Escalate complaint within Airbnb

Cara216
Level 1
Carson City, NV

Escalate complaint within Airbnb

I had an issue ~ COVID related ~ where we made reservations & the reason for the reservations were cancelled.  We knew the event would be rescheduled, so the host agreed to hold onto the money (I thought I was being nice) until we could reschedule.  I literally kept in touch monthly (this was starting October 2020) just to say hey, we are still here.  It was finally rescheduled.  I messaged, and it took about 3 weeks to get a response (in the past it was within a day).  When I finally noted the dates that were needed, I was told that "oh, we lost that property & are looking at others.  We don't know when & we don't know where, but I will hold your money for that unknown time & place".  It took me nearly a month to get a response from Airbnb, who said "oh sorry, we asked the host & she said no".  At no point in time was notified in our monthly communication that this happened.  And if I knew Airbnb would do nothing else other than contact the host, I could have told them what she would say.  I have now emailed Airbnb twice to ask how to escalate because I am held to MY reservation money going to the host, but when they sell or lose their property I don't get my money back?  How is that fair?  I have no idea how to take this further.  Ready to NEVER use Airbnb again (this was my first experience).  But before I stat leaving nasty reviews everywhere, I wanted to see if there was anything else I could do.  Had I know when our even was first cancelled that this would happen, I would have just take a refund then.  That's what I get for thinking I Was being nice.  That will NEVER happen again.

2 Replies 2
Lisa723
Level 10
Quilcene, WA

@Cara216 It’s unclear from your post what happened with your original reservation. When a reservation is canceled, Airbnb automatically refunds the guest whatever they are due according to the cancellation policy in place when the booking was made. You don’t really have any option to forgo your refund. If your reservation was made before March 14 2020 you may have been eligible for an extenuating circumstances cancellation due to covid but if it was made after that you were not. In this case it would’ve been nice of the host to offer you a future credit but they had no obligation to. Of course, it was poor form to say they would and not follow through. Is there some other aspect of this situation I am missing? 

Hi were you able to figure out how to escalate a complaint?