I was super excited to stay in Boston with my best friend who had never been before. We sought out this Airbnb and were ready to go! Less than 4 hours before our flight, we received emails that the FAA ordered a ground stop on all flights to Boston and JetBlue canceled our flight. I immediately messaged the host and they said to let them know what our plan was— if we could reschedule our flight and to keep them posted on what we chose to do. We exhausted all attempts to try to keep our trip as scheduled but ultimately, JetBlue had zero flights to Boston from any of the 4 local to me airports, and nothing available for 3 days. So we took a full refund for the flight. Forcing us to cancel the whole trip. I reached out again to the Airbnb host to update them and asked if we could get a refund seeing how we were still over 15+ hours out from Checkin time and they said
“Sounds good. Please keep us posted, Caitlin.
We will process refund if someone new books less 15% change fee, the amount of the refund will be dependent on the new reservation or whichever is lower. Also, if you wish to cancel, please reach out to Airbnb”
So I canceled our Airbnb as they suggested to do, so they could rebook with plenty of time to do so and we could get a refund. After doing so, they immediately flipped the script and said a refund wasn’t available and they wouldn’t even entertain it bc of Airbnb policies. They didn’t repost their listing and make it available for others to book and instead pocketed all of my money minus the cleaning fee. This is so messed up. As a consumer and trusted Airbnb regular.. I feel like they lack integrity and honest business to customer relationship skills. If someone is paying you for a service and had to cancel for something completely out of their control, you should refund them the money they paid you a.) Because you said you would. And b.) Because it’s the right thing to do.
Now they won’t even respond to me or Airbnb support team members. And Airbnb said there’s nothing I can do about it. So I’m out $670 minus the cleaning fee of $50. They took advantage of me and they’ll take advantage of you too. Do not stay here.