I am here to make a complaint and request a refund.
I booked a long-term stay from 30 September to 30 October 2022. When I arrived, I found the place extremely noisy - more than 70 decibels from early morning until 4 am to the morning). It is next to several streets of bars, at the nexus of several major roads with very heavy traffic. I could not sleep or work or make phone calls or meetings in that place. The washing machine leaks water and the flat was flooded.
So I altered (shorten) the booking from 30 September to 2 October, just to give me enough time to move to a hotel. The host accepted the alteration and the booking was changed to 30 Sep to 2Oct. I did not get a refund automatically so I called Airbnb. They explained for long-term stays I can only get a refund if the host agrees. And there is nothing they can do to help with further negotiation.
My points of complaint here:
1) Why does Airbnb do not require hosts to offer information about the sound environment? My booking is in HK, a very busy city. The platform should take this into consideration. Regulations and design of service can be changed and adapted. Airbnb should take my case seriously and make effort to bring changes. In fact, my miserable experience was partly caused by the flaw in the design of the platform, I would say. It is also difficult to judge the environment based on the vague location of the place we can know before making the booking.
2) The refund policy for alteration of long-term stay protects only the host but not the guest. This is not fair. So second fault of the platform. I am not even staying in the place, but still do not get refunded for even the water and electricity bill.
3) If you check the booking record of my host, before my original stay period and after it, the place is not booked the majority of the time. Airbnb should calculate the probability of someone booking the place if I did not book it. If the chance is lower than 50%, I should get a full refund.
4) I am psychologically and physically damaged by this experience. Both because of the noise pollution, lack of sleep, and the time wasted on communicating with customer service persons who only passively mediated between the host and me. I request Airbnb give my case serious consideration. Refund policies and regulations are designed by this platform and can be adapted by it. Please do help me. If not, I will turn to other channels for help.