This review, is for a place by Tim that is on Park Street. While I never visited inside the place, I did go to the outside of the place and what I can say is that it's on San Diego's skid row line where there is a bunch of homeless people. There's also a trolley that goes up the street and I don't know if it adds to noise in the building.
Mainly this review will be about Tim. I requested to have an early check-in with Tim. I had this conversation with him once I made the reservation.
He emailed me and said, email me closer to the day and I'll see what we can do. Which I did, when I did that email he sent me a canned response, that had generic details including asking me to check in at 4:00 p.m.
When I get to the hotel and I see this email that doesn't even say "sorry" or explain why it needs to be 4:00 p.m.
WELL the email was extremely distressing.. especially after I explicitly said I need to check in at 2:00 because I need to get to a wedding at 3.
I was even more upset when I saw Airbnb's policy that protects poor hosts like Tim. The Airbnb policy did not allow me to recoup my loss of money for this Airbnb host who sent me a canned response and never followed through on my request.
I'm also concerned because Tim said email him closer yet with this no refund policy if I email him closer to the date and he doesn't follow-through, well Tim is protected by policy. The guest is screwed because there's no way to recoup that money. Now, I don't know if Tim did that on purpose or he just wasn't thinking things through but either way I'm out $800 and I had to find a new hotel room because Tim didn't follow through so that's why my review for Tim is so poor.
And even during the week Tim didn't even notice that I wasn't staying at his place because in the middle of the week, he sent me email asking I'm okay with my stay. This leaves me to believe he's an absentee host - meaning he only sits back to earn money and doesn't have a connection to his "properties."
Lastly I want to complain about Airbnb's policy on this. shame on you for not having a policy for guests to recoup money with a host that is 'absentee'.
There was no way to recoup my money and the arbitration team was a freaking joke and I say they're a joke because 1) English is not the first language - that means they don't have enough understanding of the cultural context of North America so I'm frustrated because I've had a poor experience but now 2) I have to have another poor experience of slowing down my English and slowing down so these people who don't understand English or my culture can understand me. All they can do is talk at me with their 'scripts' which is far from helpful.
Overall ..a poor experience. For me, I'm in the middle of traveling and getting to a wedding and now I have to deal with Airbnb plus my host! Yikes, poor ratings all around for Airbnb and Tim on this experience.
I have used Airbnb for some great trips, this is the first time where the company and the host are getting a thumbs down.