We had the absolute worst AirBnB experience at Sonder Austin. The one redeeming aspect was that the location was fabulous and walkable to many shops & restaurants. The unit itself was not as advertised, was poorly constructed, and had an active dirty leak from the ceiling for the first two days of our trip.
Upon arriving at the unit, we noticed two things:
1. The unit, which was listed as a two-king bed unit, only had one king-sized bed.
2. There was an active flowing leak from the hall bathroom ceiling, which continually splashed dirty water all over the tub.
I immediately contacted Sonder about both issues and was met with indifference, empty promises, and (not kidding here) gaslighting & lies from the customer service staff about both issues. I spent the first 30 hours of our trip consistently in contact with the Sonder team, asking when I could expect the leak to be fixed, and asking why we were placed in a unit that did not have the king beds that we paid for. The Sonder team tried to convince me that “the ceiling leaking into the tub is normal for Austin”, and “the second king bed is actually the pull-out sofa” (which was a double bed, outside of the obvious fact that a king bed listed does not mean a pull-out sofa anyway).
We were never given any expected time period to expect a maintenance person to inspect our unit, so I had to just keep checking back in with the team repeatedly. Even after someone finally showed up to fix the leak at the end of our second day (with no notice), the dirty water was never addressed from the leak, and we were simply never given an answer about the misrepresentation in the listing re: the beds.
I will never stay in a Sonder unit again in my life. The fact that this multi-million dollar corporation chose to gaslight and lie to its customers instead of just addressing two simple issues immediately is mind blowing. We paid a lot of money for the unit, and could’ve gotten better service in a motel.
Having a third party company manage a BnB dissolves the purpose of the app and makes solving issues cumbersome, instead of the advertised assurance of “better service, better experience”. As a superhost in our own city, we recommend finding an actual owner-host or just use a hotel.