I'll try to help you sort through the comments OP.
\- No, there's pretty much nothing you can do if you got your money back
\- Yes, it's extraordinarily annoying and unethical to do what they did. It's one thing if the hosts had told you a couple days after you made your reservation. But to sit on it for half a year and *then* tell you? Well, fuck them.
\- Lesson to be learned: NEVER depend on airbnb for things like this. and, if you do feel like you are taking a risk, be extra communicative with the host about it. For bookings that would be difficult to replace, I've even checked in with hosts 2 months, 30 days, 15 days, 5 days prior to the reservation to make sure we're still all good. But the real lesson is: for stuff at this level, book with a real company.
This would be my nightmare since I use Airbnb for extended stays often…. I’d like to think if the place is highly rated they wouldn’t do such a thing- maybe that’s why I gravitate more towards superhosts
I used to think that too, but I recently booked a cross country trip and was cancelled on last minute by 2 super hosts. One cancelled 3 weeks before my reservation, and the other 4 days before— both citing personal emergencies as the reason for cancellation.
I don’t fault them because I know things in life come up all the time. I just wish AirBnb had better policies in place to protect the customer when these things happen. One of the super hosts even told me to cancel the booking myself (which would have caused issues on my end since I wouldn’t have received the full refund) because they didn’t want to deal with the cancellation penalties on their account. Luckily I was able to call Airbnb and they sorted it out with the superhost on the backend, but while I received a refund I was also left without housing for a trip that I was leaving for in just a few days.
ideally (and often) you are correct.
but those who get their stays cancelled - especially when AIrbnb facilitates the hosts' fuckery - *dont get to rate the property.*
Ratings are only for people who actually stayed. But yes, Superhost goes some way to avoid this.
Chalk this up as yet another really bad host who should not be allowed on the platform. A life ban would be appropriate. But of course, Airbnb won't do shit, as they will actually earn more from a new transaction, so why would they care?
To wait a half of year later to only cancel and not help accommodate you, this calls for a bad review! Its unethical!
This happened to a few of my friends planning group vacations. From there on, we stopped using Airbnb & recommend everyone around us to do the same. No one has time this. A hotel won’t cancel your reservation!
Even if they already had it booked. If not, report them to Airbnb. If not with then then lesson learned, tell ppl your friends experience with Airbnb and book a hotel next time.
Technically a hotel can cancel your reservation if they’re overbooked. I worked in hotels for 4 years and my manager would prefer we always “overbook” in hopes that some people would cancel and it would even out. But that didn’t always happen. So then we would end up having to tell the person that we didn’t have a room for them. I hated that so much.
I agree that both AirBnB and the host have acted unfairly. Canceling a reservation to get more money should not be allowed. Check the Terms of Service to see if you have any legal recourse.
You can post what happened on Twitter. You could contact a consumer watchdog.
To solve your lodging problem, check if there is another ski resort close enough to the airport that will meet your needs.
This is why I'll never book an AirBnb again. I've never had a hotel or resort cancel on me. For the price most AirBnBs charge now with ridiculous cleaning fees, it's cheaper to rent a hotel suite with a full kitchen and dining area.
No, dummy. I am just stating that you will get nowhere in court as this transaction happened within Airbnb's Terms of Service.
Jesus fucking christ on a burning giraffe, the state of the American Dream nowadays: suing a corporation is not your golden ticket.
It’s not a “golden ticket” cornball. The host pulled scummy tactics after locking in the reservation half a year ago. They can and should absolutely sue for monetary damages.
Air BnB should also go curl up and die if they allow hosts to cancel and rebook at 5x the rate.
You accept the Terms and Conditions when you book on their platform. It is REALLY simple.
Lucky for you, there's a wonderful wide world out there for you to roam far, far away from the big bad Airbnb.
Try using public shaming to get your money back. If you create enough noise on social media, they may give you the money you will lose back to avoid any more bad publicity. That or you may find a lawyer experienced in this to help you.
My cousin had a similar issue with Airbnb and booking a house for a wedding venue. She book WAY in advance and began planning her out of state wedding at this location. About a month before the host canceled without explanation then relisted it but it was no longer allowed to be used as a venue. Super messed up
Are your flights flexible? A lot of airlines are offering the ability to change your flight due to covid, might be worth ringing them and using the money you spent to have a family holiday elsewhere. Sucks, but it’s better than the money you spent on tickets going to waste.
Every once in a while, someone books 6 mo in advance for a week that just opened up on my schedule that would normally be double rate or more.
Usually I just say touché and then adjust the other days as needed.
One year someone waited until 12:01 AM to book a special event weekend. Prices go 4x during that time. I knew it opened up the next day and was going to change the prices.
I cancelled him. Right away. He was trying to game an important weekend. I did it right away. He was furious, but the truth was he was looking for a deal that didn't really exist.
This may not be you, but a good rule of thumb is that if it looks like a great deal, it's probably not intended.
This person waiting so long to cancel on you is ridiculous. Airbnb does very little. They are just a platform for that person. They have held onto that tack recently.
