AirbnbReviews 2,101

We got caught in the horrible Covid crisis, stranded in Europe having to cancel a $1600 booking in England because of a mandate to return to USA or be stranded. The owner of the BNB was not the host and unmasked himself and refused to refund the booking. Airbnb said they had a Covid $100 refund policy but when we activated the request they gave this lame request for government documentation of the mandate which took time to find! Then they just went Zero Dark Thirty on us! Acting like they were unaware of the US order!

Renters beware!

The company would not give me a refund or even offer a credit during the Coronavirus quarantine.

I reached out multiple times in March 2020 re: a May 2020 trip to Philadelphia. The government had deemed it dangerous to travel for non-essential persons, and therefore the event I was attending got canceled.

When I reached out to the owner, *******@philadelphia and asked for a full refund. They replied that they were abiding by Airbnb's coronavirus cancellation policy and asked that I go through the Airbnb website to cancel.

I received only an automated response from Airbnb saying any cancellations past April 14th are at the owner's discretion. The owner then declined the refund and said that they don't have to give me my money back even though I was canceling 2 months before the check in date.

I then had to go through the added trouble of disputing the charges with my credit card.

This is my first time ever using Airbnb. But I'll never forget how they treated me during this time, coming from New York City with everything that we're dealing right now and having this issue go unresolved added to the stress.

A company that doesn't care about you during one of the most turbulent and difficult times the modern world has ever faced, is NOT a company that's going to have your back if something goes went on your trip.

My extended family and I go to South Padre every year for a family vacation. A month ago we booked a condo through Airbnb. With Covid-19 hitting the United States hard, myself and another member of my family in another town are shelter in place. Myself and two other members of my extended family are essential employees and are now unable to take the time off of work. Airbnb refuses to give us a refund and now refuses to even give us half of the amount paid back. They are telling us Turnkey has the money. Turnkey says they have not received the money from Airbnb. It is a shame that in people's time of need a company can be as ugly as this one is. To think, I am working so people can receive the medical equipment they need right now and this is the appreciation a company shows. I would not recommend this company to anyone.

This is my first time going through Airbnb for a place to stay while traveling. On Jan 18th 2020, I reserved a place in Scotland for 3 nights and they immediately charged my credit card $662.91. There is a full refund within 48 hrs and 50% refund after that excluding extenuating circumstances.
Under Airbnb's emergency or unavoidable circumstances:
Epidemic disease or illness that suddenly affects a region or an entire group of people. This doesn't include existing diseases that are associated with an areafor example, malaria in Thailand or dengue fever in Hawaii. Any updates to our policy regarding the outbreak of a disease, and the scope of policy application, will be determined based on announcements by the World Health Organization and local authorities.
Travel restrictions imposed by a government, law enforcement agency, or military that restrict travel to or from the listing or experience location.
Safety and security threat advisories issued for the listing or experience location or the guest party's departure location.
Our group met all of these with 2 women were in their 70's and 1 is immunocompromised. Furthermore, the USA has Scotland (UK) as Level 3 Travel Health Notice: CDC recommends that travelers avoid all nonessential travel to the UK.
At this time that the country is going through this very scary pandemic especially for the elderly and immunocompromised, business like Airbnb should be working with people instead of against them. It is inexcusable for this company to keep almost $400 of my money for something I have no control over. They know we are unable to travel and have no recourse other than to cancel our trip.
My advice is to stay away from this ruthless, greedy and uncaring company at all costs. When it comes down to what is more important; your life or their profit, you will lose every time.

Booked an AirBnB near Cambridge, paid for it and received a receipt. Everything seemed fine until we went to book in at about 3 pm. The house was deserted and closed up and we had nowhere to stay. Luckily, we were able to find an alternative but at a higher cost and not so convenient for our purposes. We had to drive for about 40 minutes to get to the place we had found as an alternative.
We have been told by the host that the listing was supposed to have been removed from their site as she had moved away a few weeks before.
Getting in touch with AirBnB is extremely difficult as it can only be done by phone with an hour long wait or by online chat. In either case, we were told that the case would need to handled by someone higher up who would get back to us. This has happened three time so far and it is now 2 weeks later and no sign of a call back and no sign of my money being returned.
AirBnB seems to be one of those organisations which runs fine as long as they do not have to provide customer care or satisfaction.
Really annoyed about this.

