Very cold flat

[Vojtech1]

Hello all,

I am not sure about how to review and/or solve the following problem: 

We had an airbnb reservation for 4 nights at Palma de Mallorca city center. When we arrived the flat was very cold (my quess is about 16C) including our room. We are not used to this, and as a consequence both myself and my girlfriend did not really enjoyed our stay and had to leave after 2 nights. We asked if this is normal and were told that very few houses have central heating in this region and that they usually just put more clothing during winter.

We ask for electric heater and after some time (rather long) our host replied that she can bring some, but at that point we had already bought one. We spent one more night with the heater and then decided to leave. We both had runny nose prior to vacation and unfortunately this has only worsened the situation, but I understand, it is not our host's problem.

My opinion is, that you should be entitled for at least "ok" conditions, when paying for something. That would be hot water, bed and normal inside temperature (20C is ok imo). The listing did not mentioned anything about this, but maybe it is considered as a common knowledge?

PS: unfortunately our plane back had technical issues so we were given one night in hotel by airline. Inside of the hotel, the temperature was ok, around 20C I would say...

Should I complain, should I ask for partial refund or is this ok?

Any advice will be appreciated 🙂

Thank you

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

@Vojtech1  Why would you ask for a "partial refund" after the dates of your booking have already passed?  If you didn't manually amend the booking, it would not have been possible for the host to re-book the property for the unused nights. It would be pretty appalling for a guest to demand that the host pay  them out of her own pocket because of the weather.

By the terms of Airbnb's guest refund policy, guests are eligible for refunds if they terminate their booking early due to an issue such as a listed amenity being missing or nonfunctional. But if the host didn't select "Heating" on the amenities list, that means it wasn't offered in the first place. 16 C was understandably not your ideal indoor temperature, but it's not an unsafe temperature for the human body to be exposed to. 

Hot water and year-round climate control are standard features in hotels but none of them are requirements for Airbnbs.  One of the brand's mottos is "Live Like A Local"; an Airbnb like the one where you stayed gives you the experience of staying in a local household, which is going to be different from a hotel in many ways. As your last night's experience showed, you happened to find the hotel more comfortable and suitable for your needs. The lesson here is that you should check a listing carefully for the amenities and features that are important to you, and if what you want is the standardization of a hotel...well, book a hotel instead.

[Luana130]

I'm sorry, a refund? For what? Did it say it had heating in the listing? I live on a very warm climate, I have air conditioning in all my units, but a lot of other listings here don't. So, if a guest on one of those listings feels unconfortable because it is too hot he is entitiled to a refund? Of course not.  

If you needed heating you should have selected an acommodation that had heating. That is what the filter on the search engine is for.