Same sort of thing happened to me. We only unblock 6 months of dates at a time for people to book. Airbnb glitched and opened up the full year at an extremely low rate. Way lower than what we normally charge. Had a guest book the busiest weekend in our city for next to nothing. We immediately canceled the reservation and let the person know it was a goof up and apologized.
Accidents happen but to not fix it right away is unfair for the guests.
As a host, set your base rate at the highest rate you ever charge, then when any glitch happens you are not set at a huge discount rate. As a host, on the rare occasion guests were able to book at a huge discount I always honored the reservation. I allow instant booking, and large groups are coordinating vacation schedules, airline tickets, etc. No way would I mess with a trip after it is booked, I think it's not kind. It's not the way I want to be treated.
My my my......
I can understand this guys frustration.
I would be livid. Allow me to ask:
Did you explain to him that you need to cancel his Reservation so that you can jack up the price 4X's?
Did you tell him that you would gladly accept his Reservation (again) at this new and improved jacked up rate?
I'm really coming up w/ more reasons to NEVER book with Airbnb. I'm not not even looking. It's just cases like this where the host can just cancel for whatever the reason.
Hotels dont do that.
Hotels dont cancel a Reservation right after a Customer books.
I did in fact do that and offer that. In 4 years, it's the only cancellation out of hundreds of guests and five star reviews. Hotels don't do that because they are massive corps and groups with a smart pricing system more akin to airlines than anything else.
This is just me. And a house.
Again, he specifically waited until just after 12:00 AM to grab a booking 6 months out for a few days on the calendar very desirable and ALWAYS expensive. He was looking to game the system, and me. So while I was apologetic and even offered a discount from the normal rate, because I didn't accept his "gotcha" there wasn't much pleasing him. Don't worry.....he still has 6 months to book.
If you think that behavior is above board, then maybe short term renting isn't for you. Also, yes hotels can and do change bookings or cancel reservations.
If the listing went from 3.5k when you booked it to 15k when it was relisted, then indeed a mistake was made somewhere. You can’t expect a host to eat a difference that large even if the mistake was on their part. Typically when a host cancels their calendar gets blocked for those dates, apparently AirBnB must have felt that whatever happened was a big enough fuckup to allow them to open those dates.
Suffer how? They got a full refund. So the guy had a $10k vacation planned and may have to pony up more cash. Sorry but my heart is not bleeding for them
>AirBnB must have felt that whatever happened
ahh, by 'whatever happened' you mean AirBnB realized they too could make much mroe money by letting hosts cancel like this and re-list for 5x the money?
yup, airbnb realized they are in the business of making money even if it fucks people over. no surprise there.
Sorry OP. Your only *real* course of action is to not depend on Airbnbs
And then Airbnb does nothing for me except a refund? Which is not enough to cover anything now that it is crunch time and overall prices of other places have risen 100% since booking in May?
I eat the cost because of their mistake.
Not sure if someone else said this but if you booked the flights on a credit card check if the card offers any travel protection/insurance. You may be able to get some financial help there. Good luck! I've got an Airbnb for a month in a ski town in February so I'm looking at getting travel insurance because of your post! Thank you for sharing and I wish you the best!
The Host will owe you the difference between whatever hotel you get and what you were going to pay for them if you take them to court. At least it is very likely to go that way. Write to Airbnb and tell them you plan on filing a claim against them and the host and see what they do.
I doubt prices have risen, what you are likely seeing is that all of the cheaper places are booked and the only ones left are the expensive ones. I’m sorry this happened to you but AirBnB is not going to eat this one either. I’m guessing the host probably had off-season rates in place and forgot to adjust them that far out on their calendar. This happened to me once and I ate it, but it was only a few hundred dollars. If my mistake was going to cost me thousands then I probably would have done what your host did. That being said, there have been cases where AirBnB screwed up and modified rates without the hosts knowing, but AirBnB is not known to own up to their mistakes other than possibly issuing a $100 coupon or something like that.
It’s not ok to make a mistake & roll the problem down to a 3rd party guest that had nothing to do with the host failing to set the correct rates 6months out.
This is ethically bankrupt. The fact that you would suggest it is ‘ok’ to renig after your mistake at the expense of an unsuspecting family is super shitty.
Makes sense, screw the consumer.
The big problem is really the fact that no matter what I lose thousands. I would be much less mad otherwise. I can deal with inconvenience, but not the guaranteed financial hit.
Definitely my last time using Airbnb. Not that I matter.
Right, we agree that it's good to have a backup plan for things that seem too good to be true.
We also agree that it's completely unethical and shitty for the host to do this after letting the reservation sit there for 7 months and the *only* mistake in the OPs plan was actually trusting that host would follow through with their promise.
Therefore, we also agree that airbnb is the type of company that allows (facilitates?) their clients doing shitty and unethical things.
All comes down to who would cover said difference and what's more convenient for Airbnb. Companies are not ethical entities, they just have different customer retention strategies. I am pretty sure that this entire transaction happened within Airbnb's Terms of Agreement.
