AirbnbReviews 2,101

I have been a 5-star rated AirBNB host for over 5 years, and a traveler with them since their first year. I was loyal for years, but I'm done. I've had two horrible experiences now, and will start working with local real estate, VRBO, and others.

1.) Had a listing that refused to provide me with a key or any way to access the apartment. There are scads of details that are going down the rabbit hole on how bad this experience was, but just that should be sufficient. A lodging company that charges you when they won't give you access to what you paid for?
2.) Had a listing that was listed innacurately. False description. False occupancy. False pictures. AirBNB would not help *at all*.

Will never work with them again. If you have a bad experience, it's going to be unresolvable as a traveler, and likely unsafe.

Beware we were charge 600 for 2 nights and everything about it was a nightmare it was infested with bugs the beds were like cement and it a the women's basement attached fo her home not a private unit no ventilation no air conditioning and it is sprayed with heavy duty bug killer that cause us all to be violently sick my son ended up with a severe nose bleed and Airbnb amd this scammer harassed me until I paid them 50 to replace a dollar store blanket that my son bled on due to high heat no ventilation and bug spray we were only down in Toronto for a family death and it was the worst trip of our lives!

Too many scams with services being listed in descriptions that you are asked to pay for, non existent plumbing where pipes are emptied into buckets and then buckets need to be emptied, inaccurate descriptions and sometimes dirty, mold and vermin invested.
AirBnB does not track complaints and allows hosts who have been on the service for years to delete their reviews. It is obvious this could also be tracked, easily.
Too often when I have refused to do a rental deal outside of AirBnB or decided I did not want to spend more time the hosts have gotten angry.
The prices are quite inflated and the gentrifying that occurs contributes to displacement, poverty and disenfranchisement. I could not attach an image of the reciept for verification.

Do you know that if you need to change your reservation for overlapping dates, you will be charged the new, HIGHER PRICE, for the days you already had reserved? They have some nice places to stay, but their reservation system is FUBAR if you need to change anything.

Updated 9-29-2021. After careful considerating AirBnb decided my negative property review did in fact conform to their standards and chose to publish it after initially denying it.

I stayed at a place that was much worse than advertised. Dirty, poorly furnished, none of the promised amenities. There were few reviews in the past 2 years, prior to that there were a handful of positive reviews. There were NO negative reviews for this run down bait and switch property which is rather odd.

My review was unbiased, honest and factual, stating all the problems with no opinion at all.

I was finally told after several back and forth messages with AirBnb customer service that my review was removed because it was "irrelevant".

Yeah ok

5 of us stayed in an AirBnb rental a few weeks ago in Split. The add stated air conditioning, safety equipment, towels, soap & shampoo and a washer as part of their amenities. And a pool on premises, which there was. Otherwise, wrong. We received one bath towel per person, one hand soap for the entire apartment, no safety equipment (smoke alarm, CO detector), AC only in one of 3 bedrooms so the doors had to be left open. Awkward. With but one towel per person, you could not wash a towel or it would be wet when needed (scratchy like sandpaper, but towels), and could not have a towel at the pool or beach. The washer broke the first usage and the owners did not try to have it repaired, and told us to pay the entire cost of the washer. That did not happen, but AirBnb did assess a huge fee for the breakage even though it may not have been our fault. The owner Zan was kind, but his mother was responsible for on site issues and was a tyrant. Not having AirBnb stand by customers who have used the service multiple times and paid them lots of money, left us all feeling like we would prefer a hotel with towels, AC, safety equipment, soap and shampoo. Never again.

DIRTY & DAMAGED... AIRBNB COMPLETE NIGHTMARE... BOOK ELSEWHERE! Home & Pool unclean (1st pic is of floor under furniture, last pool) - Cameras on premises not informed of - No water in spa (pic), Broken bed (pic), shower(pic), and table. Host contacted w/in required 48 hrs. And pictures provided of damage found upon our arrival. Returned home to invoice from "host" stating we damaged the items! (Pictures below: 1st Airbnb listing, 2nd Ours - Can see damage in listing pics!). NO SUPPORT from "host" or airbnb during or after trip!

