A contract is a meeting of minds. A valid contract requires that both sides know what they're agreeing on. He thought he was paying for a reservation for a fam

A contract is a meeting of minds. A valid contract requires that both sides know what they're agreeing on. He thought he was paying for a reservation for a family member, the host and AirBnB thought he was paying for a reservation for himself. No actual contract was agreed upon here, as the parties did not actually agree on anything. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raffles_v_Wichelhaus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raffles_v_Wichelhaus for one of the earliest examples of case law on this, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_of_the_minds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_of_the_minds for more general discussion on this topic