No refund for my trip arriving in Spain on April 17th. Spain has completely closed all borders and flights until at least April 22nd and Spain has more Coronavirus deaths than any other nation in the World.

AIRBNB and Andrew in San Sebastian are trying to profit from Coronavirus. Andrew currently has five listings in San Sebastian, he advertises it is a "perfect Coronavirus escape." Do not fall for this evil type of profiting from a horrible disease.

I had to cancel a reservation with Airbnb due to the event I was traveling to attend being cancelled due to COVID-19. I had tried for three days to message Airbnb to get advice on how to proceed to get a full refund with no response. This morning, I went in and actually cancelled the reservation and got an immediate response that a "cancelled event" does not fall under their COVID-19 refund policy. They stated that I might contact the host and see if she was willing to refund any of the $640 "processing" fees, and she responded and said she received NO fees from them and they are a horrible company to host with. I will never be using them again!

I recently had to cancel a trip due to the recent pandemic. I was well withing my 72 hour window of canceling and was promised by the site as well as host that I would receive a full refund. I was in contact with the host for days as she "acted as if she never got my cancellation" if when I sent her the screenshots. She then declined my cancellation and said she would charge me if I didn't cancel. I called customer service multiple times to report her and try to get my refund and multiple times I waited for over an hour on hold for them to continuously hang up on me wasting my time. I never even got to talk to anyone. I will never book through airbnb again. I am out almost $150 and stressed to the max. The customer service team was nonexistent and the entire site is a joke. I definetely WOULDN'T recommend airbnb.

I made a booking several months ago for an apartment. When making the booking I checked the Airbnb cancellation policy, and it states that a full refund is given if booking is cancelled at least 14 days prior to the stay. So, when I cancelled well ahead of 14 days, I was advised that the refund request has to be approved by the host (owner of the apartment). When I sent a message to the host, he replied that he has no control over refunds, and I need to contact Airbnb. Soon after, Airbnb advised that the host has refused to give a refund. I tried to phone Airbnb on several occasions, and was on hold for 45 minutes, until the call got cut off. I never got to speak to anybody! Airbnb is a dishonest, shonky organisation! I will never ever book anything with them again!

My wife is a Host and we go completely out of our way to give every guest a great experience. AirBnB does nothing to help and they go out of their way to look like the good guy and abuse the Hosts. With the Coronavirus I believe they are taking full advantage of everyone's fear and profiting from it. They give the guest back 100% of the Hosts money in every situation when guest cancels, no matter the cancellation agreement that was agreed upon at booking? What they will not refund is their portion? In fact I've even seen some where they keep thier fee and then give a voucher holding the fees and taxes for a latter booking. I believe they are padding the cash reserves for next years IPO. They are a horrible when it comes to morals, their customer service reps are always very friendly and polite but they are not the decision makers and their actions are very one sided, their side. If your reading this I advice you use HomeAway, VRBO over AirBnB as they actually have a much better customer service, are honest and have morals to treat both sides fairly.

Airbnb is acting reclessy and selfishly, siding with guest and giving them 100% refund wh eek they cancel they trip even though we have policies that we agree upon in contrary. We totally understand the circumstances but a different approach should ve been found and not all the burden on Hosts.

And to make things worse, they don't care... but they forget that without our houses and work they would not have a business.

Many people complained, including me but no one replied.

So soon I'll be listing my house somewhere else but I'm considering first to make a lot of noise as this attitude can't go unpunished and unnoticed! A Class action it's on table, just need people to come forward.

We were scheduled for an Airbnb property rental during our spring break. Two days before departure the President declared the country in a national state of emergency due to the coronavirus. Airbnb was uncooperative, as well as the owner of our rental house, to allow us to reschedule our visit. There was no offer to help in any way, just a curt "hey I'm losing money too for cancellations". 0 customer service. Save yourself and use a hotel which will work with you for unforeseen, national events impacting your travel.

Airbnb is not a safe place to Host. They promise they verify renters and cover them if they damage your property and they do not. BEWARE of opening up your home and renting on this platform. They do not offer insurance coverage for damages as they promise. They allow fake reviews to be left up as a form of extortion from fake renters. They are impossible to get a hold of. They transfer you from one person to another and never get back to you. Once you encounter a renter who damages your home, violates your rules, and steals from your property, AIRBNB block you as a Host. Never have I seen such practices. As a Host and user of AIRBNB for over 7 years, I now understand why the fellow Hosts I know no longer open up their homes to renters on this platform. Airbnb is notorious for this behavior and insurance companies have caught on to this and are no longer covering homes that are on this platform. BEWARE IF YOU THINK YOUR INSURANCE WILL COVER YOU IF YOU USE #AIRBNB, they probably will not and neither will Airbnb. So if you make a few thousand dollars but then a renter burns your home down because of careless behavior and not following your house rules, you are out of luck for millions.

