-I don’t know whether their policy differs from country to country, but after using AirBnb 30+ times traveling with wife and three kids in Northern/Central Europe, I’ve only had two issues - once the place we were to stay was double-booked (and we arrived last!); the other it turned out what was described as a ‘bedroom’ in the listing was a storage room with no windows, hot water tank, a few shelves packed with all sorts of junk and barely room for a dirty mattress on the floor.
In both cases AirBnb promptly decided I was due a refund, my only minor gripe being it took a couple of weeks before the money was actually refunded.
We were exhausted and didn't have the energy to really do anything after our 6 hour plane flight. The hosts came in and tried to resolve things first by removing all the appliances and then by offering us a bribe. I had documented all of this on the AirBnB website via private messages, taken pictures of the cockroaches, and found a can of bug spray(the hosts knew they had an ongoing problem and still rented to us!) to spray the roaches with. They were falling out of every crevice that I sprayed in the kitchen.
We ended up spending a very restless night there, and in the morning I found a single roach in the bathroom. We were going to move out the next day, but ended up scrambling to find a hotel room in Maui that afternoon after driving the road to Hana.
When I called AirBnB to report the cockroaches the representative basically said he couldn't guarantee me any kind of refund, and moreover that I should be used to staying in "less than clean conditions" as a bachelor who has traveled for business. I was flabbergasted.
They eventually got us a refund but I have never had such a terrible customer service experience from any company, period. I will never stay in AirBnB again. Evidently they don't enforce any standards of cleanliness and they take all hosts at their words as to the fitness of the property. The CSR that initially handled my case was a huge asshole and made me feel like he didn't care about me at all. The later CSRs were better. Staying in an AirBnB was the most stressful vacation experience I have ever had and I will never trust them again.
As an aside, you should make it a point to call their support line during the hours of business in the EST or CST timezones. Their day shift CSRs actually seemed to care about the problem. But their night shift appears to be an overseas call center, and they treated me like shit.
This is true: Mosquitos home in on CO2, and fans scramble that quite a bit.
Whether that is sufficient or not is your own personal choice.
This was my experience as well. Called in the evening about the listing not being described. The CSR was pretty useless. Called the next morning and got someone from California who was far more helpful.
I was not happy but at some point reality has to set in. Cockroaches are somewhat normal in tropical zones. I Googled around and found several tourists advising others that cockroaches are a reality in these locations. Even proper hotels had quite a few reviews involving cockroaches.
As with software, pick two.
I'd stay with a hotel (and sometimes do) if they would offer me as many bedrooms and a kitchen to work with.
-Don’t get me wrong; I’d much rather have no fuss at all - but when a bad experience occurred, AirBnb were better than I had feared with regards to setting things right.
The double booking was after a ten-hour drive with kids aged 10, 5 and 3 in the back seat. I didn’t need that.
Luckily, the host had friends nearby who shacked us up for the night, so disaster was averted - but this was way out in the Swedish boonies and I envisaged having to drive another couple of hours before finding a hotel.
Would not be surprised if it did. I remember one rental in the Netherlands where the english text said free parking, but the dutch text said parking available. The problem was AirBnBs translation and they refunded my parking expenses.
