We stayed in two apartments during our stay with Casa Boma. We are a family of four and were moving to Lisbon and needed a longer term accommodation that would be comfortable for us for the weeks it would take us to find a more permanent home. Before we made the reservation, we let Casa Boma know the situation and that while we would book a two month stay on AirBnB we needed to be able to shorten our stay if we found a better long term option. They agreed to be flexible and said “ this would be fine”.
Our first apartment (Lapa II) was in an old building with a very dirty and poorly lit stairwell. The apartment itself felt like it was "made for AirBnB"– it photographed much nicer than it was. It was really cramped for a family of four and not at all equipped for a longer stay. It had fake plastic plants and some IKEA bare necessities that might get you through a weekend but not a month with kids. Also we had asked for a desk to be added as we were WFH, but there was no desk when we arrived.
Within 24 hours of our arrival we let Casa Boma that this apartment was not going to work for us. They offered to move us to another apartment that was freeing up in a few day. It had some of the same downsides (plastic plants, sparse kitchen equipment and still no desk), but was larger and more comfortable. We didn't feel like the apartment quality matched the price, but we decided to roll with it and just enjoy the city. It did however motivate us to accelerate our search for a long term apartment as we knew we could find a much nicer place for the money.
So, we moved to the second Casa Boma apartment but notified them that we were planning to move to another place after the first month and would NOT be staying the second month. We agreed to a new check out date after the first month and everything seemed to be settled. But then when it came time to check out, we found that Casa Boma had charged us for the full two months of the original booking rather charging us appropriately for the period of our actual stay we had agreed to. They refused to refund us for the second month (yes we paid for a month stay AFTER we checked out!).
We have been Airbnb hosts (and guests) for over 10 years and understand that when the host and guest have an agreement it's at the discretion of the host to do what they agreed to when it comes to allowing cancelations and providing refunds.
In the end Casa Boma told us one thing and then "played dumb" and fell back on the "official policy" of long term stays despite having clearly agreed with us through messages and conversation to be flexible and allow us to shorten our stay with fair notice (which we gave).
So, for us the positives of the stay (good location, beautiful city, etc) were overshadowed by poor communication and deceptive policies. Despite being honest, direct and consistent in our communication with the host and being reasonable (we stayed for a full month AFTER we gave notice) we've wound up paying twice the price for half the stay. Casa Boma seems to be a host that would rather take the money than do what's right and what they agreed to.