Kens apartment seemed like the perfect place for our Quebec vacation, unfortunately he delayed our check in incrementally and then stopped responding altogether. He was also wonderfully sweet and communicative until the day of when he became rude and condescending. After a long drive to a different country and a new city, all we wanted was to check into our own digs and since we were 4+ hours past our check in time with no response from the host we had to find other accommodations.
The day of our reservation at 1:30 pm Ken asked if we could check in later (original check in time was 4pm) because of a problem with the dishwasher. First he said 7, then between 7 and 8, then when he said 8:30 we told him we don’t need a dishwasher for our stay and we’d like to check in by 8 he stopped responding and didn’t get back to us until the next morning at 8am.
Throughout this, he kept saying that “some things in life are beyond our control” and that we should cancel the reservation and find a “luckier” host. This is conniving behavior, as Airbnb help desk informed us that if an unforeseen circumstance arises a host should cancel and issue a refund with a coupon. If we had cancelled the reservation we would have not been refunded and Ken would have kept our money.
Honestly, I have had plenty of odd things come up with Airbnb but always had a generally lovely experience. This tops them all- a host who left two friends and I hanging in a foreign country and to top it off tried to finagle a bit of extra money for himself out of the deal.
If you’ve made it this far in this review I will also point out that he has messaged people who have had a bad experience and told them they could “work something out” to leave a five star review.
It was a terrible experience to be left hanging on our first night of vacation but I promise you there are other really great and reliable hosts out there! Big thank you to airbnb for helping us seamlessly get a refund.