BAITED AND SWITCHED.
My wife and a couple of friends were so excited to spend the weekend in New Orleans. We were ready to explore a new city, to eat delicious food, to learn about the rich culture.
The listing we booked for was on Saint Charles Ave. We chose it for its location. Our friends were close by in a hotel and it would be a 5 minute walk to meet them up. It also would be very convenient since it is centrally located to the things we had planned to do. How sweet was that? It was going to be perfect for us.
Little did we know, it was not. When we arrived in the evening, we were unable to get into the building. After calling the management company, we found out that they had relocated us to another location further away on Canal St. without telling us. The rep said, “Oh, no one called you to let you know?” Uhhhh, noooo, that is why we were standing outside with all of our stuff, freezing our butts off, trying to figure out how to get inside. All this was happening while they were closing the streets for the parades.
We went through the Airbnb messages, hoping to find the message telling us that for whatever reason, they needed to relocate us, but could not find it. So there we were, stuck because we did not have any other choice but to go to the new location. It was President’s Day weekend and it just happened to also be Mardi Gras season. There was no way we were going to be able to find another place to stay near our friends without it being ridiculously expensive since it was already since it would be last minute. They baited and switched us so bad. Upon checking our trip on Airbnb, it still said we were supposed to be at the Saint Charles location. It was never changed to the new location. We believe Sonder intentionally did not tell us they “were doing work” on the Saint Charles building and once we got to New Orleans, we didn’t have a choice but to agree to stay at Canal St. How do you not know you are making repairs or do not have rooms available? We booked the room months in advance. Sonder was not willing to give any partial refund even though this was their fault.
Now we have to get another ride to Canal St. Another expense. Like I mentioned earlier, they closed down certain streets for the parades so there was a lot of traffic and took us so long to get a Lyft to take us to the other location.
We still tried to make the best of our time in New Orleans. We were leaving Monday and decided to see if we could get late check out. After all that BS, we would think they would approve, but our request was denied. Sonder really does not care, they are just after your money.
Save your money and go somewhere else. You don’t need to deal with this kind of unnecessary stress during your trip. If I could give them a zero, I would.