To start off, the room was great. It looked exactly like the photos and was spacious and comfortable. Aside from a few hairs on the toilet, everything was clean. I would definitely stay at the Signature again, but never with this host, which brings me to the reason why I’m giving Alex a 1-star review:
I booked the room on Wednesday, April 27th for the following weekend, May 6-9. Immediately after booking, I realized I’d accidentally booked an extra day (the 9th), so I sent an alteration request to the host. It was denied within a few minutes. I wrote to Alex to explain the situation and ask why my request was denied, and I was told that it was because of their “strict cancellation policy”. Alex offered to adjust the dates to May 6-8th for me, but told me I would not receive a refund for the day I accidentally booked. I knew it was my fault for not paying attention to the dates I was booking, so I initially decided that I wouldn’t press any further. That was until I realized that their policy on Airbnb stated that I had until April 29th to receive a partial refund on the room. I asked the host why they thought the policy didn’t apply to me and was told that their policy states that I can’t get any sort of refund for cancelling/altering my reservation less than 14 days before check-in. I wasn’t able to find that information on their listing, so I asked them to send it to me. When they did, I was shocked. The policy very clearly stated that cancelling more than 14 days before check in would allow me to get a full refund and cancelling more than 7 days before would allow me a partial refund. I asked for the extra day to be taken off a total of 9 days before check in. According to what was ACTUALLY written in their own policy, I was entitled to a 50% refund for the night. When I pointed that out to the host, they ignored me for several hours. I asked them to help me resolve the issue before the refund policy expired because I genuinely did not want to cancel my whole stay, and they deliberately ignored that message until after the cutoff time and told me to take up my issue with Airbnb Support. Airbnb , of course, was no help at all despite the fact that the representatives I talked to agreed that my original request was not in violation of the host’s policy. The host has to agree to refund you, and Alex straight up ignored Airbnb support’s efforts to contact him on my behalf. This entire ordeal was drug out over the course of 7 days because of that. 7 days of being completely frustrated and treated as if I was trying to cheat the host or demand things I wasn’t entitled to, when it was clear that the host was in the wrong. And he was confident in his behavior because he knew Airbnb would let him get away with it. After 7 days of arguing back and forth with support, I was finally given a partial refund for the one night through credit - $82. All of that, over $82.
Once again, I definitely recommend The Signature. I would say to book directly with them, but their website listing tends to run about $300 higher than Airbnb, so I completely understand why many people will use this platform to book. Just be aware that Airbnb won’t side with you in any issue regarding money/refunds and will allow hosts to do anything they want, with basically no oversight. Staying with an honest host will save you a lot of stress.