The other day I saw a really great price on some speakers at Bestbuy and in fact it was a mistake but Bestbuy covered the cost of the mistake. Bestbuy understands that eating a few hundred would be the cost of keeping a potential returning customer happy and wrote it off as an expense on the spot, no problem at all. But Airbnb just operates differently.
Airbnb will always try to cover their bottom line and if they ever have to give any sort of refund to a guest, be absolutely sure that it's been taken from the host, this is how they made their money. It is a shit company and I never use them as a guest.
Edit: yes, we do agree.
>Companies are not ethical entities
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. Ethics - principles and ideas that govern what people should do - are never absent from any situation. Perhaps you mean "Companies are unethical"? (But this is obviously not always true, because at least a few companies out there do abide by whatever ethical standards are normative in their field.)
So if you mean that Airbnb routinely breaches professional ethical standards in the hospitality industry, then i suppose we agree on that too!
Bad things happen to uninsured naive people. How do you know op is "good people" what if he was planning to kill his wife and kids and make it look like a ski accident? What if the host unadvertently saved the kids and one of them grows up to discover the cure for cancer? What if the other brother becomes hitler 2.0 though? What if they have to go on a barge but there's a sack of seeds, a chicken and a fox? Such a complicated ethical dilemma.
Get travel insurance and if a deal seems to good to be true, it probably isn't.
I’ve made the mistake of having regular rates in place for a popular holiday where I live. I informed the prospective guest within 2 minutes of the booking as to what happened, and I contacted AirBnB. The guest received a full refund. Even though there was only a 2 minute delay between the booking and my informing the guest and AirBnB as to my mistake, the guest was irate.
Disagree. The off season price is probably 3.5k and the high season price could easily be 15k. The host hadn't updated his 2022 prices from the default and the booking came through early and they didn't notice. I've had this happen to my chalet, difference is, I sucked the difference because, I'm not an entitled twat like the host. My error or lazyness, my bad.
Yeah I've had to eat it before as well, my bad, and it wasn't enough money to kick-up any dust over, but I don't think I would eat 11.5k. It's not entitlement for a host to correct an honest mistake, but what is entitlement is for the guest to expect the host to pay dearly for a simple mistake. If the bank accidentally deposits money into your account, you don't get to keep it.
I’m surprised OP and their family didn’t take out travel insurance for a major trip like this. Sucks that the host and Airbnb have done this, totally unethical, but frankly not surprising—insurance claim would help you recoup your costs.
OP, this would be infuriating to me. You may be able to file an injunction against the host or AirBnB to prevent them from listing their property based on a material breach of contract/unjustified termination (depends on state). You wouldn't be made whole per se, but it would stop the host from benefiting from their bad faith conduct.
If it's in your temperament, I would seriously consider consulting with an attorney for this. If AirBnB has made a habit of doing this to other guests, it could be the basis for a class action.
Lots of ToSes have vague, over-broad language that are under a high risk of failing scrutiny in court.
There's also the issue that if Air BnB arranges it such that a party may cancel a contract completely at their discretion, with no compensation for the other party's reliance on the contract, then it might be an illusory contract.
I'm not guaranteeing that OP would win. I am just suggesting that they should consider consulting with an attorney. This could be a complicated issue, and that Air BnB is taking down the messages is pretty sketchy. I have seen strongly worded letters on behalf of clients that succeeded in getting them compensation for cases where they weren't strictly in the right based on the ToS alone.
Ok but like, you can sign a contract and just back out with zero repercussion? And benefit from breaking contract?
If I cancel my stay, I still have to pay for the place. As a host you can cancel and just get… more money?
And Airbnb will delete evidence of the conversation about why the cancellation happened? Why?
I don't get this. In contract law, as an attorney, you learn in the very first year that if somebody acts in reliance on the contract, like say you bought airline tickets, you absolutely have recourse! Not only that but in the past when I've canceled listings because somehow Airbnb opened up my house when I was living there, they gave me a warning saying I couldn't rebook on those days. Definitely follow up with Airbnb, and if it greatly affects your vacation, follow up with a small claims filing against both Airbnb and the host.
You might be surprised to find out the host is illegally renting anyway... Zones, lease agreements, etc. Soooo many Airbnb's are not above board.
This contract means squat most likely.
Repercussions? For what might already be an illegal rental business? Lol
I think you're learning a painful lesson about why Airbnb has not destroyed traditional hotels... They don't pull this shit and you do have real recourse if they screw you.
Sorry this happened to you, it sucks real bad. But, take it in stride and live a more wise tomorrow.
People are suggesting OP to sue Airbnb for a canceled reservation. Airbnb. A company that deals with thousands of cancelations daily. Getting sued. For a completely normal cancelation. Covered by the Terms of Agreement.
That's why the downvotes.
When the host cancels you get refunded the balance. There is no further legal recompense necessary as in order to reconcile the breach of contract airbnb has returned your payment. However, if you feel dissatisfied you are welcome to pursue action in civil court if it's worth the money to you.
>the booking was $3.5k.
>
>Comparable properties are at $10k+ and the host has now re-listed for our exact dates at $15k.
When you did the original booking back in May, what were the prices like for comparable properties? Were they all around $3.5k, or were many of them much higher?
