I have noted several folks online noting that Airbnb is not covering damages as promised. I wanted to add my voice to this so that people, when deciding to list with Airbnb.
I recently had my paddleboard damaged by a guest. Fin broken and back rail completely broken, which is a hard to repair. It was a brand new board, only used 2 months. I originally thought my most recent guest had damaged the board. However, my neighbour sent me a date stamped photo which had shown me that it was actually the previous guest. I had initially approached the last guest via inbox message about the damage. She was willing to take ownership and pay. However, when I learned it was the guest prior, I had to be honest and let her know she was off the hook.
However, Airbnb would not allow me to hold the previous guest accountable, as the damage was reported after 14 days of their check out.
What irks me about this is that I could have been totally dishonest and held the most recent guest to account. However, in trying to do the right thing, we got screwed over by Airbnb. It was an Airbnb guest that did the damage. The guest even acknowledged it and originally agreed to pay until he learned the cost. However, neither party is willing to be accountable and is perfectly happy to stick us with the bill.
When we decided to host with Airbnb, we reviewed the page describing Aircover. It unironically states that "Host damage protection will reimburse you if your place or belongings ever get damaged by a guest during an Airbnb stay" unreservedly and without qualifying that phrase with catches or hangups. Not even a little star indicating that there is a footnote to read to detail limitations on that claim. I have learned the hard way that this is not true.
I've been doing some reading since then and notice a lot of other folks having difficulty with Aircover. I wanted this to go public so that, in the case that someone is considering hosting, they get full information and know the negative experiences many hosts are experiencing when they try and get damaged property replaced.
