AirbnbReviews 2,101

Stay away.
The hosts reply to your reservation requests in their own good time.
The host can cancel your accommodation with 24 hrs notice; can you imagine what situation this puts you in when you have flights booked for a family.
If you you are not happy with your accommodation you can't leave bad feedback on the airbnb site.
DON'T TAKE THE RISK.
Its all one sided towards the host and you can be stranded in an unfamiliar city with no accommodation.

I have been using airbnb for quite some time and I like the concept.
Airbnb is however a very interesting company. While they contact me endlessly, there is no way to contact them.
It is a company that for all practical purposes provides NO support.

I wish they stopped bothering me re reviews. I'll write them when they start to provide support.

AirBnB sucks! Just a warning to all of you who are thrilled about AirBnB like I was. I wait for 700 EUR for a cancelled booking since over a month. No response from AirBnB customer service. And I have to pay 10 % (i. E. 80 EUR) service fee to AirBnB (my host sees nothing of this money) despite cancelling 1 month in advance.

Last summer Airbnb was great. All my guests were cool and we got along well. In the off season however things changed. I had a guest who initally appeared okay but turned into a drunk the loud, opinionated and gross kind. I had to ask him to go to a hotel. I did not report him at the time because he did not demand a refund. I had already booked another male guest who was emailing me with inappropriate requests and gave me the impression he thought this was a dating site. I cancelled five days before he arrived because of my previous bad experience. The guest phoned me begging to be allowed to stay with me. It was desperadoville. I did not pay any attention to the postings saying that I had cancelled the booking. I also cancelled a booking a few months in advance because I could not promise the guest the room would still be available then. Another person booked in and after she arrived I discovered that I had been charged 150 in fees for the two cancellations. I tried to contact Airbnb a couple of times with no reply. I tried again and got a reply from someone called Lily who was very polite and continued to send me information from the site, but ignored my request for a refund. I pointed out the various inconsistencies in their own policies and never got a response to those. Finally Lily told me that my complaint has been resolved which it hasnt and so I have pulled the plug on Airbnb.

Don't go there. In June, I booked a flat in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for the dates of August 15 to 17. At the time of booking, I went through the full online registration process and then pre paid for the stay by credit card, also providing my address and phone number. Over the next 60 days or so, I received several emails from both AirBnb and the host, reminding me of my reservation and asking for my arrival time. I thought AirBnb was switched on.

Then, less than 24 hours prior to my scheduled 4:00 PM check in time on August 15, I got an email from the "Trust and Security" division at Air, requiring me to send them a copy of my photo ID via email. Failing this option, my reservation would be cancelled. Obviously, I wouldn't email a copy of my passport to the Pope. I suggested to Air that I present my passport on arrival. No go. I was forced to make a last minute, very pricy booking at a Brooklyn hotel.

AirBnb created a needless last minute travel hassle. They also cost me $500.00. Never again.

Terrible. I had a booking from a guest who told me after she booked that she would be arriving at 1.00am. I told her that nobody would be available to check her in at that time. She refused to cancel so I had to cancel the reservation. AIRBNB fined me 100 dollars. I wrote to them to ask why but never received a reply. Awful, awful company.

Read the fine print. Depending on the state you live, the guest may become a tenant if s/he reserves for 30+ days. If you have a problem, Airbnb customer service is almost nonexistent. When tenant refused to leave, I called the "urgent" number, 2 times and waited over 40 minutes with no response.

Advise do not rent to locals, at least you have a decent chance of the person leaving if they are from out of town. My local yokel is the tenant from hell and Airbnb is NO HELP!

You'll have a problem with Airbnb if you have a problem with a location. We stayed at a flat with a plumbing issue, so we had to quickly move locations, as we had been without the use of a toilet from the night before. We went to the Airbnb website, where there was no telephone number to be found. We scrambled to find a hotel to stay in and then made a claim online at Airbnb. Once we returned home and received a call from Airbnb, we were told that, if we had called Airbnb BEFORE going to the hote, l they would have covered the cost of the hotel. BUT OF COURSE THEY GAVE NO PHONE NUMBER ON THEIR WEBSITE TO DO THAT! Wasn't that convenient. The only way we were able to get in direct contact was to hit cancel on the reservation and then a week later (after we were home) THEY CALLED US!

I used Airbnb for my trip back in May and I stayed at over 5 listings across Europe, namely London, Paris, Nice (2 listing), and Amsterdam. Reading the reviews somehow made me feel wary although I had a wonderful time at all of these listings. It was understandable at some of the listings the internet are a bit off and a few dusty cupboard. But all in all it was not bad at all despite it being my first experience.

I was declined for a lot of listings too and despite some of them personally replying me saying that the dates are not available which is nice but I would still get it too if they just decline because every query requires one to provide number of guests and date of check in and check out. Them sending us an automated declined would suggest that our dates/number of guests did not match their listing.