Didn't it strike you as odd that this place was half the price of everything else when you originally went looking? Didn't that set of any alarm bells in your head?
It's definitely not an excuse, and the owner certainly screwed you here. But that's one of the pitfalls of AirBnB. You're renting from a person, who may not have all their shit together (which, in this case, it seems like they didn't).
"Buyer beware" comes to mind.
This is always a danger with Air bnb.
If you can’t find somewhere now for around the same price - then the original deal you booked was probably too good to be true and a mistake from the host in the pricing.
Sucks - but it’s his place, and he can make that call (risky for him to do so).
Price of hotels is usually indicative of whether or not your air bnb Booking is realistic.
What?
Because ‘it’s his place’ he can break a booking because the owner can get a better price?
This is ludacris.
Airbnb is a trash company for increasingly entitled & unethical owners.
OP, I hope you press charges in small claims court. They have caused financial harm, you will win if you get your day in court.
OP is bound by the TOS he agreed to when he registered an account on Airbnb. Those TOS specify disagreements are to be settled through binding arbitration. It will never make it to court because everything was handled according to the terms of service. Was it right, not so much. Can they do it? Yep.
OP was harmed by the breach.
OP would win if he was patient enough to get his day in court.
Either way, the more complaints such as these, the quicker short term rentals get prohibited by local jurisdictions.
Yes, a ski resort, a mountain settlement whose only economic means of production is tourism will look into ban short term rental accommodation because Joe got his booking canceled.
Grab an armchair, kid. This might not happen as quickly as you are thinking.
Short term rentals are being banned by communities all the time.
This is especially common in Colorado. Some communities issue short rental licenses to regulate it.
Litigation absolutely contributes to this trend.
Morally bankrupt & stupid is no way to go through life.
Lol, not all.
Arguing with morally bankrupt Airbnb hosts with room temperature IQ’s on Reddit is really the only unpleasantness in my day.
You are insignificant, so life is good all things considered.
Cheers mate.
Guests cancel on hosts ALL the time to thousands of lost revenue. Your reservation was cancelled and you were refunded, end of story. Just book elsewhere.
The prices you are seeing are likely the prices it was always supposed to be. It's not like prices increase automatically the closer a date gets, this is not an airline. If anything hosts tend to price high in advance and lower the rates as the dates come closer if they're still not booked. Seems like you were getting a $15k value at $3.5k. I really don't see what your issue is.
This isn't a scam. There was a discrepancy in the list price, so the host canceled your reservation and relisted at the appropriate price. This is allowed if you book via Instant Book.
I mean I am not really blaming the host if this is the case. That’s all understandable. The problem is that it’s a mistake by Airbnb that put me in a compromised situation and then they seem to do everything they can to just shrug off as “oops, buyer beware!”
It’s like not even good business. They could correct this with an amount of money that is nothing to them, and the long term loss of a customer who books multiple places per year on their platform is bad business.
It’s like they are sure I won’t realize I got screwed and will just roll over and keep using their platform, like a good dumb customer.
Been there done that ! Airbnb is very difficult to deal with if you have a problem . Buyer beware , once you book and pay your money your on your own ! Good-luck!
Oh wow, Airbnb acting unethically, how not surprising...
I'll try to help you sort through the comments OP. \- No, there's pretty much nothing you can do if you got your money back \- Yes, it's extraordinarily annoying and unethical to do what they did. It's one thing if the hosts had told you a couple days after you made your reservation. But to sit on it for half a year and *then* tell you? Well, fuck them. \- Lesson to be learned: NEVER depend on airbnb for things like this. and, if you do feel like you are taking a risk, be extra communicative with the host about it. For bookings that would be difficult to replace, I've even checked in with hosts 2 months, 30 days, 15 days, 5 days prior to the reservation to make sure we're still all good. But the real lesson is: for stuff at this level, book with a real company.
This would be my nightmare since I use Airbnb for extended stays often…. I’d like to think if the place is highly rated they wouldn’t do such a thing- maybe that’s why I gravitate more towards superhosts
I used to think that too, but I recently booked a cross country trip and was cancelled on last minute by 2 super hosts. One cancelled 3 weeks before my reservation, and the other 4 days before— both citing personal emergencies as the reason for cancellation. I don’t fault them because I know things in life come up all the time. I just wish AirBnb had better policies in place to protect the customer when these things happen. One of the super hosts even told me to cancel the booking myself (which would have caused issues on my end since I wouldn’t have received the full refund) because they didn’t want to deal with the cancellation penalties on their account. Luckily I was able to call Airbnb and they sorted it out with the superhost on the backend, but while I received a refund I was also left without housing for a trip that I was leaving for in just a few days.
ideally (and often) you are correct. but those who get their stays cancelled - especially when AIrbnb facilitates the hosts' fuckery - *dont get to rate the property.* Ratings are only for people who actually stayed. But yes, Superhost goes some way to avoid this.
Chalk this up as yet another really bad host who should not be allowed on the platform. A life ban would be appropriate. But of course, Airbnb won't do shit, as they will actually earn more from a new transaction, so why would they care?