I rented a condo for a couple of months down the road. AFTER the refund period, I was sent the rental agreement. Then after THAT, they sent me additional rules for the condo I didn't agree to. I contacted Airbnb for a refund, as I didn't agree to the mask rule. I was told pretty much that it didn't matter that he sent me the info after the refund period, they would not refund me. The property has a right to have whatever rules they want, but they should be fully disclosed within the refund period in case the renter does not agree to those rental terms. I have opened a BBB claim. I canceled my future rentals I had booked for the yr. We are a family who travels multiple times a yr. They've cost themselves way more in future rentals with us, than they would've lost by refunding me. You know a company is crooked when they get so big that they can have over 5,000 complaints on BBB and it doesn't affect their overall grade, so they don't care. Don't believe me, go have a look at the number of complaints. RUN from this company. Vrbo is great! I will add two photos. One of the date i booked, (june 11) and the date they sent me the rules (September 2nd).

Airbnb would not provide a refund when I called and explained that the country I will be visiting is mandating everyone to be vaccinated 2 weeks before my trip which was too late for me to get vaccinated in time. They kept quoting their policy placed in March 2020. While its 2021 and mandating and vaccination laws are changing everyday. Also the host refused to cancel the booking that could have also provided me with a refund.

If I could give a 0 star I would. A host on Airbnb tried to charge additional money for everything after we had already booked the place. Even charging extra for checking in at 11pm. Many many hidden costs. The host says if we do not pay the additional costs he will call the police… We reported this to Airbnb and they told us they will do nothing and we should wait outside to check in the following day at 4pm! This is crazy! They also told us it is partly their fault because they failed to release the hosts manual before the booking which included all of his additional costs, yet they do nothing.
Airbnb has ruined our trip and I will not be using them again

Ever try to talk someone at Airbnb who has the ability to actually help? Good luck! They gave me the runaround over and over, never communicating with me through a phone call, just random unexplained emails. Really terrible customer service considering the profit they take

Airbnb's illegal practices
1st off let me say that I don't usually leave reviews but I just had to this time, perhaps it may help someone else when trying to make a decision on if they should use this company or not. If I could give a negative 5 stars I would. Airbnb is a complete ripoff and allows illegal practices from their host. I recently relocated to Atlanta from California, reserved a long term stay at a high rise in Sandy Springs, only to be told by the building management that the host was being evicted due to an unpaid balance of over $12,000 AND that Airbnb's were not allowed to be in their building because it's a violation of the lease. I advised Airbnb of this issue along with several other issues for instance the electricity had been disconnected along with the internet and that I now will be homeless with my daughter in a state that I have absolutely no where else to go once we vacate the property. The rep told me that she would adjust my check out date to reflect the eviction date and remove the remainder of the balance since I am being forced to vacate the property and because all the other issues as well. A few days later I get an alert from my credit card for an attempt to withdraw over $2,000 from Airbnb. I inquired about it and I was told that I had an unpaid balance from my stay with my prior Airbnb host. Um hello how in the heck do you justify this. I was forced to leave due to the host being evicted and you expect me to pay for a place that I am not even at due to someone else's irresponsible behavior. Then I started to get collection calls. Now I'm in another Airbnb and my payment for this one was collected and forwarded to the prior host that was evicted. Now I have to leave because it looks like I haven't paid for my current stay. Please be aware of Airbnb's illegal, unjustified and unprofessional actions. Find somewhere else to stay and please stay clear of this company. They will steal your money and have you stranded somewhere and could care less about it.

Had booked an AirBNB house in the DFW area for the weekend. The Monday before the wife was in a car accident and broke her pelvis. Need to cancel the booking and called AirBNB. They required I cancel the booking through the internet. (wonderful customer service) They did call the Host and asked if a full refund could be given... Host said no (wonderful host) After all this back and forth, we received a 50% refund minus a $150 cleaning fee... CLEANING FEE? For what? Nothing was used so no cleaning was required. I hope this helps people determine if they should use AirBNB... If you do use them, good luck!

I have tried to cancel my reservation before checked in. And it has shown only less than 1/3 refund while i tried to cancelled it. The total overnights fee costs more than several hundred euro, but the refund I could get was less than 91 euro. When I tried to contacted the support chat, they asked me to wait. Then the next day the total refund become 0. Great. How a scam. I got no money back at all. Just lost hundred euro like this.

