@Saira26 I can't glean from your post whether the $2000 was the cost of your Airbnb alone or if you're factoring in the cost of the hotel rooms. The Guest Refund Policy doesn't specify any provisions for costly replacement bookings - you're pretty much on your own there - but if the Airbnb was in and of itself a $2000 expense, it seems like it would have been worthwhile to follow the procedures outlined in the policy, and get confirmation that your refund was being issued before abandoning the property.
Now, if this was a Private Room booking in a shared home with host onsite, and the host's behavior made you feel you were in physical danger, then what I just said doesn't apply - your choice to relocate immediately without first giving the host an opportunity to "fix the problem" was absolutely the right one. But otherwise, I can't tell from your assessment what aspect of the property was so irreparable that it merited an override to the cancellation policy rather than a request for cleaning or repairs. The "smell of illegal drugs" is pretty hard to prove - were there crack pipes or syringes in your personal space, or did you witness people consuming drugs inside the apartment?
Don't get me wrong, I don't wanna give you a hard time about it - I've seen and heard about some unbelievably bad conditions in Airbnb flats, and had friends who just took one look at the place they booked and instinctively fled. Unfortunately these things do happen. But when they do, if you want to get out of the booking it really helps to zero in on the hard facts that concretely correspond to what Airbnb calls a "Travel Issue" - such as key missing/defective amenities - rather than the general vibe or feeling you had about the place (even when your intuition is totally correct).
Another problem you might find - not sure if this has any influence over your results with CS - is that the reviews some hosts have left you (and, more importantly, the responses you submitted) are absolute poison. You're in a bit of a corner now, where only the most inattentive or desperate hosts will be willing to accept your booking. I'd rather go skinny-dipping in sewage than receive a guest who wrote these sentences on her own public profile:
"M-----was quite short tempered because I didn't want him to explain the nuances of his window treatments to me during check in, but he went ahead and had to describe every single power strip, literally. Sorry, but I had a conference call, and I told him that. Work comes first, not your power strip."
"So I waited for hours and hours and hours with a splitting headache and empty stomach from traveling internationally, continuously yelled at the top of my lungs for the butler, who finally came around, gave some flimsy answer and walked away. "
