Anonymous
Short review: One of the worst experiences I had with customer services. Basically, the customer service of Airbnb gave us (what it turned out to be) wrong information about their policy (which were shared through their chat and saved by us into a PDF). Once we booked our reservation based on the wrong information received, Airbnb decided that we had to stick to a different understanding of their policy. We tried everything (calls, emails, new tickets, escalate to managers) to no avail. Eventually, we had to stick with the reservation and we are now considering what to do with the remaining days. Moreover, bear in mind that if you need to cancel your reservation, the calculation of how much you have to pay will not be what you would have paid for the subsequent 30 days. Overall, it's like dealing with scammers and expect they will respect what they say. Save yourself time, money, and headaches...if you can, go for another broker or hotels. Longer review: We went to Santiago (Chile) and we booked an entire place through Airbnb for 15 days. As we needed to stay in Santiago for several months, we decided to find another place throuhg Airbnb, this time long-term. In fact, several friends told us that Airbnb is 'the platform' used in Santiago for renting places to tourists. Nevertheless, we wanted some warranties before booking a place for the entire period. We started contacting people to ask for information about their apartments and, in parallel, we contacted Airbnb to double check our understanding of their policy for long-term rentals before going ahead with the reservation. Here is where problems started. Airbnb told us that, as we were renting a place for such a long period, we were entitled to change the dates of our reservation at our liking. We were a bit surprised about that but, unfortunately, we could not find any additional information on the website. We called Airbnb customer service again and we confirmed again that what they said was true. At that point, we had a transcript of the chat (which we saved in a PDF...just in case) and two calls to the customer service. We needed a place as time was running out and so we reserved a place. As soon as we entered the apartment, we realised that the apartment wasn't right for us. Plus, it was very dirty and pictures were taken many years before, showing a place that was in much better shape than in reality. Fortunately, we were very careful and we triple checked the policy and our rights before reserving the place. We called Airbnb within 24 hours we entered the new place and we told them that we wanted to change our reservation. The Airbnb ambassador who responded to our case told us that this was not possible and that we needed to find an agreement with the host before going ahead. We shared with them that that was NOT what they told us a couple of days earlier. The ambassador checked the other chat and agreed that the information we had been given was not right. We then shared with Airbnb that the place was very dirty, many things were broken and pictures didn't reflect the current state of the apartment. But at this point, Airbnb just stopped caring for us (once they have your money, their services are over). Every time we called, a new ambassador needed to review the case from scratch (which took hours every time). They never proceeded to offering a solution and simply passed the case to someone else each time. Then, contrasting information were shared by different ambassadors. We ended up escalating the case to a manager (we had to asked explicitly and insist). Even the manager confirmed that the initial ambassador made a mistake but Airbnb cannot do anything when their customer service shares wrong information. They didn't offer any partial refund or tried to put things right. They didn't even offer to refund cleaning fees (which, anyway, were minimal). They kept referring to their policy so we asked multiple times to see a document outlining their policies. However, all we constantly got was a copy and paste message from their website, which is very unclear, leaving them space to interpret it as they wish (even though, when telling us what we could or could not do, they kept referring to their policy and the contract we had signed by reserving the place). Basically, they can sell you thin air and then it's your problem to make it work. That's what we did, we ended up cleaning the apartment and fixing the broken things. We're now considering to cancel the reservation, and probably lose some money, as Airbnb is not of any help. I wish we would have looked at their reviews before even considering using their services. I hope this, and all the other negative reviews, help others make an informed choice when booking with Airbnb.
7 months ago
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airbnb.com has a 3.6 average rating from 34 reviews
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