We loved Lisbon and the apartment we stayed in is quite comfy and well decorated, with easy access to the subway.
But prior to that our booking experience didn't go as smoothly as we'd like to.
Because they also advertise their apartments outside of AirBnB, they faced a synchronicity problem: we booked it and got the confirmation (and our credit card was charged) but they said someone also booked at the same time, via Booking.com. They offered their other apartment for us, but we didn't want it as it was almost 10km further than where we wanted to stay (close the Web Summit venue - the whole reason we were in Lisbon) and also because it was more expensive.
Then they told us to cancel the reservation. But as per AirBnB's policy, that would cost us (the refund wouldn't be 100%) and they refused to cancel from their end as well. After many days of conversation, they managed to convince the other guests to stay in the other apartment instead of us. Then everything was good again.
This was in January and our stay was in November.
Then, one week before our trip they told us they had to swap us again because the other guest had mobility problems and they said they hoped we wouldn't mind. We all got stressed out (both ends) and after talking in through we reached an agreement: my wife and I went the other apartment and they made it the same price for us.
They were very nice in making up for us and they picked us up in the airport, showed us the city a little bit and finally got us into the apartment.
Unfortunately we would still have preferred to stay in the original one because the city was very full (53k people in this event) and because of this we had to grab very full trains, being elbowed by people, some days we even had to wait 3 trains before being able to get inside one. In the other apartment it would have taken us 10 minutes walk to event venue, but in this one it took almost 40 minutes every day, every trip, standing all the way; which made our stay much less pleasant.
I'm sure that this is not how they operate normally and they were indeed nice to us after all the confusion was sorted out, but I would leave a feedback for them to better handle the different sites they advertise their apartments and to honor the original agreement. And if some guest hurt his leg or something, the other guest from other apartments should not have to pay the price. It's unfortunate, of course, but the other guests should then themselves find a more suitable option for their current situation.
Finally, two simple improvement for the apartment we stayed:
- Wifi doesn't work in all rooms in the house.
- Hair Dryer is really bad it looked and worked like a children's toy.