On our first day of the trip and as first-timers to Melbourne, the check-in process was a traumatic experience for my family of 6 and the poor communication between the host company and us made our check-in process worse.
The room keys were easily accessible outside the property, however, as we were driving and had a car with luggages to unload, keys to the parking garage were not provided and we were then left scrambling trying to find ways to enter. Then came many attempts to access the property with the given set of keys but the door lock was faulty and we were ultimately left stranded.
Communication was the other large issue. They were unresponsive via Airbnb messaging despite our urgent issue and we had to do recurring international calls which racked up over S$200 in phone bills. It did not help that there was no one in person to rectify our situation and there were different people attending to our situation at different times via messages and calls.
One of many suggestions given was to book an alternative hotel at the same cost of the Airbnb for the night for the 6 of us before they send someone from their team the next day and then reimburse us for that night. To us, it was ridiculous because it would have been hard to find a reasonably priced hotel to accommodate the 6 of us last minute and it would have cause us to shelve our plans for the next day just so we could be around to access the property.
We only managed to check-in our Airbnb after 3.5 hours in the freezing night after suggesting that they find us a third-party locksmith.
Will not book any Airbnbs hosted by this company again, despite it being a great property with its location, design and facilities.