Our experience in dealing with Sandra has been a total disaster.
We were planning to stay at her place for 5 nights, but then COVID happened again in Melbourne. I reached out to her and she suggested that I should cancel the booking, and apply for a refund of the remaining amount.
I lodged a cancellation request. However, this was ignored for 4 days by her, which then automatically declines the request. Because we were nearing the check-in date, her cancellation policy did not allow for any refund at that stage.
I tried to contact her for a period of a week through email and phone calls, without any success. We thought that we were dealing with a 'Super Host', but we were dead wrong! I had to escalate this to the AirBNB support team, who then finally got in contact with her (after the check-in date had passed).
However, the Airbnb support team was not able to convince her to provide any refund for me. She has never replied to any of my messages, so in the end, I am the biggest loser.
I have spent hours trying to come to a solution but without a result. She now pockets the $831.81, for not providing any service to me at all.
The only thing I can do is make others aware of her opportunistic behaviour and that she does not show any compassion with her clients... So think twice about booking with her, especially in the current times where lockdowns can happen very fast. You'll not see your money back.
I really hope you don't make the same mistake as we did.