Terrible experience!!!
Lola's company claims that we broke the door lock and asks for a 200 pounds amount (for the locksmith that came after 7 hours, for 5 minutes and REPAIRED the lock)
We are not responsible for a maintenance cost. It is not that we stained the couch with coffee, or ruined the flooring with our luggage, or damaged the wall, etc. My daughter is a superhost for an apartment in Athens, Greece and we never charge such issues to the guest. What if the washing machine broke down during our stay?? Would we be charged to purchase a new washing machine?
The first morning of our stay, we get a message by Lola's colleagues asking if everything was ok and how we found the cleaning of the apartment.
We answer and mention the small problem with the lock that we immediately had noticed last night. We get an answer that this message is only for the cleaning and therefore we leave the house and go on to follow our very tight schedule of my daughters graduation. The next day we went sightseeing in the city in shorts as it was very hot, returning to the apartment at around 6, to get ready for a formal dinner celebration we were hosting for friends and relatives. Trying to get in to the apartment, the key would turn and turn and the door would not open. Immediately we call the 24/7 helpline the company had advertised they have. To cut a very long and stressfull story short, for 7 hours we kept on calling them and getting a different employee on the line every time. We had to re-tell our issue every time, although we were told they would immediately deal with the situation and call us back, they never did. At some point, running late for our dinner, we took an Uber and arrived in the fancy restaurant (in shorts!) so as not to leave our guests alone. We left the key in our keysafe, in case the company would resolve the lock issue while we were out. While being in the dinner celebration, we had to call and call, receiving incompetent and rude replies from various persons. One of them actually hung up on us saying that we will have to spend the night in the street!!! In the end, they stopped picking the phone up. We tried calling from a different number and immediately someone answered... At some point I realized that I would need documentation for all this, and started communicating through the Airbnb platform. At last, they said that the locksmith would come at 12. We rushed to the apartment, abruptly ending our celebration. Of course the locksmith didn't arrive. After many calls and threats (I was polite up to then), they agreed to give us the locksmiths number and found out he had scheduled us for 1.30 am. We waited for another 2 hours in the street at this late hour.
I have to mention that at some point in the afternoon (as they were so incompetent and I feared we would be late for our dinner) I asked them if I could call a locksmith myself (there was one at 3 min distance, open until 8) but they said that in this case I would pay the locksmith by myself and not by Lola. So I waited for them to deal with the situation and now they ask for me to pay.
AVOID staying at apartments run by companies. Private Hosts have a different approach and this was Airbnb's philosophy in the beginning and should be again. Apart from that, the apartment was pleasant. No personal touch whatsoever. It had some decoration issues, the cheapest IKEA noisy beds, and dirty windows that obstructed the beautiful views. A very stained with mascara pillow case, that had been cleaned but used again. Pity