After having a bad first experience with Airbnb, I went online and could relate to the many stories similar to mine about the lack of communication from the company. There is a lack of communication and transparency that is beyond frustrating. I was fortunate to receive a partial refund; however the company charged me fees that were over double what our daily rate was with no explanation except for fee. I got the refund because the host was not responding to Airbnb. I was expecting a refund minus the 3 days I was in the reservation. Airbnb charged me over $900 in fees with no explanation. They agreed with me that the host was in violation of their policy when Airbnb gave me some of my money back, yet they charged me fees for this awful experience. It was a terrible experience.
Buyer beware

Planned to go to Paris in early Sept, but needed to cancel due to Covid travel issues. Host has
Absurd "strict cancellation"(no refund after 48 hours of booking. Hotels don't even have this type of policy! He won't respond to requests for refund, Airbnb is backing him, keeping our down payment. He has our time rebooked, so he gets double pay, Greed of company is more important than customer satisfaction.
As long time Superhost, I will never use Airbnb again, and suggest others don't either.

Have spent over 250k on airbnb and have 19/20 perfect reviews.

Today without a reason the owner told airbnb they wanted me out. I didn't break any rules whatsoever.

Airbnb instead of helping just said "once the host wants you to leave we can't do anything." Absolutely insane a host can just kick you to the curb whenever the want without repercussion.

I'll never use airbnb again.

I have managed vacation properties for my profession longer than Airbnb has been in existence.
I have used most of the booking platforms available and find Airbnb to be by far the worst.
No persons on the frontline of the company are empowered to do anything. They are forced to be robots with no authority to solve problems that are created by the company. I have heard the same scripted apology line repeated over and over. Despite gross errors on their part, the host or guest are the ones who get penalized in some fashion.
They co-mingle funds from one property to another and cannot provide a reason why, but only to say "that is how our system works, here is an article to help with your situation". The articles usually never address the problem. To resolve I had to create two separate accounts. Even so, with separate accounts, they cannot share the same phone number or email. A user cannot even be logged into two separate accounts on the same device, requiring one to log in and out of accounts continually.
If cell coverage is not available and a code is needed to log in, there is no way they can grant access to an account.
They can lock you out of your own account for 24 hours, due to suspicious activity, but will not explain the activity, then penalize the account holder for not responding to inquiries in a timely manner.
The list could go on and on. Unfortunately, due to the number of properties under management, these seem to be daily occurrences.
Because there is no actual person running the company, property owners and guests are forced into their tiny, neat little box that fits only their narrow parameters. They want to control every aspect of a rental transaction, but do not provide and solutions when issues arise.
It would be refreshing if any higher ups in the company would answer for anything, rather than having their few entry level workers continually take the heat for them.
Lastly, I get tired of politics continually thrown at us. They should focus on making their business better, rather than heaping their political ideology on us.

Airbnb is a horrible company. We make a reservation for Greece and Greece becomes a high-risk destination. CDC said to travel only if is an emergency. We want to make a cancelation and they do not want to give back our money because for them Covid is not an emergency. We open a case with BBB.

We booked an Air B'B for a three night stay in Brookings, OR. When we arrived the host told us we could not stay there because we had a U-haul (which we had because we were there to cater a wedding). When we read the booking agreement, it said two vehicles. Under House Rules it said nothing about U Hauls being prohibited. If it had, we would not have booked that BnB. Since the host denied us accommodations we had to book motel rooms for our party (with no advance notice) for those three nights. And some of us ended up camping out the first night. As soon as we were denied service, we called Vacasa, which apparently booked the B n'B even though we originally booked through Air B'B. They denied us a refund. So we called Air B'nB itself three days after we got home. The Air Bnb representative we spoke to said that we should have contacted Air BnB within 24 hours of the denial of service in order to get a refund. We were scrambling just to find any place to stay for those three nights and to cater the dinner ( 110 people at $100 a plate). Since we did not file the complaint within 24 hours, the representative said that since we did not follow Air BnB policy (which policy was never provided to us) we would not get a refund unless the host (who was a complete jerk) agrees. Which he won't. I cannot think of any other situation in which you have to pay in full for a service which was not provided to you.