refund

refund

Hi, I booked a place for 4, but it turned out that is suits 2 persons. We left of course, there were no enough sleeping places. And both a host and Airbnb refused to refund me. How can it be? Sounds like a nonsense, no? My next steps?

7 Replies 7
Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Elena3214 Without seeing the listing it is hard to comment but if it clearly says it slept 4 and actually only slept 2 then try to contact Airbnb again. If however it was just more cramped than you would have liked then I fear you just picked the wrong place. Do feel free attach the URL of the listing.

@Elena3214 How were the sleeping arrangements advertised in the listing? 

2 single beds and 1 sofa, a place for 4 guests. I assumed that the sofa is foldable, but it was not. And there was no bed linen for the sofa.

@Elena3214  That's a tough one. The listing describes the sofa as a "sofa bed," but I can't tell from the photos whether that sectional sofa has a pull-out sleeping function. I also see that it's a new listing with only 4 prior reviews, so it's possible that you might be the first guests to have experienced the sofa situation.

 

If the bed arrangements were falsely advertised, that should be grounds for a full refund. But how easily you can get that depends on how closely you followed the instructions.  If the message thread shows that you contacted the host to ask what's up with the sofa bed and linens, and they verified that it was actually just a plain old sofa, that would be the hook to advance your dispute. On the other hand, if you left without first giving the host a chance to rectify the problem, and it turns out that actually there was a pull-out bed and linens in there after all, you'd be out of luck. 

 

I see that the "hosts" remotely manage 22 listings in several cities and describe themselves as a "group of students." That gives me the impression that they're not totally on the ball about the contents of the properties and weren't readily available to help you when you checked in. If my suspicion is correct, be sure to make a lot of noise about your efforts to contact them, and point to any unanswered messages from your check-in date as evidence that you did your due diligence.

Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Elena3214 looking at the listing I agree that you could reasonably expect a sofa bed NOT a sofa. The listing clearly state sofa bed and I don't think the text stating that the sofa is long would lead to people expecting just a sofa.

Your best option is to go back to Airbnb and ask them to look at the case. A full refund feels justified to me as long as you booked for 4 people!

Alexandra316
Level 10
Lincoln, Canada

@Elena3214 It's not cool that they didn't provide linen and the description does seem misleading: the written description states sofa bed, which I would also assume was a pullout. The description does say it's ideally suited for two people, but I would follow up with Airbnb on this. Maybe try messaging them on Twitter @airbnbhelp.