I’m currently out $2300 for a host cancelling on me. Will be suing and reporting to the BBB.

Hi, I would like to leave my disclaimer to Airbnb, did you know they don't accept bad grades on their platform? I gave a 3 star review to the last hotel I stayed, described my entire experience and they removed my review. In other words, be careful with this platform, they are unreliable, I am deleting them from my cell phone and I will warn all my friends to be careful, as they remove honest reviews.

I got cancelled on last minute by the host, out 5500 for 15 business days try and rebook another place auto cancelled… so another 4500 held limbo, try talking to customer service have to get in touch with a specialist I guess. So I am waiting for a call when all the sudden they block me for damaging property, I have never used their service before absolutely ridiculous.

Got a place with no running water. They still charged me thousands of dollars with no remedy because they said I didn't contact Airbnb when I using the Airbnb app to contact the host. Total sham.

It was my 1st experience with Airbnb heading to Mexico for a 6 day stay. Three weeks before my arrival the area was hit my tropical storm Grace. Proactively I reached out to my host to confirm everything was ok for our arrival and I was assured everything was fine on two separate occasions. The day of my arrival I was contacted by the host and told that the villa was inhabitable. So with no place to stay I reached out to Airbnb for the to want to put me in rundown looking villas as a backup option. It was unacceptable and ruined our trip.

They have some nice places to stay, but their reservation system is FUBAR if you need to change anything. Do you know that if you need to change your reservation for overlapping dates, you will be charged the new, HIGHER PRICE, for the days you already had reserved?

A picture is worth a thousand words. This screenshot is of some of my many attempts to get a reply from Airbnb. This is in addition to multiple phone calls and emails over the last 10+ days now.
Airbnb was my favorite tool as a digital nomad, now after several weeks of HORRENDOUS customer service, I have begun searching Agoda before Airbnb. Also worth noting, Airbnb laid off tons of staff while their CEO is worth more than 3 billion dollars. Maybe it's time he felt some financial pain instead of the employees and customers?

Don't ever use this service again, and don't ever book with 'Lisa and Jordan' in Lake Tahoe. They refused to give a refund after folks were being evacuated from the Caldor Fires. Not only are they refusing to give me a refund that was promised in writing, they have no regard for my safety and were perfectly fine drawing me into a very dangerous situation with these fires. This is an unethical business practice.