Same day reservation request is the last straw

Peter1354
Level 6
Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands

Same day reservation request is the last straw

Hello,

 

Well, this is the end for us. Going to cancel Airbnb and sell the guesthouse. Our Caribbean Airbnb Dream slowly and surely became a nightmare we no longer need.

 

This starts with a suspension, and some of the pictures might be out of order. It begins with a chat on FB with Airbnb.

 

All the best,

Peter

 

**

 

Dear Ana,

 

Thank you for your note. 

 

No one at Airbnb seems willing, or able, to persuade us, Chih and I, to stay as hosts. Once again we invite you to give your best sales pitch and in the meantime we will give you the five reasons why we won’t stay, unless of course you can persuade us otherwise.

 

  1. Sign-up process - Many, many weeks with a great deal of wasted time on our part. We even gave up once, but my husband said we should try again. After many more wasted days we became Airbnb hosts.
  2. Switch to Host pays fee and VAT - over three weeks to resolve. When Airbnb switched to host pays fee for this area, you based our tax base on Peter’s passport: not where we live, not on the local phone number, nor on the method of payment. Again, a simple issue took weeks to resolve and cost me $116 in VAT.
  3. Account suspension for 36+ hours - Due to an “error”, we were totally blocked by Airbnb for over 36 hours. The only method of communication was via Facebook. We thought we are Superhosts? 
  4. Reservation Request - Aribnb left us in a situation where we has a guest standing at our front door, who had not paid, and yet according to Airbnb had another 15 hours to do so. This situation was at best uncomfortable and at worst dangerous.
  5. Overall rating - is based on this single question, “How did your stay at Peter’s compare with your expectations?” Airbnb, deliberately misleads the guest.

 

 Possible guest answers

 Overall rating

 How Airbnb rates us

 

   Much better than expected

 

 Acceptable

 

   A bit better than I expected

 

 Not quite acceptable

 

   About the same as I expected

 

 Not acceptable

 

   A bit worse than expected

 

 Not acceptable

 

   Much worse than expected

 

 Not acceptable

 

So please tell me what incentives do we have to give Airbnb 15% when your customer service is pathetic, guests are mislead, hosts are treated with complete disdain and are placed in potentially dangerous situations.

 

Kind Regards,

Peter & Chih

 

Airbnb's response.

 

**[Conversation with CS removed in line with Community Center Guidelines]

 

1 Reply 1
Christine2956
Level 1
Baileys Harbor, WI

Wow. You have certainly been given the run-around by Airbnb. I'm especially disappointed that I can no longer reach anyone by phone to answer questions specific to a current rental. Finding generic answers on the website prove to be time-consuming and without value.

 

What are our options? After 5 years with vrbo, they lost me 3 years ago to Airbnb. Selling our rental property may be the best option, although we'd prefer not to.

 

I hope that you are able to find the resolution that you need. Best wishes to you!

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