The premises were OK but the experience was terrible. From the beginning, the host was not understanding and impatient of our inquiries prior to our arrival. He did not seem to care that we were traveling from abroad to a foreign country at great expense and we wanted to ensure everything was OK for our arrival.
After one week, we had to cancel the remainder of our stay due to unexpected issues. We called him at approximately 4 p.m. local time to ask him about a possible refund and he said there was no refund. He asked us what time we would leave the next day and we told him 8:30 a.m. in order to make our flight out of Catania. He said he would be there in the morning to check us out/take the keys.
A couple hours later, my wife thought about looking in Airbnb for the cancellation policy and learned that we in fact would get a refund if we canceled before the 25th (we called to cancel on the 19th). My wife then made the cancellation official and received a message from Airbnb of the amount that would be refunded.
Within a couple hours we received a call from Airbnb that the host wanted us out of the house or that he would call the police. We argued with Airbnb that we could stay the night according to cancellation policy since we cancelled after 12 p.m. local time and that the night was paid for. The Airbnb rep said no and that we had to leave immediately and that he could call the police.
The host was continuously asking what time we were leaving, we told him we would leave in an hour and a half. Mind you, it was already 9:30 p.m. and we were under a lot of stress and anguish. The host finally showed some “compassion” and sent a message stating we could stay the night free of charge when in fact the night was paid for according to the cancellation policy.
We have rented several vacation rentals before in Europe and United Sates and this is our worst experience with a host.
Francisco and Norma