Fist time in my Airbnb experience I would say I had a negative experience. Not that bad though. The negative part of experience comes from the fact it's very hard for me to have a calm conversation with the host on an issue on my booking.
I didn't check in at the host's place as I have never ever needed her place at the booked dates. There was some issue, which is why I clicked the book button for the even if I knew I wouldn't need it, on the booking.
The story (I would say a quite interesting one): At 9th [2 a.m.] I was stuck in Peng Chau island, Hong Kong. I desperately needed a place to sleep at that night - and that night only, no more needed as I could take the ferry to go back to home on the next day. Locals were telling me there was no hotel. I tried Airbnb on my Airbnb APP on my phone. I saw the host's place available and tried to book. I selected the check-in date (8th) and check-out date (10th, as the minimum stay for the place is two days; I was fine with this) and clicked book. It prompted me an error message. I tried several times, didn't work. I was not able to finish the booking and had no idea what was wrong. I concluded that the place was available but there was some unknown-to-me issue preventing me booking the place. I tried everything I could to check out if the host was by any chance still awake thinking that, if she was, we could talk on if I could check in that night. Nothing worked out. I then thought maybe I can try booking the nights of 9th and 10th (they are one day later than my intentioned ones, and thus I never needed those two places for those dates as I would be gone anyway on 9th), which might somehow grab the host's notice and, once she's notice me, we could then talked and rearranged the dates back to 8th and 9th. I did this. And - I am not a kid - before I did this, I checked out the host's booking settings and refunding policy. "Booking means money transferred (Called an instant book? the type that a reply and confirmation from the host is not needed). No refunding within 7 days. Hum, very strict." I had around twenty Airbnb experience before this. None of them left me a negative experience and all the hosts seemed to be willing and nice when communicate. With all these positive memory in my mind, I thought "I guess if the host knew my story and knew the booking was not intended for real staying but for trying to grab her attention, very likely she would like to talk". I knew I would be running risk of losing almost 100 US dollars.
And, I guess, you, the readers, already guessed out the ending of the story. Yes, unfortunately, I ran into the less likely case.
The host didn't wake up. I found her apartment (I booked so I got the exact address). I didn't make a noise because I didn't want to wake the host up if she was already sleeping. Finally I gave up, and spent my night at one of the local café. The next early morning (around 5 or 6) I left a message to the host explaining everything including the fact that I clicked the book button for 9th and 10th and that was never meant for staying, but simply for one of an effort I made to get contact with her.
Around 9 or 10 I received message from the host, who didn't seem to be willing to talk, but expressing "My calendar of 9th and 10th were occupied by you. According to my policy, if you refund, I will not refund any money back to you."
I was expecting a message like "OK. I understand the situation. Maybe I will refund you part of the money but not all since your action have blocked my calendar for 8 hours, as I might got a guest otherwise" I would, in that case, say thank you, why not.
Later, I talked to Airbnb to figure out what's going on. It turned out that, [in theory] they don't allow guests to book a place if 12 p.m. has passed and the APP should not display any place as available for that night after that time. Then I realized very likely my time on my phone that night was not the true time, it might be several hours before, which makes the Airbnb thinks I was searching for house at a time before 12 p.m.