My booking was accepted erroneously. There was no room available.
It is understandable that that there was a mistake in accepting my booking. But it is not forgivable for host not to know how to cancel on your end. She kept asking me to cancel which would have charge me a penalty.
It is very unfair to charges my credit card immediately, and give me the illusion that I successfully booked a place, only for me to have to spend hours taking care of situation by making long distance calls to Airbnb in USA because she did not know how to cancel on her end.
After multi text back and forth, I still don’t think she understood that it is her job to cancel not mine because I would have been charged a penalty based on her policies. I had to do the extra job of communicating with Airbnb for them to help HER cancel.
The situation was exacerbated by the fact that I was with my 90 year old father and two small children standing on a busy Hong Kong street (with on and off rain) with nowhere to go. The delay refund also took away my needed available credit during travel.
Again mistakes are understandable, but host has to offer the “instant booking” terms responsibly, and learn how to cancel the booking on her end when the situation requires it!!