Had the exact same thing happened to me. After requesting, had the request declined and the host doubled the price. Admitted that the listing was new, and he forgot to raise the prices during those “busy” dates. Honestly wouldn’t have bothered spending all the time looking if I had known.
Very similar behaviour in Munich where we had 7, yes you read it right, 7 rejections for accommodation during Oktoberfest!
This is after successfully booking 22 other locations across the world.
Airbnb offered a $25 voucher for the Munich fiasco (we ended up booking a Hotel in the end). Nothing for the blatant host gouging in Providence.
I get that it sucks to make a mistake, but it’s not fair to the customers who browse the site expecting the prices to be accurate. I even contacted the host and very politely (at Airbnb suggestion) asked if they would honour the price (it was only three nights) and they said no. Absolutely no other help from Airbnb on this occasion.
Oh and the price jumped from $884 to $1694 so we’re not talking chump change here either!
Basically from what I can tell is that Airbnb encourages hosts to dynamically price and completely allows hosts to reject the request and up the price. It’s illegal behaviour in Australia (misleading and deceptive conduct) but I gather the law of the host (possibly?) applies, rather than the guest booking.