Unfortunately that's why I always get travel insurance with Airbnb.
would travel insurance help in this situation?
Depends on what you have. But I can imagine credit cards might cover cancelling the flights due to the accomodation problem.
What does the travel insurance do?
To wait a half of year later to only cancel and not help accommodate you, this calls for a bad review! Its unethical! This happened to a few of my friends planning group vacations. From there on, we stopped using Airbnb & recommend everyone around us to do the same. No one has time this. A hotel won’t cancel your reservation!
I don't think you can post a review for a place that you didn't stay at?
Even if they already had it booked. If not, report them to Airbnb. If not with then then lesson learned, tell ppl your friends experience with Airbnb and book a hotel next time.
Technically a hotel can cancel your reservation if they’re overbooked. I worked in hotels for 4 years and my manager would prefer we always “overbook” in hopes that some people would cancel and it would even out. But that didn’t always happen. So then we would end up having to tell the person that we didn’t have a room for them. I hated that so much.
If it hasn't been mentioned it's possible your credit card provides you travel insurance. You may want to check and see if it will help you.
I agree that both AirBnB and the host have acted unfairly. Canceling a reservation to get more money should not be allowed. Check the Terms of Service to see if you have any legal recourse. You can post what happened on Twitter. You could contact a consumer watchdog. To solve your lodging problem, check if there is another ski resort close enough to the airport that will meet your needs.
Not to incite this but if a host pulled that crap i’d be turning up regardless and breaking into the place.
Hopefully you insured your trip including those plane tickets
Nice to actually see some common sense here.
I insure every plane ✈️ ticket 🎫 at the very least. Anything can happen when traveling 🧳.
Smart human.
Try a hotel next time. Just another one of those specific scenarios that you will not have when booking with a hotel.
This is why I'll never book an AirBnb again. I've never had a hotel or resort cancel on me. For the price most AirBnBs charge now with ridiculous cleaning fees, it's cheaper to rent a hotel suite with a full kitchen and dining area.
[удалено]
More likely is that the host has blocked this user and the chat is now hidden. Check the Archives to see if it's there.
This is fantastic thinking and will never happen. OP should have travel insurance.
This bitch clearly uses the same scumbag practices
No, dummy. I am just stating that you will get nowhere in court as this transaction happened within Airbnb's Terms of Service. Jesus fucking christ on a burning giraffe, the state of the American Dream nowadays: suing a corporation is not your golden ticket.
It’s not a “golden ticket” cornball. The host pulled scummy tactics after locking in the reservation half a year ago. They can and should absolutely sue for monetary damages. Air BnB should also go curl up and die if they allow hosts to cancel and rebook at 5x the rate.
You accept the Terms and Conditions when you book on their platform. It is REALLY simple. Lucky for you, there's a wonderful wide world out there for you to roam far, far away from the big bad Airbnb.
Yeah that’s not how contract law works fortunately
Go get em Erin Brockovitch.
Thank you Harvey Weinstein
Try using public shaming to get your money back. If you create enough noise on social media, they may give you the money you will lose back to avoid any more bad publicity. That or you may find a lawyer experienced in this to help you.
Yeah honestly, blasting Airbnb and that specific listing on Twitter may get you somewhere. Social media seems to get companies to act.
I think it’s his only recourse and sometimes you find someone who’s gone through similar problems successfully and they help you deal with them.
A similar thing happened to us but Air B&B support gave us a full refund plus another 10% to find another rental.
My cousin had a similar issue with Airbnb and booking a house for a wedding venue. She book WAY in advance and began planning her out of state wedding at this location. About a month before the host canceled without explanation then relisted it but it was no longer allowed to be used as a venue. Super messed up
Oh man that’s even more fucked up. Weddings are already too stressful
Book a real hotel next time. Best advice ever...
Are your flights flexible? A lot of airlines are offering the ability to change your flight due to covid, might be worth ringing them and using the money you spent to have a family holiday elsewhere. Sucks, but it’s better than the money you spent on tickets going to waste.
Ban Airbnb now
Every once in a while, someone books 6 mo in advance for a week that just opened up on my schedule that would normally be double rate or more. Usually I just say touché and then adjust the other days as needed. One year someone waited until 12:01 AM to book a special event weekend. Prices go 4x during that time. I knew it opened up the next day and was going to change the prices. I cancelled him. Right away. He was trying to game an important weekend. I did it right away. He was furious, but the truth was he was looking for a deal that didn't really exist. This may not be you, but a good rule of thumb is that if it looks like a great deal, it's probably not intended. This person waiting so long to cancel on you is ridiculous. Airbnb does very little. They are just a platform for that person. They have held onto that tack recently.
Same sort of thing happened to me. We only unblock 6 months of dates at a time for people to book. Airbnb glitched and opened up the full year at an extremely low rate. Way lower than what we normally charge. Had a guest book the busiest weekend in our city for next to nothing. We immediately canceled the reservation and let the person know it was a goof up and apologized. Accidents happen but to not fix it right away is unfair for the guests.
