Hello everyone
I normally just read and learn from your post, but this time I want to share this with you.
Just for you know a bit about me :
I have been a host for few years already, my family is in Hotel business for long time, my job takes me all around Europe so I spent 70% of my time in Hotels (for the last 10 years) and I like travelling as a hobby, (yes, I'm a nomad and I love it); I know what is to stay at Hotel de Paris Monte-Carlo or to stay in a Hostel in South America .
So I know what's to be a host and what's to be a guest .
I had few issues in my host experience with guests and airbnb team too, but everything fine till few weeks ago.
My sister and I have 2 studio flats in central London, so we help each other.
Anyway, to the point :
Few weeks ago I had a guest who could not check in, and cancel his booking. Host and Airbnb team try to contact me but could not reach me.
what happened:
Someone at the shop where my guest should pick up the keys make a mistake and mix it up , so when my guest shows up, they could find my keys.
This problem will normally be solved in no time, after just 1 or 2 calls.
But
In exactly that moment I was in a 12hrs flight, my cleaner who also help with check in if I need it, lost her phone that day; my sister who helps too was on holidays and when I finally arrived at my destination I went straight to the hospital very sick .
When I was able to fix the problem , a day later, from my bed in the hospital , it was too late.
Airnbnb try to reach me but they could not .
Because I spent few days in hospital and with a long recovery coming , I wasn't able to reply promptly.
So they refund 100% to my guest and I got all the punishment we host get if we cancel a booking.
I explain what happened to Airbnb team support, I asked for not to get the punishment . But they didn't agree.
So, I decided to leave, to not host anymore in Airbnb because I'm not happy of how we host are treated .
And I sent an email to Airbnb team support telling them this .
I thought that email will be a waist of time, because who cares of one host with a little space in London, but I did anyway .
To my surprise, Cristopher from Airbnb team reply to my email, they removed all punishment because they understood that it wasn't my fault .
They actually listen to me.
So I know, Airbnb is growing too much , too fast, and the people who takes the big decisions has never been a host, so they have no idea .
But I hope they still can listen to all of us.
We hosts , just like Brian and Joe, the founders, believe in Airbnb, we believe that Airnbnb is not just any accomodation platform, we offer not just a space to sleep we offer our home and part of what's our lives like, so people can see our cities from a different point of view .
I still have hope, that Airbnb will keep a home feeling, a soul ...
