After being cancelled out of a 2 month ahead reservation, we made a rnew (more expensive) eservation and it clearly stated that it would be fully refunded within 48 hours of purchase... I found a place we would rather stay for less money and in a hopefully safer neighborhood.. and booked it.. then went on to cancel the first booking ... only to discover that since we didn't cancel the existing reservation first, the service fees would not be refunded, and also that if (even within 48 hours) one has cancelled three tiimes in the last year, it would not be refunded... what malarky... a 48 hour full refund policy that isn't necessarily so! You cannot trust airbnb to mean what they say.. on the listings the "full refund after 48 hours" is only a partial truth.. if you follow those other rules that are on the other page of policies????
I was quite inflamed over this. Booking.com states clearly its policy for refunds and sticks by them. Not so with Airbnb. So i spent a long time arguing with the customer service person who was extremely bull headed about how this was perfectly fine policy. I eventually got the refund, but made no traction on pointing out the injustice of how this policy is presented... just a little asterisk that alerts one to exceptions to the "full refund policy" would be all that is needed to straighten out the issue.. but no.. they would rather go through agonizing arguments over it than understand how misleading their policy is.
(don't you always read "all the rules" every time you purchase or sign up for something online?)