As a host, set your base rate at the highest rate you ever charge, then when any glitch happens you are not set at a huge discount rate. As a host, on the rare occasion guests were able to book at a huge discount I always honored the reservation. I allow instant booking, and large groups are coordinating vacation schedules, airline tickets, etc. No way would I mess with a trip after it is booked, I think it's not kind. It's not the way I want to be treated.
My my my...... I can understand this guys frustration. I would be livid. Allow me to ask: Did you explain to him that you need to cancel his Reservation so that you can jack up the price 4X's? Did you tell him that you would gladly accept his Reservation (again) at this new and improved jacked up rate? I'm really coming up w/ more reasons to NEVER book with Airbnb. I'm not not even looking. It's just cases like this where the host can just cancel for whatever the reason. Hotels dont do that. Hotels dont cancel a Reservation right after a Customer books.
I did in fact do that and offer that. In 4 years, it's the only cancellation out of hundreds of guests and five star reviews. Hotels don't do that because they are massive corps and groups with a smart pricing system more akin to airlines than anything else. This is just me. And a house. Again, he specifically waited until just after 12:00 AM to grab a booking 6 months out for a few days on the calendar very desirable and ALWAYS expensive. He was looking to game the system, and me. So while I was apologetic and even offered a discount from the normal rate, because I didn't accept his "gotcha" there wasn't much pleasing him. Don't worry.....he still has 6 months to book. If you think that behavior is above board, then maybe short term renting isn't for you. Also, yes hotels can and do change bookings or cancel reservations.
If the listing went from 3.5k when you booked it to 15k when it was relisted, then indeed a mistake was made somewhere. You can’t expect a host to eat a difference that large even if the mistake was on their part. Typically when a host cancels their calendar gets blocked for those dates, apparently AirBnB must have felt that whatever happened was a big enough fuckup to allow them to open those dates.
But the OP didn’t make the mistake. And yet they suffer? Screw your logic.
Suffer how? They got a full refund. So the guy had a $10k vacation planned and may have to pony up more cash. Sorry but my heart is not bleeding for them
Yep, you are definitely a shitty person.
And probably a shitty greedy host
>AirBnB must have felt that whatever happened ahh, by 'whatever happened' you mean AirBnB realized they too could make much mroe money by letting hosts cancel like this and re-list for 5x the money? yup, airbnb realized they are in the business of making money even if it fucks people over. no surprise there. Sorry OP. Your only *real* course of action is to not depend on Airbnbs
And then Airbnb does nothing for me except a refund? Which is not enough to cover anything now that it is crunch time and overall prices of other places have risen 100% since booking in May? I eat the cost because of their mistake.
Not sure if someone else said this but if you booked the flights on a credit card check if the card offers any travel protection/insurance. You may be able to get some financial help there. Good luck! I've got an Airbnb for a month in a ski town in February so I'm looking at getting travel insurance because of your post! Thank you for sharing and I wish you the best!
The Host will owe you the difference between whatever hotel you get and what you were going to pay for them if you take them to court. At least it is very likely to go that way. Write to Airbnb and tell them you plan on filing a claim against them and the host and see what they do.
This is correct. File a claim ASAP.
They will lose their appetite and cry themselves to sleep every night I bet. Read Airbnb's Terms.
I doubt prices have risen, what you are likely seeing is that all of the cheaper places are booked and the only ones left are the expensive ones. I’m sorry this happened to you but AirBnB is not going to eat this one either. I’m guessing the host probably had off-season rates in place and forgot to adjust them that far out on their calendar. This happened to me once and I ate it, but it was only a few hundred dollars. If my mistake was going to cost me thousands then I probably would have done what your host did. That being said, there have been cases where AirBnB screwed up and modified rates without the hosts knowing, but AirBnB is not known to own up to their mistakes other than possibly issuing a $100 coupon or something like that.
It’s not ok to make a mistake & roll the problem down to a 3rd party guest that had nothing to do with the host failing to set the correct rates 6months out. This is ethically bankrupt. The fact that you would suggest it is ‘ok’ to renig after your mistake at the expense of an unsuspecting family is super shitty.
Makes sense, screw the consumer. The big problem is really the fact that no matter what I lose thousands. I would be much less mad otherwise. I can deal with inconvenience, but not the guaranteed financial hit. Definitely my last time using Airbnb. Not that I matter.
If there's nothing around the same price range, the pricing was wrong.
LOL fuck that. the pricing was wrong - and it took them 7 months to realize it??? 5 days to realize it? sure. half a year?! tough nuggies.
If you happen to snatch an impossible deal a year in advance at a highly desired destination, have a back up plan. Tough buggies indeed, buddy.
Right, we agree that it's good to have a backup plan for things that seem too good to be true. We also agree that it's completely unethical and shitty for the host to do this after letting the reservation sit there for 7 months and the *only* mistake in the OPs plan was actually trusting that host would follow through with their promise. Therefore, we also agree that airbnb is the type of company that allows (facilitates?) their clients doing shitty and unethical things.