RENTERS BEWARE!

We have used Airbnb in the past but recently have had three cancellations of bookings. The first was shortly after we booked an apartment in Iceland so we went ahead and booked again with them for a Paris apartment. This was cancelled after a few months so we rebooked with another property. We found out today that this has been cancelled too.So we are a family of seven travelling to Paris in four weeks with travel paid for and no accommodation, Cheers Airbnb!

This place was filthy and Tim is dishonest and will try to destroy your reputation. After telling him I would report him to Airbnb if he didn't send someone to clean the place, he threatened me that he would give me a horrible review with any future Airbnb hosts if I gave him a review. I gave an honest review, including a compliment for sending cleaning people over. Seriously though, what kind of a host expects people to sleep in used (as in recent sexual activity evidence) sheets? I will probably never use Airbnb again just because of this experience. Avoid this place like the plague. You could catch it. I am including a picture of the threatening email he sent me.

This company is a JOKE to say the least. They will give you the absolute RUN. AROUND. Over a refund. We stayed in a unit that ended up losing electricity and it took 3 full days to get ANYONE to reply to us via email. The finally agreed to refund part? Of our trip, not all of it, even though we were in the unit a total of 11 hours all of which we didn't have electricity. They only sent half of what they agreed to refund us and have basically told us "these things take time" as if they can't just issue a refund. Horrible company and act like $86 will bankrupt them. BOOK A HOTEL. If you have ANY issues airbnb is USELESS helping you. DO NOT BOOK WITH AIRBNB. Save yourself and use a HOTEL. Use the professionals.

Recently stayed in Maui. I had booked a large house for myself, kids and grandkids. We had done all the usual precontact with the host so when we arrived at 4pm to check in we went into shock when we arrived at the house to find it under serious reconstruction... all windows covered with paper and tape, open paint pots in every room, kitchen completely covered with construction tools, half the wood floors missing. Yes a crazy situation and obviously incredibly rare.My issue is how Airbnb handled this.
1, after 20 minutes on hold I got Airbnb c/s. Told them the situation and they put me on hold for another 10 minutes to get a supervisor. The supervisor said that he could not move unless the host agreed to refund my booking. Incidentally that was $12,700. They called the host and my story was confirmed.
2. The supervisor pointed out 2 potential sites which I could have done quicker myself. I immediately booked one and got the "we will respond within 24 hours" email... I have a family group of 7. Where are we sleeping tonight!
3. I called Airbnb cs and told them about the 24 hour email... like it was a surprise? They promised to get back to me... I got a couple of texts but zero and I mean zero places to spend the night
4. We managed to find a non Airbnb solution. Left to Airbnb we (including my 3 grandchildren) would have been sleeping in the car
5. It's been 2 weeks since this debacle. No contact from Airbnb
Airbnb charge a lot of money for their services... if something goes badly wrong you're likely to be screwed. I'm thinking traditional rental agency next time.

I would give them less than 1 if that was an option. I called to see what their charge/penalty policy was regarding cancellation and /or service fees due to the Coronavirus scare. I explained I would be flying cross country and was quite worried. The answer I received was stunning. I was told that the host should forgive any penalties due to the threat of the virus. However Airbnb would charge me a $120.00 service fee unless I had the virus!

Within 24 hours of being there I contacted Airbnb due to many household amenities not working. Almost all kitchen appliances did not work including the microwave, toaster oven, most kitchen outlets, and the washer and dryer which the owner DID NOT STATE when she gave me a tour on check in. The shower had basically no hot water and during this time it was early February and 20 degrees outside. The host did nothing to fix these issues. I called airbnb about 10 times in 4 days to cancel and get a refund and after being promised to call back and being disconnected I had a case worker finally issue a refund as promised and the case worker THEMSELVES cancelled the booking. I NEVER RECEIVED EVEN A PORTION OF MY REFUND. I spent 3 days there and paid a whooping $1670. 30 to get $80 back after being promised a full refund and not even cancelling the reservation myself. Have not and will not use Airbnb again.