Worst Customer Service and Cancellation Policy

[Coralia2]

I booked our reservation back in Oct for Dec 31, 2018-Jan 2, 2019 for a Hollywood Hills home. Our family of 11 traveled to CA from TX to attend the Rose Parade. I received a notification at 10:30am on Dec 31st that our reservation had been cancelled. Not a phone call but a text and an e-mail. Incredible unprofessional and disappointing!!! We were left to scramble for ourselves to find accommodations for the entire group...on New Year's Eve in Southern California. I reached out and talked with a rep who offered me a few links to other homes, they were not available. To add to insult, she offered a $200 credit to be used for a new reservation, unacceptable as this was not even 10% of what we'd paid for the original reservation. We will definitely NEVER use this site as it is NOT credible. Their customers should come first as they make or break their business. Hosts must not be allowed to cancel reservations day off. It causes stress and hardship on customers without any reasons. WORST customer service!!!

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Coralia2

I am sorry it happend to you and can immagine how stressfull it is.

I don't know if you understood your CS rep correctly - you will be refunded in full + get adiditional 200 $ from Airbnb for your inconvenience.

Airbnb homes are often run by just 1 person or family, so if something happens and this person become sick or have some family imergency or the unit has to be repaired due to water leak or some other extenuating circumstances then there is no back up and all the reservations for some period of time have to be cancelled. It is not like in a hotel which is run by many people and usually have some extra rooms available .

Hosts are punished for every cancellation, much more then the guest. Guests often cancell last minute and are fully refunded while hosts are left with empty rooms and without a revenue. It happens all the time and there is  nothing we can do about it.

I hope you managed to find some alternative accomodation and enjoy your time with your family and friends 🙂

[Helen3]

 @Coralia2

So sorry this happened to you.

It sounds like you had no communication with the host since you booked in October - not even to confirm check in (which is very unusual0  - so this must have come as such a shock to you.

At the very least the host should have sent you a sincere apology and explained what had gone wrong. They must have known what a difficult position this put you in.

And Airbnb should have helped you found an alternative and looked to extend the credit beyond their standard 10% as it was such a last minute cancellation at peak season. Sounds like you didn't get such great customer service.

As @Branka-and-Silvia0 says sometimes it is absolutely unavoidable that a last minute cancellation happens - there could have been a death in the family, a boiler broke down or some other malfunction which meant the listing couldn't be used.

Unfortunately there are a tiny element of hosts who don't behave responsibly and can double book or otherwise not have their place available.  I wish Airnb and other listing companies would kick hosts like this off their platform.

Being frank last minute cancellations could happen with any accommodation you book whether with airbnb, tripadviser homeaway etc. Or even in hotels.