Both my wife and I arrived at this location on April 26th evening for our honeymoon. That same night we noticed that the location (in the interior) had mosquitoes and gecko which was a nuisance. By night time, loud noises of these geckos with mosquito bites made it not possible for us to stay at this location going forward.
The next day both I and my wife decided we cannot stay here longer because of these nuisances. We left this location looking for a hotel room to stay for the rest of our honeymoon. We were only able to locate one that night.
The very next morning I called the owner of this location to explain our situation and the reasons why we could not stay at his location. He was very understanding of our concern and promised us a refund for the service we did not use i.e. he would only charge us for the one night's stay. He said he would get with his team to take care of this situation. This conversation happened on April 28th.
When we returned from our honeymoon, I noticed no refunds were issued. I contacted him through Airbnb for the refund on May 10. The owner's assistant declined the refund. She said the mosquitoes and geckos ‘sneaked’ into our rooms because we kept our windows and doors open. To this point, I assured her that we only arrived at this location post 6 pm and that we did not leave the windows and doors open for this to happen.
Then she stated that the request for the refund was sent in too late (May 10th). I stated that the request for the refund was made to Raphael (owner of this location) the very next day (April 28th) we left this location. She said she was not made aware of this situation and stated that since Raphael is out of the country it will be hard for her to reach out to him for confirmation. Therefore, she chose not to refund the service. I requested her to reach out to the owner once again so that there could be a favorable resolution based on what he had assured me on this issue. She declined the request stating that ‘it would exceed her capabilities’ to take that step.
For both me and my wife since we had to pick an alternate location to stay in Hawaii during our honeymoon the cost just doubled to an amount we could not simply afford. We were relieved when Raphael assured us the refund from his end. Consequently, we are distraught now with the step they have taken on this matter. We understand this location is not a place for us. But the way they dealt with us on providing us a refund for a service we did not use was not appropriate.