Should massive changes to listing be allowed if it has booked stays?

[Inna22]

I booked an airbnb for myself sometime ago and recently wanted to check on some details for the upcoming travel. The host changed a whole house three bedroom listing to a room in her house. After some back and forth she is honoring the original reservation. I am thinking airbnb should not allow a massive change like this when there are reservations for the original listing in place. You should either not be able to scale down (whole house to shared room, fewer bedrooms or bathrooms etc) or there should be an auto-email to booked guests asking to acknowledge the change. Obviously adding amenities or small changes should be ok but not something this dramatic. Even though the host agreed to honor the original reservation, I can't even see any of the details myself and have to ask her for every details and she has either not been honest or does not remember herself. For example, I asked her if there is a per person charge- I am now bringing one more family member. She said there was, I asked to pay, she told me she still needs to add it to the listing. I called airbnb and was told she never had a per person fee. Therefore, even if she is adding it going forward I should not have to pay it. I am now at her mercy as far as parking, check in times, available amenities, etc or have to call airbnb for everything. These are the situations that give Airbnb a bad rep. 

[Emilia42]

@Anonymous @Inna22 I had a host friend who changed his private bedroom listing into a whole house listing. He did not have any upcoming bookings at the time but it was very easy for him to make the change. Update the property type and add a few photos. All his previous reviews stayed with it and he kept his search placement.

[Anonymous]

@Emilia42  Yes this is definitely possible.  But from the guest standpoint, if I were considering a listing and noticed that past reviews described something very different than what's on offer, I'd probably find it a little fishy and book elsewhere.

[Stacey147]

Perhaps her neighbors had issues with noise or maybe the local regulations changed so that she could no longer offer the entire home for rent. That said she should have sent a proactive message letting all guests know about the change to the listing so that they could make the best decision for their needs. 

[Jody79]

@Inna22 I was under the impression that if a change was made to a listing, it applied to only those that booked after the change was made.  All bookings prior to the change fell under the terms that were present at the time the booking was made.  We've made several minor changes to ours, such as checkout time and a few price adjustments.  The price or checkout time did not change for those that had already booked within the ABB system when I pulled up the reservation for details.