airbnb refuses to refund full amount

[Nick2123]

Booked an airbnb for 5 nights. We drove 8hours when we arrived at 8pm we found the rental filthy. we attempted to find a hotel for the night but with a large dog and it being Flagstaff, AZ non were available to us. We were forced to sanitize a room, strip a bed and sleep on mattress with face masks on for the entire night. We got up at 6am and left and drove 9hours back. Airbnb refuses to refund the full night. keeping 50% of the booking rate and $80 service fee and taxes. The place was filthy, wet towels, food debris, tooth paste and body hair on the bathroom sink. It possibly exposed us to Covid as the house was locked up for who knows how long before we arrived. This is unethical and irresponsible. We just want a full refund of our money spent. nothing more nothing less. 

 photos attached to show condition of the rental.

[Emiel1]

@Nick2123 

Did you follow the procedures as mentioned here:

What if i need to cancel because of a problem with the listing or host ?

[Nick2123]

Hey @Emiel1 

Yes i did Follow the correct steps in reporting. They are refusing to refund the entire amount. The rental was filthy and directly put my family at risk for Covid (dirty dishes, dirty surfaces, wet towels piled, dirty bedding, etc). It was 23° f outside and had no option to go anywhere. I wanted To post publicly to make others aware of the unethically behavior and to make others aware that you can not trust this company to keep you protected. 

[Sarah977]

@Nick2123  I hope you left an honest review of this place to warn other guests. ( Airbnb may in fact suspend or delist this host, but they won't share their intentions or actions with you)

This was a truly disgusting experience, and I'm sorry it happened to you. It's hard for me to understand how hosts like this exist.

Obviously if a place looks like this it hasn't been cleaned at all, let alone to COVID-safe standards. Let's just hope the previous guests left several days before you arrived, in which case any virus would not be still active on anything-  at this point the accepted science is that surface transmission isn't common. But there's all kinds of other nasty bacteria you could more likely get sick from in a place like that.

[John5097]

@Nick2123 

The policy is that if you stay the night then cancel the rest of your stay, you pay for the one night. Your post isn't clear. ABB refunded you for the remaining 7 day stay and half the one night you stayed? If you are checking in that late you decided to accept the situation for one night stay. Had you arrived earlier you could have canceled right away for full refund. I'm just saying that's the policy the way I understand it. The policy also states that guest are supposed to give host a chance to remedy a problem. Seems like the service fee is the most unfair. But like I said I couldn't exactly understnad how much you were refunded. If you only paid a half night for the one night you stayed, that seems reasonable. I personally would give a full refund if it was my place and it actually was in that condition. However I think it should be up to the host to issue full refund, otherwise expect to follow the policy in place. Read some of the other recent post about scammer guest trying to exploit host. 

Edit: This place is at risk of being delisted. Did you communicate with the host at all or did host reach out to you saying it would be ready ect etc? I don't know. That is ABB policy but it would suck to show up for check in and have to clean the entire place. It takes me 3 hours. One of the Community Online Managers might be able to help you get it escalated. 

[Nick2123]

@John5097 

the options at 9pm: 

1. local hotel- we looked and  

     none available 

2. Drive an hour and one half to next town or 9 hours back home

3. Sleep in a car with two adults and a 95lb dog in 23°f cold with snow on the ground.

so in objective reality there was no choice other than to Mask up and suffer thru it. Had any other viable options been presented or available trust me we would have taken it before staying in the rental from 10pm-6am.  

[John5097]

@Nick2123 Yeah, I see what you are saying. I just edited my post above. 

I guess I was saying what the policy was and not to feel like you got robbed. It can be more unfair for host but its some risk we all understand.

But there are so many other scammer guest and host that ABB has their policy the way it is. That's what I was saying. It would be impossible to know what the property was when the guest stays the night. Guest might notice something the next day. That's why the policy is the way it is. Unless I'm mistaken the policy is that if guest stay the night they are expected to pay for it. Photos can be staged.