I requested Alex's place very late at night. I had decided last minute to stay in Chicago and needed a place to stay. The booking got confirmed immediately. However, about an hour or so later when I opened airbnb to find the exact address I had received an address from the host. Alex had said that airbnb had overbooked their place, and that I needed to contact customer support to get a refund. I contacted customer support and they responded that the host had to cancel the reservation, but Alex repeated what he had said earlier. I am still trying to get my money back from airbnb. The biggest inconvenience was that I was left stranded with nowhere to go in the middle of the night.
It was a very unpleasant experience.