Superhost poor communication

[Candy64]

I wanted to give feedback on booking my reward travel voucher on a stay in London. The host seems to manage several properties in favorable areas, nicely designed if judging reviews and photos, but the booking experience was very stressful and felt as if they ignored me on purpose for 48hrs to prevent the free cancellation from going into affect. Also I phoned them directly which cost me an international call because they ignored my chat messages. They said it wasn’t possible to  mail anything to an address, I just needed to send tickets, so that also felt strange. The listing is at some Antique store address but so far I have not received any check in helpful info and when I phoned them, they rushed me off the call and did not return my call either. I felt communication was not done well on the bookings and they are supposed to be Superhost status. I feel nervous what to expect if communication is already so inattentive. 

[Alon1]

@Candy64 

re: 'they ignored me on purpose for 48hrs to prevent the free cancellation from going into affect.'

In my experience if a Guest wishes to cancel within the 48 hours window, the guest just cancels

No further interaction with Host is necessary.

 I have experienced this just once a few months ago in April when a Guest cancelled within an hour of booking.

The Guest did send a brief accompanying message:

  "I must apologise. A friend of mine just let me know about some changed circumstances, so I will be cancelling our stay."

   (In due course I discovered from Guest profile & Reviews that this group of 3 friends evidently  preferred to book another place in another part of London.)

[Anonymous]

@Candy64  It sounds like perhaps you intended for this message to go to Airbnb, rather than to the community of peers?

[Candy64]

Yes, I did. My community profile must be connected to my main profile as a host so it routed my question here, which is a bit awkward for me and I can not seem to delete it. 

[Mark116]

@Candy64   That all sounds a little weird to me, you might consider reaching out to airbnb and verifying that this a legitimate listing, since the antique store address and whatever tickets? you sent sounds very out of the ordinary, at best, the listing may be an illegal one, at worst, who knows.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Candy64  as far as I know, if you cancel this booking by yourself or with the help of Airbnb, you will lose your travel voucher. So don't do it if it is not necessary.

If you booked from an agency and they manage many properties then they are less likely to interact with guests as much as small private hosts usually do. But of course I understand your concern, it is not pleasant when your questions remain unanswered and when you don't receive check-in instructions in a timely manner.

Read their description from top to bottom, maybe you will find it explained somewhere on their listing. It is easier if you use a laptop.

I hope everything will turn out well

[Candy64]

Thank you for all the feedback, it was meant to go to Airbnb privately, it somehow publicly posted and I can not seem to find a delete feature for this post? But yes, I did not want to cancel it, but the host was not replying to any of my messages, not providing an address or directions, but only to an Antique shop so I was feeling a bit unsure, but they had good reviews so I try to rely on community feedback. I find it odd that I phoned them and they rushed me off the phone and seem to be avoiding me in the Airbnb messaging so I felt it was a bit dismissive and I started to question the listing.  Does anyone know how to delete this post? It might be an oversight but I do not see a tab, or obvious option to delete?

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Candy64 

you can't delete this post by yourself, you should contact admins to do that. But then why should you? You didn't write anything bad.

If your host still ignores you maybe it would be good to contact Airbnb and ask them to look into it, to try to contact host themselves, to see if something is suspicious and to cancel your reservation if necessary on your host behalf, without any penalties for you.

Maybe I am wrong but is sounds like they can't or won't host you and act this way to make you cancel the booking, because if they would cancel then they would face penalties.

[Candy64]

Thanks for your feedback, sure, if they do not reply in a week, since I arrive to London for a special event in two weeks, then I will look into the matter, but communication is important for me when I host guests so I do hope my host will see it as importantly as I do in providing a positive experience. It never feels nice to be ignored when you have important questions regarding your travels and the host does not make themselves available nor provides support or answers basic questions 😕

[Sarah977]

@Candy64  If it was me, I wouldn't leave it until a week before check-in to act on this. It seems to me that a host who acts like this, rushing you off the phone, not responding to your messages, is a red flag and could mean there will be other nasty surprises down the road. If they don't answer your messages now, are they going to answer them if you arrive to find that the stove doesn't work, or the AC is broken? 

Can you explain what you meant by "they said I just needed to send tickets?" That one has me scratching my head about what that could possibly refer to.

[Candy64]

The tickets was that I asked if I could ship our Arsenal tickets (soccer premier league game) to our Airbnb address, because we are flying to London only to see this special event and they told me the Airbnb didn’t have a mailing address which seemed a bit odd, as I would always have an address of guests asked me to send a simple envelope. I have traveled to Airbnb homes for trade shows where we could accept boxes so I thought an envelope with two tickets was an easy request.  I googled the address and only saw an antique shop, so I asked them if we are renting from that location and he didn’t reply and it’s been days?

[Yadira22]

Hi @Candy64 

though I understand your concern to have it sent to the address as a host (similar to yourself) i would have concerns with this. 

We have had several guests claim to use this service for the same/similar reasons  (some legitimately) but others to register bank accounts to this- which could affect our council charges, credit score, etc. 

Furthermore if there is a lot of turnover then the postage itself could be displaced and this would not be something I would be happy with, and I imagine much less the guest.

You can potentially look into having the tickets delivered to a post office close to your Airbnb to be collected for once you are there. Otherwise, you can also collect these at the ticket office... hope this helps.

have a great stay in London! 

Yadira 🙂

[Candy64]

I can see the concerns,  I suppose I was very lucky and always had very responsible guests and as I live in my Airbnb I care for my guests directly unlike some listings that are self check in or the host is not living in the flat. I will try your suggestions regarding shipping them to a nearby post -- I appreciate all the feedback of everyone. It's quite nice to chat with other superhosts actually, next time I need to use this post more for sharing tips and how we improve our own experiences rather than me feeling unsure about my private bookings 😉 Thanks everyone!