As far as being first time users and not being reviewed thus the rejection, I feel that it is important that you create your profile with complete profile of yourself such as your intended trip purposes and a photo. (as much as we are afraid to trust the other person they are also afraid and have to thread very carefully even more so as they are allowing us into their homes)

I was never a host but at all the 5 listings I took time to ask the hosts their experience as hosts and they positively described their experience as host and 1 of the host was even a Super Host on Airbnb.

As I am sure with all other Bnb's or accommodation everyone is worried they might be scammed and we are clueless to know whether or not a particular contact could be a scam thus I suggest taking extra precautions for all payment transactions and personal infos released. Airbnb is definitely and interesting concept to me as they allow me personal contact with locals and give me better insights to their own city.

My reasons to sought out reviews and found this was due to another trip I am planning to take and realized that anything could happen to anyone.

Just my thoughts.

I tried to book accommodation in Glasgow and spent many hours retyping the two credit cards to use. The BOOK NOW button remained inactive, so I contacted the hosts to tell of the situation. They were communicative and did their best to help.

I contacted airbnb who replied "Hello William,

I'm sorry you've been having trouble with the site. If you have been viewing airbnb on a different browser, be advised that is best to view Airbnb in Google Chrome.

If you'd like, we have a help article on the topic: https://www.airbnb.com/help/question/446

In many cases, issues like this can be also easily solved by clearing your internet browser's history, cookies, and cache.

I see you just joined, welcome to Airbnb! I hope it brings you wonderful experiences. As a token of our welcome i would like to offer you a $100USD coupon for your first trip:

Code: LCSOQSVT
Expires: 2015-08-05

Let me know if I can be if any further assistance.

Happy Travels William!
Evie"

To try regain the booking I asked my daughter-in-law to make the booking for me.

With her iphone and previous airbnb app she couldn't even log in, so she had to delete the app and reinstall the latest edition before she was allowed in, The booking had been taken.

This shows that whoever writes their web software is only interested in the 18 to 20 year olds with the latest technology. The software engineer's manager should be informed of his narrow window of conception and operation.

Most websites manage to accommodate ALL operating systems without marginalising old fashion software platforms, or else their market would shrink.

I'm going to pronounce this failure of operation on various forums, as I'd hate anyone to experience what I've been through, my first and only time.

Yours unfaithfully,
William.

P.S. I successfully booked in to an hotel. It might be 29GBP more but a straight forward transaction is simple and without headache.

I have been hosting with AIRBNB for 3 years and have had some good bookings, but the customer service for hosts is dreadful.
I always used to recieve money in my bank account 1 day after the payout date advised to me. I have now been waiting over 11 days for 4 payments- which as an agent, I need to forward to others- this is damaging my business reputation.
I have emailed 3 times and all I have received is an email thanking me for "reaching out to them"- no resolution to the problem
I am owed 3500€ and have a guest arriving today which will make the total I am owed more than 4800€- we run a small business and we cannot sustain this level of debt.
AIRBNB has been paid months in advance.
HAS THEIR SYSTEM BEEN HACKED AND PAYMENTS BEING DIVERTED?-
We are cancelling all future bookings with this company until we get payment of outstanding debts

Have been both a host and guest and have only had good experiences with AirBnB. From a guest p. O. v., the chance to holiday in your chosen destination for longer plus you get to know a native is fantastic. Sometimes you are staying with someone else but you don't have to. Alternatively, you can rent a completely self contained space, too, and have all the comforts of home for less than a hotel. I understand they do have insurance and have given me only good customer service on occasion when I've needed it. As a host, no problems so far either.

I´ve been renting out our holiday cottage over Airbnb for a couple of years now, and everything worked out fine. Until this week. I´ve been trying to contact their customer service for two days, and it is well nigh impossible. They have given a guest who wants to stay for a week in August - a week in September, and no matter how many times I email them, nothing happens.
Unfortunately, we have no telephone number, so have to rely on emails.
Shoddy service, and have lost the customer too. He of course didn´t take the week in September.

Customer service as a guest was great. Host had a serious problem with their place, we moved out, host was being unreasonable on our request for a refund, but within a few hours of calling airbnb and providing photo proof of the problem, a full refund was issued. I couldn't be happier with airbnb's customer service (and especially the efforts of Holly at customer service, Patsy at Airbnb trip experience, and whoever else was on the team that handled my case). I've dealt with hotels, airlines, all sorts of institutions where problems sometimes arise, and I've never before seen such a fast and fair resolution.

The AirBnb fee structure totally sucks. I have two Guest's who are complaining at me. The way you calculate fees is in transparent, the way you display the fees is crap, the method of describing this to the Host and Guest at price point is confusing to new users and frankly dishonest. We should have to "discover" your fee structure - it should be laid out in clear English. Please fix else I will be subscribing with competitors. Thanks

I am new to airbnb and tried to book several apartments for my trip to DC. However, all the apartments ( i wrote to 5 hosts) declined my inquiry without even a message explaining why i was declined. I am assuming hosts saw that i had no reviews on the site since i am new to it and haven't stayed at any place yet and decided to decline. There is no way to start using this site if no one accepts my inquiries. I decided then to contact listings on flipkey instead and found a great apartment that responded quickly and i am now booked for my trip.