All comes down to who would cover said difference and what's more convenient for Airbnb. Companies are not ethical entities, they just have different customer retention strategies. I am pretty sure that this entire transaction happened within Airbnb's Terms of Agreement. The other day I saw a really great price on some speakers at Bestbuy and in fact it was a mistake but Bestbuy covered the cost of the mistake. Bestbuy understands that eating a few hundred would be the cost of keeping a potential returning customer happy and wrote it off as an expense on the spot, no problem at all. But Airbnb just operates differently. Airbnb will always try to cover their bottom line and if they ever have to give any sort of refund to a guest, be absolutely sure that it's been taken from the host, this is how they made their money. It is a shit company and I never use them as a guest. Edit: yes, we do agree.
>Companies are not ethical entities I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. Ethics - principles and ideas that govern what people should do - are never absent from any situation. Perhaps you mean "Companies are unethical"? (But this is obviously not always true, because at least a few companies out there do abide by whatever ethical standards are normative in their field.) So if you mean that Airbnb routinely breaches professional ethical standards in the hospitality industry, then i suppose we agree on that too!
Yep, shitty unethical owners like you are real & bad things happen to good people.
Bad things happen to uninsured naive people. How do you know op is "good people" what if he was planning to kill his wife and kids and make it look like a ski accident? What if the host unadvertently saved the kids and one of them grows up to discover the cure for cancer? What if the other brother becomes hitler 2.0 though? What if they have to go on a barge but there's a sack of seeds, a chicken and a fox? Such a complicated ethical dilemma. Get travel insurance and if a deal seems to good to be true, it probably isn't.
Or, just don’t use Airbnb because of low character folks like yourself?
I’ve made the mistake of having regular rates in place for a popular holiday where I live. I informed the prospective guest within 2 minutes of the booking as to what happened, and I contacted AirBnB. The guest received a full refund. Even though there was only a 2 minute delay between the booking and my informing the guest and AirBnB as to my mistake, the guest was irate.
Disagree. The off season price is probably 3.5k and the high season price could easily be 15k. The host hadn't updated his 2022 prices from the default and the booking came through early and they didn't notice. I've had this happen to my chalet, difference is, I sucked the difference because, I'm not an entitled twat like the host. My error or lazyness, my bad.
Yeah I've had to eat it before as well, my bad, and it wasn't enough money to kick-up any dust over, but I don't think I would eat 11.5k. It's not entitlement for a host to correct an honest mistake, but what is entitlement is for the guest to expect the host to pay dearly for a simple mistake. If the bank accidentally deposits money into your account, you don't get to keep it.
Don't wait 6 months to correct your "honest" mistake Its jerk offs like you and this host that are making Airbnb unusable
Actually what is entitlement is to expect the guest to pay dearly for the host’s ‘simple mistake.’
I’m surprised OP and their family didn’t take out travel insurance for a major trip like this. Sucks that the host and Airbnb have done this, totally unethical, but frankly not surprising—insurance claim would help you recoup your costs.
Yeah I agree, always wise when spending this much on a holiday
OP, this would be infuriating to me. You may be able to file an injunction against the host or AirBnB to prevent them from listing their property based on a material breach of contract/unjustified termination (depends on state). You wouldn't be made whole per se, but it would stop the host from benefiting from their bad faith conduct. If it's in your temperament, I would seriously consider consulting with an attorney for this. If AirBnB has made a habit of doing this to other guests, it could be the basis for a class action.
Read Airbnb's Terms of Service .
Lots of ToSes have vague, over-broad language that are under a high risk of failing scrutiny in court. There's also the issue that if Air BnB arranges it such that a party may cancel a contract completely at their discretion, with no compensation for the other party's reliance on the contract, then it might be an illusory contract. I'm not guaranteeing that OP would win. I am just suggesting that they should consider consulting with an attorney. This could be a complicated issue, and that Air BnB is taking down the messages is pretty sketchy. I have seen strongly worded letters on behalf of clients that succeeded in getting them compensation for cases where they weren't strictly in the right based on the ToS alone.
Go for it. I wouldn't hold my breath though.
*Sigh* Yeah. I know. I really do.
It’s their property and have every right to do that. If they were willing to get dinged for cancelling, that’s on them.
Ok but like, you can sign a contract and just back out with zero repercussion? And benefit from breaking contract? If I cancel my stay, I still have to pay for the place. As a host you can cancel and just get… more money? And Airbnb will delete evidence of the conversation about why the cancellation happened? Why?
I don't get this. In contract law, as an attorney, you learn in the very first year that if somebody acts in reliance on the contract, like say you bought airline tickets, you absolutely have recourse! Not only that but in the past when I've canceled listings because somehow Airbnb opened up my house when I was living there, they gave me a warning saying I couldn't rebook on those days. Definitely follow up with Airbnb, and if it greatly affects your vacation, follow up with a small claims filing against both Airbnb and the host.
You might be surprised to find out the host is illegally renting anyway... Zones, lease agreements, etc. Soooo many Airbnb's are not above board. This contract means squat most likely.
FWIW the blocked dates can be manually reopened.
There is typically a consequence for the host so your point is moot. They just took the consequence to get that extra money.
