4 ms·

I thought Airbnb was supposed to cover the cost of your alternative accommodation in this scenario as well? If airbnb isn't giving you a full refund without re

• stephencoyner 8y ago
  They didn't offer even though I told them we went to a hotel and I've never heard of this before, so I didn't ask. But given how hard it was to get a refund, I wouldn't imagine they would have offered anything more. Thanks for sharing, good to know for future reference.
• dillondoyle 8y ago
  One should get a refund of the canceled booking but my last experience is they did NOT cover the extra cost of booking alternative hotel. Had a NYE reservation in London canceled hours before my flight. Had to get hotel rooms ( I brought my parents on the trip ). AirBnb support absolutely useless in rebooking (and no options, just one not close to similar listing repeating multiple times from different 'hosts'). What makes me so angry though was that a phone support agent told me they would give me 50% of a few days of the airbnb reservation cost to cover extra costs. I asked them to push too manager to cover full difference. But instead of offering to cover costs, over chat/email they claimed the phone person never made a promise and only paid me $85 (the difference was multiple thousands). I asked for the recording but they never responded. I looked into arbitration but the cost/benefit of my time wasted doesn't work out.
  • ashelmire 8y ago
    Why not have your bank issue a chargeback? Takes like 5 minutes, never had any issues with it.
    • dillondoyle 8y ago
      Maybe I wasn't clear. I got a refund for the price of canceled airbnb. But I had to get two hotels rooms, same day over NYE. Which was an extra few thousand on top of the canceled amount. This is the contention, where someone no phone told me an amount but then in the end I only got $85.
      • ashelmire 8y ago
        Ah, thanks for the clarification, I misread it.
• ibejoeb 8y ago
  Just last month, Airbnb reneged on its offer to cover the cost of my alternative accommodations when they let me a place without running water. Then they had to audacity to charge me for the first night; "it's policy," they said. Spent perhaps 5 hours chasing down their agents who use pseudonyms, don't have phone numbers, and have no stake in the matter. Now they deal with American Express. Airbnb makes Uber look like Mr. Rogers.
  • TAForObvReasons 8y ago
    Given that AirBnB is a YC company, maybe the best strategy is to use the Hacker News support channel? Other YC companies like CoinBase have notoriously bad customer support except for when posts reach the front page of Hacker News
    • ibejoeb 8y ago
      Even if that were something that I could do, it's terrible that the MO is to fuck the customer. * It turns out it was an illegal unit to begin with * The unit was uninhabitable and would be unable to get a CO even if it weren't otherwise illegal * The host wasn't a real person. It was a persona. * A third-party is facilitating the whole thing. That company is called Makomi (https://makomi.com/ https://makomi.com/) and makes its money operating illegal sublets in NYC. Everyone here is playing the arms-length game as if there is some kind of plausible deniability that they are not prima facie illegal, and then they pile on by being dodgy even on top of that. It's unfortunate, because when Airbnb works well, it's great, and when the slightest thing is wrong, it's donkey show.
      • deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      • lugg 8y ago
        Please tell me I'm not the only one who sees the irony here?
        • 8y ago