The most disasterous journey I had in my life (yesterday 2023.06.11./Sunday)

[Fanni30]

Hi Everyone,

I'd like to express my disappointment and my whole story which had happened to me yesterday. It caused me a serious financial and emotional damage so I really hope that nobody else has ever had this experience and never will. 

I am an English teacher from Hungary so London and all the English speaking countries are precious for my heart. I decided to visit London for 8 days and use Airbnb which I have never used beforehand to find a kind host and spend a lovely time in my dream city. 

I booked the accommodation c.a. 5 month before in Islington, and paid everything to my host who seemed kind, got an upper 4 grading and booked it. 

Yesterday was the first day of my journey and I was the most excited young lady you can imagine. My flight was great, I arrived to Luton at 7.40 then travelled to London.  I remained in contact with my host and wrote to him at 9 a.m. that I will be extra punctual and get to his house until 12. He replied that he is waiting for me. I bought my oyster had 2 heavy bags with me and chilled in parks until 11 because I had to go to his home 12 the earliest. At 12 I was there. Called him...no answer, wrote to him, no reply. I heard singing from the house and the sound of the vacuum. I am a honest-to-god person, so I thought they can't hear me because they are preapring the room for me.

After c.a. half an hour waiting I called again and  he still did not pick up the phone, but after a while he called me back....

TO SAY HE CANCELLED MY WHOLE TRIP and I will get a refund. I was in complete shock...Imagine that you are abroad, young, a university student, completely alone, prepared for everything but not for this. He wrote to me at 9 that he is waiting for me and 3 hours passed and he cancelled. 

I asked him to at least let me use the restroom and let me fill in my water bottle but he did not let me in and told me to go away. I was devastated. I called the Airbnb and they expressed how sorry they were, but did actually nothing. (Btw 24 hours passed and still no reply from airbnb too nor solution) So I had to fly back to Hungary with the evening flight...I cried through the whole day. I thought in Airbnb I can trust, but now I feel that I will not ever recommend it to anyone and I want this guy to get banned and compensate me. He ruined my holiday and caused my serious financial damage. Furthermore he made the reputation of Airbnb to a complete zero for me. 

Wish the best to everyone, and I am really interested in your thoughts guys!

Here is a screenshot about our chat (making him anonymous although  I would love to post everywhere not to trust him...) the time slots are different becouse now I am in Hungary, so 1 hour dif.

As you can see he is witing for me, then cancells my whole plan at the end...

**

Hope my next journey will be better, setting sail after recovering from this mostly emotional damage.

Best,

Fanni from Hungary

**[Sensitive information removed in line with the Community Center Guidelines]

[Quincy]

Hi @Fanni30, firstly, I'm very sorry to hear about the experience you've had with your booking that was cancelled last minute. 

Have you heard back from Airbnb about this at all?

[Fanni30]

Yes, after 24 hour so on Monday in the morning they called me back to express sorry again and say the same thing that I will get back the money and I also received a coupon... but you know I felt really abandoned and this whole situation caused a serious emotional damage.

I do not know wether I will ever have the courage to travel alone again and rely on Airbnb again.

What if I have not came home that day? Because for 24 hour Airbnb did not call me back. 

I am very disappointed and I really want karma to find that host. I would never wish anyone to experience the feeling I had on Sunday.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Catherine-Powell Do you have an equivalent executive who deals with guests? If so perhaps they could see how badly let down @Fanni30 has been by Customer Support. It does suggest that Aircover for guests is as random as Aircover for hosts. 

[Quincy]

Hi again @Fanni30, since I haven't heard back from you yet, I've passed this on to our team. They should be in touch with you shortly. 

@Mike-And-Jane0, best would be to tag us Community Managers on these occasions as we can get this to the right team as soon as possible. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Quincy I think the urgency of the situation went away when @Fanni30 abandoned her trip to London due to Airbnb's failure to help. I don't know if the execs monitor their tags on this forum but if they do they need to see how Aircover is letting down guests as well as hosts.

[Fanni30]

The saddest thing was that the host did not even give me a phone number to call.

I chatted with the Airbnb bot with trembling hands and the bot promised me to give me a real person. I had to wait like 1 hour to finally get one who only said sorry to me and told that some collegue will call me back in some time to offer me help. 

I waited and waited and no call. At 5 o' clock I bought my plane tickets after no call for 5 hours and flew back home with the plane which departed at 8 pm..

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Fanni30 Its a shame you didn't post on here. You never know we might have found somewhere for you to go! At least we would have tried harder than Airbnb.