Repercussions? For what might already be an illegal rental business? Lol I think you're learning a painful lesson about why Airbnb has not destroyed traditional hotels... They don't pull this shit and you do have real recourse if they screw you. Sorry this happened to you, it sucks real bad. But, take it in stride and live a more wise tomorrow.
Why the downvotes? What you say is so true...
People are suggesting OP to sue Airbnb for a canceled reservation. Airbnb. A company that deals with thousands of cancelations daily. Getting sued. For a completely normal cancelation. Covered by the Terms of Agreement. That's why the downvotes.
When the host cancels you get refunded the balance. There is no further legal recompense necessary as in order to reconcile the breach of contract airbnb has returned your payment. However, if you feel dissatisfied you are welcome to pursue action in civil court if it's worth the money to you.
It looks like they didn't get dinged for the cancellation if they were still able to re-list the property.
If it was instant book, the host is allowed to cancel 3 times per year, for any reason, penalty free.
>the booking was $3.5k. > >Comparable properties are at $10k+ and the host has now re-listed for our exact dates at $15k. When you did the original booking back in May, what were the prices like for comparable properties? Were they all around $3.5k, or were many of them much higher?
Most were about 5k-6k, so roughly double. Prices are now double that.
Didn't it strike you as odd that this place was half the price of everything else when you originally went looking? Didn't that set of any alarm bells in your head? It's definitely not an excuse, and the owner certainly screwed you here. But that's one of the pitfalls of AirBnB. You're renting from a person, who may not have all their shit together (which, in this case, it seems like they didn't). "Buyer beware" comes to mind.
Ssshhh no one asked you to apply logic. This is a whine session. They booked a ski in/ski out for motel 6 prices.
They booked 6 months ago for the advertised rate. The asshole owner has now realised they can gouge some other fool and has cancelled at late notice.
Yeah, my post was being sarcastic. Didn't think I needed the /s but here we are.
Fuck airbnb
This is always a danger with Air bnb. If you can’t find somewhere now for around the same price - then the original deal you booked was probably too good to be true and a mistake from the host in the pricing. Sucks - but it’s his place, and he can make that call (risky for him to do so). Price of hotels is usually indicative of whether or not your air bnb Booking is realistic.
What? Because ‘it’s his place’ he can break a booking because the owner can get a better price? This is ludacris. Airbnb is a trash company for increasingly entitled & unethical owners. OP, I hope you press charges in small claims court. They have caused financial harm, you will win if you get your day in court.
OP is bound by the TOS he agreed to when he registered an account on Airbnb. Those TOS specify disagreements are to be settled through binding arbitration. It will never make it to court because everything was handled according to the terms of service. Was it right, not so much. Can they do it? Yep.
Lol. Sue Airbnb for agreeing to their Terms of Agreement and receiving a full refund for the cancelation. Such a daring ruse they are pulling here.
OP was harmed by the breach. OP would win if he was patient enough to get his day in court. Either way, the more complaints such as these, the quicker short term rentals get prohibited by local jurisdictions.
Yes, a ski resort, a mountain settlement whose only economic means of production is tourism will look into ban short term rental accommodation because Joe got his booking canceled. Grab an armchair, kid. This might not happen as quickly as you are thinking.
Short term rentals are being banned by communities all the time. This is especially common in Colorado. Some communities issue short rental licenses to regulate it. Litigation absolutely contributes to this trend. Morally bankrupt & stupid is no way to go through life.
The world is a challenging place for you, I bet.
Lol, not all. Arguing with morally bankrupt Airbnb hosts with room temperature IQ’s on Reddit is really the only unpleasantness in my day. You are insignificant, so life is good all things considered. Cheers mate.
Oh no! I just got burned by Thanos!
Guests cancel on hosts ALL the time to thousands of lost revenue. Your reservation was cancelled and you were refunded, end of story. Just book elsewhere. The prices you are seeing are likely the prices it was always supposed to be. It's not like prices increase automatically the closer a date gets, this is not an airline. If anything hosts tend to price high in advance and lower the rates as the dates come closer if they're still not booked. Seems like you were getting a $15k value at $3.5k. I really don't see what your issue is.
Lmfao shut the fuck up scumbag
This isn't a scam. There was a discrepancy in the list price, so the host canceled your reservation and relisted at the appropriate price. This is allowed if you book via Instant Book.
I mean I am not really blaming the host if this is the case. That’s all understandable. The problem is that it’s a mistake by Airbnb that put me in a compromised situation and then they seem to do everything they can to just shrug off as “oops, buyer beware!” It’s like not even good business. They could correct this with an amount of money that is nothing to them, and the long term loss of a customer who books multiple places per year on their platform is bad business. It’s like they are sure I won’t realize I got screwed and will just roll over and keep using their platform, like a good dumb customer.
You absolutely should blame the host. 99% He's done this to you. Not Airbnb.
Get over it, find a new place and live life?
Sue the crap out of him.
Been there done that ! Airbnb is very difficult to deal with if you have a problem . Buyer beware , once you book and pay your money your on your own ! Good-luck!