Payment taken on PayPal when room is not available?

[Sean541]

Hi, I have been booking with Airbnb for some time now. Could someone explain what I am doing wrong. I search for a place to stay in my travels, find one and book it. Automatically when I request to book it runs my transaction through automatically. I have had a number of people get back to me after 24 hours past the time I was booked to stay on the time requested for my original booking. Last time it appeared to be fine and was awaiting the code and actual address to be sent. At 10:20 PM, I finally decided to get another more expensive place from Airbnb in Toronto (which had a code lock with the key) I have waited up until 9:00 PM waiting to here back from hosts and simply don't hear back from them. When I hear back from them, they tell me they are booked. I later get a message stating I will be refunded the accommodation amount (into hundreds of dollars) for the place I rented on Airbnb. Am I doing something wrong? Why would someone advertise that they are looking to accommodate guests when they don't or have booked it already? If you get to the payment taking proocedure, shouldnt it be done only when indeed rooms are truly available? Am I missing something?

[Linda108]

I am trying to understand what happened for you, @Sean541 but I don't know what time frames you are dealing with in terms of your booking.  Also did you book another place while waiting for some message from the host of the original booking?  If you requested to book the first place, it means to me that Instant Book was not available for you.  Therefore at the time of the request, Air BNB qualified you as a guest by running your payment.  The host has 24 hours to respond in accept or decline.  Now, here is what is not clear for me, it appears while waiting you opted to actually book another place that was better suited due to the self check in, right? When a guest does that, it is my understanding that the previous request then appears in the host messages as no longer possible.  Therefore it keeps the same guest from booking two places at the same time.   Now, of course Air BNB is the best provider of the information you want so I suggest you call Air BNB.  Here is a guide for contacting Air BNB.

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Contact-Airbnb-A-Community-Help-Guide/m-p/16165#M728