Left without accommodation during curfew - thai jail time is the penalty.

[Victoria1222]

AirBnB I booked had a door to the garden that would not shut.  Opened a case, was told to was 24hrs for a response.  This would mean sleeping in an unsafe AirBnB where anyone could walk in. 

Spoke to the host, they took me to another villa, this one had no wifi and no aircon.  I refused and said I would book a hotel, and deal with a refund later.

This is where the problems really start, all hotels in that city have been shut because of the virus.  There is an 11pm curfew, if you are caught breaking it, you are sent to thai jail and/or fined.

I was now without accommodation, in a foreign city.  AirBnB were still ignoring my messages. 

After much begging I managed to find someone to drive me to the capital, Bangkok, where hotels were still accepting guests.  I paid for this all out of my own pocket.

Managed to finally get a reply from AirBnB by contacting them through facebook.

They told me I would have to pay for new accommodation myself, and to contact the hosts first to check that it was available.  This goes against their guest policy: 

Within 24 hours of check-in
For any eligible issue you notice upon check-in, contact us and we’ll rebook you an equal or better stay, or refund you 100% of your money.

The eligible issues were: Pool is in disrepair during the summer months
and: Place is not safe or clean upon arrival

I clearly explained this multiple times. 

They did neither.  Instead they left me without accommodation, 2 hours from the nearest open hotels, in a situation where I could have been sent to thai jail.  When replying to my messages they sent me alternative AirBnBs and said I would have to pay.  Even though they have over 300usd of my cash for providing 0 service, wasting my time and money travelling, and putting me in an extremely stressful situation. 

When I raised their policy, they stopped responding to my messages, even though they were replying very quickly before. 

Is there anyway that I can escalate this? 

[Helen427]

Hello @Victoria1222 what a horrible situation you have been placed in in a foreign country through no fault  of your own.

You sound like you should be covered by Extenuating Circumstances.

Did you have travel insurance?

If so, maybe that's an option & avenue you could exploring to gain lost monies.

Hope you are safely back home.

@Lizzie @Stephanie @Nick @Liv , there must be others in similar situations like @Victoria1222  has been placed in across the world including in places like Thailand where they have very harsh regulations at the best of times,  any suggestions ?

Thanks in advance

[Sarah977]

@Victoria1222  Not to make light of your situation, but in the first place you had booked, you say there was door that didn't close that opened onto the garden and that anyone could have walked in. That in itself doesn't make it unsafe, even though it felt unsafe to you. It seems possible that they may never have had a sitaution where someone else walked in- the area may be quite safe and there might be no other way into that garden? So the host then offered you another place, which you also rejected because there wasn't any Wifi or AC. Could you not have just stayed there for the night instead of finding yourself with nowhere to stay and asked the host if he could put a lock of some sort on the garden door to the first place that you had booked?   

Unless the host was being rude, which it doesn't like he was, it sounds like he was trying to accomodate you as best he could, why didn't you try to work with him a bit to give him the opportunity to perhaps make the first place acceptable to you? And why wouldn't you have checked to make sure that there were hotels available before rejecting the 2 places where you could have spent the night? 

And I thought the unlockable door and the lack of Wifi or AC were the issues- then you mention that the pool being in disrepair was one of the issues? 

I agree that if the places you were offered weren't as advertised, that you should be eligible for a refund, but as far as finding yourself out on the street past curfew, possibly risking jail, it seems like that was a situation that needn't have occurred if you had handled it a little differently.

[Victoria1222]

Hi

No, staying in Thailand with an open door is not safe.  I am very surprised that anyone would suggest this.

Nor is sleeping in this heat particularly possible.

I did check that hotels were available and booked one.  Only to arrive and find out that it was shut.

So yes, I could have handled it differently and:

1) put myself at risk by sleeping in a room with an open door

2) stayed in a much scarier area without aircon 

Of course, if I had known that all of the hotels were shut, I would not have left.  However, there was no information online suggesting this. 

[Helen427]

@Victoria1222you have come to the right place to source info & helpful info.

If you use related key words in the searchbox here in CC you will find other information about the evolving situations we find ourselves in. 

In all fairness ABB customer services have been extremely busy as can be understood with the disruptions worldwide.

For those not familiar with Thailand it is a country where the present season is extremely hot.

Thai people, who can afford to, travel overseas to escape the heat around this time of year. We used to have students from Thailand come to NZ to learn English & have a holiday.

They are generally very accommodating kind people who live under strict governance with harsh penalties - look up their Legal system practices.

Perhaps another way of looking at @Victoria1222  situation is the language barriers she may be encountering with Thai not been her first language like English is not the first Language of those Thai people stranded in a foreign country as countries went into lockdowns  and borders were closed on people innocently going about their lives.

Those people may be facing similar challenges to.

@Victoria1222when things settle down in Thailand maybe pop around to see the people who you were going to stay with & have another chat as they to will have been going through the motions like we all have not knowing what was really going on.

There's nothing more frightening than having one's lives thrown into disarray & been displaced bc of the actions of others.

Meanwhile @Victoria1222 if you plan on traveling further down our neck of the woods when our borders finally open, hopefully soon as we now have a new leader & deputy leader of the opposition who is itching to get our country up & running again, and an election in a couple more months, you are welcome to come and stay at my place along your adventures.

If not and you want to go back to the UK, check out GetUsHomeUK who have been doing a stirling job for those from the UK & Europe who were in  NZ,  networking with people trying to travel back home, via other countries that allow pick ups & transits - register with them for eml updates as they are very helpful to keep in the loop.

Take care, keep safe & know you are not alone wherever you are in the world folks.

[Sarah977]

@Victoria1222  I'm sure there are areas of Thailand where it's safe to sleep with an open door. It isn't safe to sleep with an unlocked door in my town in Mexico, but it's quite safe at my place, which is on the outskirts in the countryside- I sleep with my bedroom door open to the balcony, accessed by a set of outdoor stairs, as have some of my guests. I have a vigilant watchdog who would bark if anyone tried to come in the yard, which no one ever has, even before I had the dog.

And plenty of people on this planet sleep in a hot place without AC-  it gets quite hot and humid where I live, too, but I have no AC, just fans, which both I and my guests have found quite adequate.

Honestly, you sound like someone who isn't at all willing to be adaptable, even for a brief time, and it would probably be best if you stuck to hotels for your travels.