Horrible Airbnb Experience (with receipts)

*Edited* Appended final Airbnb resolution at very bottom

First of all, the fact that I am even spending precious time to put this post together should hopefully raise alarms (that likely have already been ringing) at Airbnb headquarters and leadership.

I’m not some billionaire that is entitled and expects every Airbnb experience to be like a four seasons stay or something…

But what happened with a recent work trip is eye opening… considering where Airbnb came from. Btw, I’m writing this before I dispute the charges on my credit card because I really would like to NOT lose my account or get it shadowbanned.

Anyhoo, to the story (with plenty of receipts) starting with my “Your Trips” where you can see that I’m not some scammer trying to pull a fast one. I have had plenty of amazing experiences in Airbnb’s worldwide going all the way back May 2013!

Oh and I was a host/superhost (starting in late 2012) for a while and Airbnb enabled my wife and I to afford an amazing first home while taking vacations when guests would book out our home. Heck the first airbnb stay paid for most of our furniture (it was the Superbowl).

So naturally when I was looking at lodging options for a team of 4 in San Diego for a conference we were attending, instead of getting 2+ hotel rooms, I immediately started looking for airbnb’s where we could all have a lockable room but also hang out together (we’re fully remote so in-person time is extremely valuable).

Thank goodness about a week prior to the work trip, I was confirming details but something was wrong with the business trip airbnb I had booked…

When I logged in to get the address, check-in details, communicate with the host, etc… (you know… the usual stuff) — I started getting errors so I immediately reached out to airbnb support via phone. tldr they said some automation at airbnb noticed a duplicate listing and deactivated/turned off the one we had booked. — I simply asked why we weren’t notified and support said something to the tune of “we don’t do that”.

Ok fine, damage control mode, hotels are now stupidly expensive (cus we’re booking about a week out) and still not ideal for our team bonding time so I went back to airbnb (also because I’ve had prior experiences where if something went wrong, airbnb would help rebook and many times would cover the price difference).

Ok crisis averted… until a week later… I’m sitting in my window seat on my flight to San Diego when I get notifications (but not the whole message due to free messaging limits) from one of my colleagues who just checked in.

So I pony up the $8 to get on crappy airplane WiFi and chat starts loading.

I asked my wife to jump in and help as United’s WiFi could barely load anything and quickly booked 2 rooms at a Marriott.

This part of the story is where you’d hope airbnb’s support with their “AirCover” guarantee should come in, take a look at some pictures/videos and some oddities of the hosts/listings that are now apparent and just refund the reservations. But no. Here are screenshots of the frustrating support experience that just gets more and more infuriating.

Airbnb Support Chat Thread

2nd Airbnb Support Chat (since we have 2 reservations)

Yes, I still need help (ideally in the form of a full refund) but Airbnb needs more help than I. The number of times airbnb support rep said they would help and then say “oh sorry I’m ending my shift, someone else will help” was infuriating. And for full transparency, I have disputed the charges for the two reservations and opened a short/put position on airbnb as of the publication of this post.

*Edit* After I tweeted/x’ed this story, the most senior customer care rep (in America) “Alan” who effectively is the ombudsman of airbnb called me. After hearing me speak my mind, he looked into my account and the messages and refunded the remainder of both reservations while also reimbursing me for the hotel reservations we had to make. I appreciate that he was empowered to assist but still disappointed I had to resort to social media to get a satisfactory resolution.

FWIW — I ended up booking two more upcoming company trips on Airbnb.