Long story short, we are in San Antonio Texas and both our properties are without water because of the ice storm that hit us this week. It's been a disaster since Monday, with the power gone for four days, all our food in the fridge spoiling, and nearly dying to hyperthermia before we could find refuge in a friends house on Tuesday night-- airbnb topped it off with providing the worse customer service of my life today. The plumbing companies in SA are working overtime trying to help everyone, but regardless, wait times are pushing to the 3-4 week mark as queues fill up. We were suppose to have a plumber come out Friday and they keep pushing us back as things back up, they told me that on Friday alone, they had an addition 500 calls put into queue. I begged airbnb to refund my guests through March so they had time to rebook somewhere else, and to tell them why this was happening was because Texas is in a state of emergency. I had assumed if they had messaged them for me, we could have a mutual cancellation and not be penalized from either party.
They canceled all my guests without saying anything to them from my end all in one go, so it was a Host cancelation. Without trying to ask them to cancel and give them full refunds (which they had done for me before). Nothing. I then had to answer the flood of 'why did you cancel?' messages, and to top it off, they penalized my superhost status. They said I had to prove that all the cancellations were due to an Extenuating Circumstance. I asked, how I could possibly prove anything? I could, but I need time, everything is really difficult right now. If they just turned on the news and also saw that our President Issued a statement on things, they would know. They asked for a video to prove the water didn't work. I said, the water hasn't been on since Monday. How does a video prove that? They told me to show a video of me turning the handle and no water coming out. WHAT. I can't believe them. We are suffering and they want a video of nothing.
They said they can't help me without proof. How do I prove that we can't have a plumber to the house for three weeks because parts of our city is in crisis?
I complained, they didn't help. They sent me this message that essentially said they are doing me a favor by waving the penalizations and that they don't 'normally' ever do this and it was a one time thing and won't happen again. How in the world is this situation in Texas not under Extenuating Circumstances?! I'm at a loss for words. I've always been happy with airbnb, but I'm floored that they didn't back me up, that they issued my call to some call center that sent me to three other people who forced me to explain over and over. I even requested an email to give me an idea of what would account as 'proof' and they sent nothing. I lost thousands of dollars on this, why would I casually cancel so much of my income in such a dire time?!
Do you all agree that is under their Extenuating Circumstances policy? Because I feel like it is, and that I shouldn't have been 'given a favor' to not lose my status, especially when every single one of my guests that canceled was understanding. Am I overreacting cause I've been suffering?
