How do I find a host that won't cancel?

[Nathan3538]

I have just been through one of the worst experiences of my life being 3500 miles away from home on Christmas eve and my accomodation cancelled. Airbnb only offered to pay 5% of the difference between that and a new booking. In the end they just paid for my flight home early. 

I tried to write a review but it was deleted and I was told you can't leave a review if checkin didn't happen. 

The worst: there was also 2 other reviews, same host, accomodation in different countries that the host cancelled in the same person. Reviews promptly removed of course.

So the question: if airbnb hide these hosts that cancel last minute, how do I avoid then? Airbnb seem dedicated to protecting them.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Nathan3538 is this a big corporate host? They seem to have different rules to the rest of us. It they were then book with folks like us in future as we have far more skin in the game.

[Lorina14]

Hi @Nathan3538,

I’m so sorry for your experience. That’s really frustrating that Airbnb didn’t do more to help,  or did the host. On our local host boards, when something comes up or they can’t accommodate a request they reach out to see if any other hosts can help out. It’s nice to see how hosts help each other out.  It does sound like from your experience,  it may have been a corporate host or a property management company. 

I’ll reach out to the community host managers @Bhumika @Paula @Rebecca and see if they can flag this post and direct your concern to the right people.  Is there any team you can direct Nathan’s concern to?  Thanks!

[Nathan3538]

Hi @Lorina14 ,

Thanks for that! You're right it is a property management company. The owners themselves seem to be the co-hosts. 

It's funny because I asked twice before my review was published whether it would be published and they said yes. I guess they didn't realise how special the host was?

Even after that, I managed to get it reinstated TWICE, with them clearly stating it didn't break the rules and was in the interest of the community for my review to be shown. Again, seems like a higher up intervened in the end to protect this special host.

[Lorina14]

Hi @Nathan3538 

I don’t believe one can write a review if they never checked in. This may be why your review is taken down.  I am not sure how you can write a review if you haven’t officially checked in.  Somehow though you should be able to air your grievances and get compensated for the late cancellation. Did the hosts not give an explanation? Was it a plumbing/sewage issue? A safety issue or ?

That said, what they did was not right and being in the hospitality industry, the hosts should have tried to set you up with accommodations similar or Airbnb should have reached out to place you somehow. I remember purchasing something on another platform where I purchased a hotel room only to show up and they were “sold out”. They apologized but could offer nothing as sometimes they sell blocks of rooms to other platforms and somehow the platforms didn’t sync or someone forgot to check the fax (we paid for it over 2 weeks prior). I learned I should call the hotel to confirm the reservation if done on a third party site and/or never to use that site again.

Hopefully the community host managers may be able to flag your post and send it to the right people to get addressed as a severely inconvenienced guest.

Airbnb relies on both hosts and guests for their business to work and I would think they would be invested in making sure experiences like this does not happen or at least investigate if a host is having a pattern of occurrence of cancelling at the last minute putting a guest out of a place to stay.