I had the worst experience with June as a host. If I had the choice again, I would have spent a little more and booked a different apartment.
My friend (who also paid for the booking) and who’s birthday it was caught Covid and we had to cancel our celebrations in London. It was about a week before the booking so I asked June if we could rearrange for May (I live in NY and that is the next time that I’m in the UK). Seen as it is a valid and unforeseen reason and the new date was months in advanced I was surprised that June was not at all accommodating. She ignored my emails and expected us to still use the apartment. Due to covid regulations and having to isolate this is legally and ethically wrong. I requested a partial refund which she again said no to and basically stated that if we cancel we will lose all of our money and she’s not going to do anything about it.
I didn’t want to lose £180 just because a host obviously does not care about its customers in a pandemic, so I gave the booking to another friend to use. June also out of nowhere requested £200 deposit and then again ignored my messages when I asked about it. She then did not send the check in details so I had to contact air bnb just to get her to respond to my message which she finally did in the end.
My friend said the apartment was very basic and extremely noisy (“like sleeping in a nightclub”) and was not at all worth all the hassle that The host caused.
I’ve always had great air bnb experiences and I’m aware hosts do not need to accommodate customers with a covid cancellation policy, but just with the world that we’re in at the moment, an ounce of decency from the host when we had uncontrollable circumstances was all we asked for.
My suggestion to the host is to be nicer to your guests especially in a pandemic.